Longtime Bluegrass fans may remember Ron Pennington from his days in the late 80's earl'y 90's as the mandolinist with Paul Adkins & the Borderline Band and later with the Gary Ferguson Band and occassionally with the Lynn Morris Band. His compositions have been recorded by Paul Adkins, Gary Ferguson, Fred Travers, the Seldom Scene and mandolinist Butch Baldassari. In 1997, after moving back to his home state of Arkansas, he helped form the bluegrass band known as Lonesome Road and is still performing and recording with them to this day. Brentwood is a collection of 10 of Ron's original instrumental compositions and 2 old time tunes. Each of the tunes were inspired by places, events and people, as is the case with the tune "Verdell of Scott" which he wrote while thinking of his grandfather on a late night road trip after a gig. Like a lot of mandolin players from Ron's generation, he was greatly inspired and influenced by Bill Monroe, David Grisman, Roland White, Doyle Lawson, Herschel Sizemore and Sam Bush. While he has his own style of playing and writing, you can hear bits of his heroes popping up from time to time. In addition to playing mandolin on this recording Ron also adds lead guitar on "Flop Eared Mule", "Tulsa Chili Bop" and "Waltz for Mary". Other supporting musicians are the members of Lonesome Road, David Maravilla- guitar, Michelle "Shelly" Smith- bass and Robby Boone- Banjo. Plus, Tim Crouch on fiddle, Jim Bunch- Banjo, Blake Pennington- Guitar, and Roby Pantall- Guitar. If you like acoustic instrumental music or are a fan of mandolin music you should check out this recording.
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