Earth Opera

Earth Opera was a late-'60s Boston band featuring progressive bluegrass pioneers Peter Rowan and David Grisman. But Earth Opera's eponymous 1968 album hardly hinted at the stringband luminaries that Rowan and Grisman would become. In the humorously titled opening song “The Red Sox Are Winning,” the psychedelic swirl of The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle rubs against the grain of old-timey Dixieland approximations. The jaunty harpsichord and Rowan’s affected accent in “Dreamless” make for a song that sounds authentically British, while “Time and Again” plays like Van Morrison fronting The Velvet Underground. The watery vibraphone notes in "Close Your Eyes and Shut the Door” exude a mellow vibe, but it’s Grisman’s rapid trill on the mandolin and mandocello that sublimely hints at the rootsy folk path he'd later take. “When You Were Full of Wonder” is a poetic serenade shimmering over a backdrop of slightly trippy folk; it has more in common with The Fairport Convention’s heyday (when Sandy Denny and Ian Matthews shared singing duties). “Death by Fire” closes on a fanciful dirge.