Enquiries about a Larry Sparks album from any era is certain to be met with a response indicating that it is certainly of very good vintage.
Now Sparks has released on his own Sparks label an album entitled Vintage, a 10 song collection from a recording session in Chicago, Illinois, way back in 1981. Vintage by name and vintage by nature.
Sparks shared the story behind the album …
“The Acoustic label, [a] small independent label that just never got it together, released a small pressing and was never promoted properly. [As] the years went by it was laying around in Chicago.
One day a couple years ago [I] thought I would check it out. Found out it was going to be sold to the first buyer that would take it. So, me having my own label, I bought my own master, keeping it out of the wrong hands and going through another few years with nothing done with the recording. If it was released, I would probably never receive any royalty from it.
So I own it now. I wanted to make this CD available to my fans if they wanted it. This needed to be released. I felt it was a good performance and should be out on CD.
When I recorded this project we agreed to do just an album with older traditional songs. I didn’t want to put a lot of time in new material for this label not knowing how it would be promoted.
[Nevertheless], these were good songs I thought for the album, not really over recorded by anyone else.”
The track listing is as follows …
Your Love is like a Flower / I Don’t Care / These Blues They Got Me / Ramblin’ Letters / Revelation / I’ll Get Over You Someday / I Wonder How the Old Folks are at Home / Walkin’ the Dog / Cotton-Eyed Joe / Tragic Romance
In the studio with Sparks, who sang lead on all songs, played guitar and some mandolin, were Lonesome Ramblers Tom Boyd – Dobro; Wendell Bartley – tenor vocal; Scott Vestal – banjo and baritone vocal; and Ralph Joe Meadows – Fiddle. Buck Bellow, who Sparks describes as a “studio guy”, played some mandolin.
Adding the bass tracks recently was Larry D Sparks.
Vintage is available from www.larrysparks.com.
