Music lovers with an allergy to jam bands can be excused for assuming that they’ll have an adverse reaction to Yonder Mountain String Band’s latest, Mountain Tracks, Volume 2, a live recording cut in Colorado and Oregon. After all, the closing medley of two songs clocks in at a hefty 26-plus minutes. But while the disc includes some overt nods to the Dude, Where’s My Car? crowd (including a cover of John Hartford’s reggaefied “Two Hits and the Joint Turned Brown”), it also sports an air of bluegrass authenticity in its instrumentation, arrangements and unaffected vocals by Jeff Austin. On Volume 2, Yonder Mountain emerges as a jam band even jam-band haters can like.
This article appears in Dec 5-11, 2002.