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VARIOUS ARTISTS - DARK AS A DUNGEION (REB-7510), 2010

Musicians
Blue Highway
The Country Gentlemen
David Davis & The Warrior River Boys
Bill Harrell
Randall Hylton
Perfect Strangers
The Seldom Scene
James Alan Shelton
Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike
Larry Sparks
Ralph Stanley II
Steep Canyon Rangers
Keith Whitley & Ricky Skaggs
Wildwood Valley Boys

Production Credits
Produced by David Freeman
Mastered by David Glasser at Airshow Mastering, Boulder, CO


Songs relating to miners and mining have made a significant impact in country music over the years—the legendary singer and guitarist Merle Travis devoted a whole album to them at one point, apart from writing two of the most powerful mining songs ever: “Sixteen Tons” and “Dark As A Dungeon.” It is not coincidental that mining songs have been even more popular proportionately with bluegrass musicians and audiences, because so many of them were raised in or near the coal fields of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and southwestern Virginia.

Dark As A Dungeon: Songs of the Mines is a striking anthology of some of the most popular—as well as some of the most obscure—songs dealing with this subject. The songs deal with the destruction of the land (John Prine’s notable “Paradise,” sung to perfection by The Seldom Scene), the trials and tribulations of a miner’s life (“Black Dust Fever”), right on to the outright tragedy of lost lives (Valerie Smith’s powerful rendition of Becky Buller’s “In Those Mines” and Ralph Stanley II’s poignant “Daddy’s Dinner Bucket”).

Not everything was totally bleak in the mining regions, as Randall Hylton’s “Coal Town Saturday Night” reminds us, and David Davis’ wonderful “The River Ran Black” shows the mixed feelings of nostalgia and anger that many miners and their families dealt with. This collection is notable for the superb performances by some of the greatest artists in bluegrass, including The Country Gentlemen, The Seldom Scene, Keith Whitley & Ricky Skaggs, Blue Highway and Larry Sparks among them.