Customer Rating: 
Summary: Smiling, Singing Down a Backroad
Comment: This is a glorious fusion of country, rock, bluegrass, swing, jazz, and everything in between -- done by a bunch of master musicians, smiling and groovin' as they make themselves and everyone around them feel good.
It is a mystery why this record is little-known and unheralded -- Dickie's fluid, sophisticated guitar runs are sublime, the bass is rollicking and in the pocket, the piano superior -- and it is wrapped by fiddles, background singers, and -- occasionally -- good time rock 'n roll.
You cannot go wrong with this one, whether you are an ABB fan or not.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent early country rock
Comment: Stellar playing from veterans Vassar Clemens (fiddle) and John Hughey (steel guitar) make this country outing for Dickie Betts a keeper.
The 14 minute Hand Picked is worth the price of the cd alone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This was well thought out, you will like it.
Comment: This was well thought out, you will like it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great remaster of a classic blue-grass-country-rock fusion album
Comment: This is the album that bridged the boundaries between country, rock, blue-grass and jazz in the most perfectly realized way possible. In the final analysis, it's the special vibe of this album that sets it apart from other blue-grass/rock fusion albums. What Betts and gang seem to be wordlessly communicating as a subtext to all the music is a bond between different generations of musicians from the South that's created solely from their dedication to being free spirits no matter what different paths they might have taken to get there. This is not just a foot-stomping backwoods party album. There's a completely laid-back lack of rigidity, a beautiful melodicism and deep romanticism that could only come from Betts' leadership and the hippie legacy he brings from the Allman Brothers Band. There's philosophy and deep meditation behind this music that communicates very intensely even if it was only 'the spirit of the times' that was subconsciously affecting the proceedings.
The remastered album sounds fantastic. I played this one back to back with Greg Allman's classic "Laid Back" (remastered by the same people and released at the same time as the "Highway Call" remaster here) and the recording quality and production and the way the remastering brings it out on both just blew me away. I wonder if the musicians heard themselves sound so good on the studio playback monitors back then! If you want to be even more impressed, put some mikro-smooth polish from mapleshade audio products on the CD to eliminate laser jitter and you will be knocked out of your seat at how great the tones created by these master musicians 33 years ago sound today.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Table Setter
Comment: Highway Call is the album that set the table for generations of songwriters and players. Dickey took six songs and set them up with electric and acoustic instruments so the balance was a little on the country/bluegrass side. This album doesn't need a review. Dickey heard The Band and figured he knew what was up. Just listen to it and see how so many other albums found their sound. Within three years the balance swung a little back to rock, and then the whole country was into it. Every song on this album cooks. Vassar Clemmons comes into the light. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was listening. No one ever heard this album, but every one knows it.
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