Pickin' and Fiddlin' with Byron Berline

AMG Review of Pickin' and Fiddlin' with Byron Berline

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

The Dillards' third album was recorded at a time when they were getting ready to expand beyond the boundaries of luegrass into folk-rock and country-rock. It's a little peculiar, then, that Pickin' and Fiddlin' with Byron Berline gives no indication of the directions they were about to follow. Instead, it's raditional, wholly instrumental luegrass, with the fiddle of the young Byron Berline both taking prominence and giving the arrangements a different feel than other recordings the Dillards had made as a luegrass band. It's certainly well-played -- you'd expect nothing else from the Dillards -- but it also seems a little subdued and unimaginative by their own standards. Rodney Dillard has subsequently commented that the record was made to prove to the raditional folk/luegrass community that they could play this kind of music well. That they did, but it doesn't mark one of the group's more interesting studio efforts.