Raymond McLain - A Place Of My Own

1. On The Road

2. A Place Of My Own

3. Cotton Eyed Joe

4. Silver Creek

5. Windswept

6. Wild Fiddler's Rag

7. Bells of St. Marys

8. Raymond's Breakdown

9. Cannonball Blues

10. Kitten on the Keys

11. Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow

12. Shuckin' the Corn

13. Maiden's Prayer

In a musical sense, Raymond W. McLain has been building a place of his own for more than two decades.

Coming out of the musical hills of Eastern Kentucky, he began performing with his father, Raymond K., and sisters, Alice and Ruth, as the McLain Family Band. Raymond and every member of his family through the years developed a broad foundation of fans. With Mom running the business office, the McLain Family Band literally criss-crossed the world performing their unique version of traditional and contemporary American mountain music. For eleven years the McLains also ran a successful festival featuring family bands. However, as family members grew up and became more involved with families of their own, the McLain Family Band stopped touring in 1989. And so Raymond lost his first musical address.

Raymond's next musical address was as a part of one of the great traditional bluegrass bands, Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys. As a regular performer on the Grand Ole Opry and a musician on the go, Raymond has been moving steadily toward the place that is his own.

This album is that place. Here's a musical home that Raymond McLain can truly call his own. It's a place he experiments with different combinations of expressions, instruments and musicians until, to borrow a line from an old Shaker hymn, he reaches "the place just right".

Herein are several of Raymond's originals, some unusual covers (a banjo version of KITTEN ON THE KEYS is just a start), and some remarkable arrangements of bluegrass standards.

Helping Raymond turn this place into a real musical "home" where all are welcome, are members of his family, brother Michael and sister Ruth, as well as neighbors from his more recent musical address, Jim and Jesse as well as Virginia Boys fiddlers Glen Duncan and Blaine Sprouse, and Canadian harmonica whiz Mike Stevens.

Believe me, Raymond's place is one where all of us can sit down, put our feet up, kick back and absorb some of the finest acoustic instrument sounds anywhere.