front: Mike & Marcia Bryant
back: Greg Horne, David Lovett, Morgan Simmons

Mike and Marcia Bryant and Morgan Simmons are all members of the award-winning old-time band the New Dixie Entertainers. Mike has also taken individual honors at Clifftop. It is a pleasure to bookend the project with stripped down, hard-driving music the likes of which you may hear in Morgan’s home if you’re there on the right day.

(I showed up there once on the wrong day for music, but Morgan and his wife Ruth — who also plays old-time fiddle — delighted me with a tour of their place, Froggy Bottom Farm. They have several old log cabins, including a 280-year-old one that served as the backdrop for the CD cover photo.) Morgan is a fine journalist with the Knoxville News Sentinel.

The three tunes by this band on the CD — Five Miles From Town, Ain’t Got No Honeybabe, and Goin’ to Town — I learned from Mike at Froggy Bottom.