Dixie Dregs
They certainly aren't the dregs. And they aren't exactly Dixie either, though two members of the five-man group, guitarist Steve Morse and bassist Andy West, met in high school in Augusta, Ga. The band does show a bluegrass tint, especially in the fiddling of Allen Sloan, who apprenticed, in part, with the Miami Philharmonic. In its more disciplined moments, the quintet goes into fuguelike bursts that resemble what a 16th-century band of wandering minstrels might have sounded like if they had had Fender lutes and an electrical system to plug into. More often the Dregs play bluesy rock, working off Morse's compositions with dexterity and a sense of continuity. (There are no vocals.) Sloan, Morse and drummer Rod Morgenstein—whose solo on I'm Freaking Out is a marvel of melodic percussion—are especially praiseworthy on this, the five-year-old group's fifth LP.
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