North of the Rio Grande

AMG Review of North of the Rio Grande

Bruce Eder
All Music Guide

Thompson's second album employs the services of Merle Travis, who had hooked up with Thompson a few months earlier, and the lead guitar now has a wonderfully fluid quality, as graceful as it is swift. The album has more folk adaptations ("This Train"), a Bob Wills cover ("Big Beaver"), and some sentimental ballads ("The Little Rosewood Casket"), but the emphasis is mostly on romance, including slow pieces ("Gloria") and mid- and uptempo dance numbers ("Baby I Need Lovin'").