The Dillards - There Is a Time (1963-70) (CD)

All Music Guide

Twenty-nine tracks drawn from the Dillards' first five albums (originally on Elektra), which are otherwise unavailable. The CD is assembled not in chronological order, but with musical coherence as the main determining factor, so tracks from different albums get juxtaposed together. From Back Porch Bluegrass we get five songs, including "Banjo in the Hollow" and "Dooley" (another version of which they performed with Andy Griffith on his TV show), while Pickin' and Fiddlin' is represented by the bracing "Hamilton County Breakdown" and "Sally Johnson." Live Almost gets six tracks, including the group's version of Dylan's "Walkin' Down the Line." There are five numbers (including the title track and the Beatles' "Yesterday") off of their 1970 release, Copperfields, and the legendary Wheatstraw Suite, from two years earlier, has nine songs, among them the group's loving covers of the Beatles' "I've Just Seen a Face" and Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe."

- Bruce Eder, All Music Guide