Now, here we have a treat. I found this album at Amoeba Music... a spoof of the album cover of Pink Floyd's "The Wall", with hay bales instead of bricks, made me too curious to pass it up. The sticker on the CD said, if memory serves, "For 20 years, a great bluegrass album was trapped inside a great rock & roll album. We set it free."
This works FAR better than it should, and—despite some occasional hokey drawled vocals that tax my suspension of disbelief—is a 100% enjoyable, if wholly improbable, reimagining of "The Wall" from start to finish, which absolutely succeeds as an extremely listenable bluegrass album.
Next time Luther Wright and The Wrongs toured, I was lucky to see them play at a very small club near me. I introduced myself to Luther after the show and he proved to be one of the most personable guys I've ever met. We talked for quite a while. I was effusive in praising "Rebuild The Wall", and he told me, "Well, my parents are bluegrass fans, they don't like rock at all. I decided at the beginning I wouldn't release the album until they liked it. Besides, Dan wouldn't let it be released unless it was perfect." His guitarst Dan Curtis, an absolutely commanding player, was one of those savants, one of those ultra-geeky people who seem to speak music at least as fluently as they speak English. In addition to songs from "Rebuild The Wall", they had played one very cool song I didn't immediately recognize during the show, but it was so familiar it drove me crazy—I definitely knew it, but just couldn't place what it was a bluegrass cover of. I asked them, "What the hell was that? I know that I know it. It's driving me crazy" and they seemed pleased to have flummoxed me. "It was the Cantina Song from Star Wars". Bam! Wow! It was a really, really great cover, an inspired choice, a very hot jam, and as improbably well done as everything else I've heard from them. "Dan is a huge Star Wars fan", Luther told me. "He has every Star Wars figure." I really liked those guys. And, against all expectations, love this album.
My ex-friend Rick used to run a small underground FTP server for our circle of diehard music fans to turn each other on to things*, and one night I uploaded this. The next day, the login welcome notice on the server said, "To whoever uploaded 'Rebuild The Wall', THANK YOU."
*Sorry, Luther and Dan. I do not support piracy. If you like it, buy it. It was decades ago. Nothing I say on this site is true. For entertainment purposes only.
