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"We really appreciated the fantastic music!! ...some of my coworkers said, 'This is the best band you have had so far!'"

Keith Walsh,
Manager, American Flatbread,
Burlington, VT

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CD Info

Big Spike's CD, "A New Day", was released in February, 2008. Click here to order it online through CD Baby. You can also get a copy at one of their appearances. You can hear samples and get lyrics below.

Click the button to see the lyrics. To hear a sound clip, click the button.

	A Perfect Time To Cry Pete wrote this one in 2004, too late to be included on our previous CD, but we knew right away that this would be on our next one. Pete: lead; Neil: baritone; Mike: tenor.
	Black Smoke And Blue Tears We love rockabilly and early country music and we see it as stylistically not very different from bluegrass. Songs from one genre fit easily into the other. The first time Neil heard this rare Clyde Arnold country composition from 1961 he said, "That's a perfect bluegrass song!" Mike: lead; Pete: baritone on chorus.
	Don't Slam The Door When You Go Sometimes a relationship breakup is heartwrenchingly sad. Sometimes it's... "good riddance to a bad idea". This song is about one of the latter. Bill: lead; Neil: baritone; Mike: tenor.
	Black Diamond Run Some of the best tunes arise accidentally. Neil found this tune one night while laying on the couch watching TV and practicing scales on the mandolin. A ski trail marked with a black diamond is considered exceptionally challenging and dangerous, and suitable only for expert skiers.
	It Takes One To Know One We learned this from the singing of "The King of Bluegrass", Jimmy Martin, but it's a much older song from the country field. Freddie Hart also wrote the Martin classic "Drink Up And Go Home". Mike: lead, tenor on chorus; Pete: lead on chorus; Neil: baritone
	Ethan Pound This song is a musical adaptation of a West Virginia ghost story, supposedly a true tale, that Neil came across one day while web surfing. It required very little to turn it into a bluegrass song in the tradition of "Bringing Mary Home" or "Brown Mountain Light". Neil: lead; Pete: baritone; Mike: tenor.
	Why, Baby, Why? All of us are big George Jones fans. This was Jones' first national country hit in 1955 for Starday Records and it started him down the road to country stardom. Neil and Freeman play twin fiddles (Neil plays lead and backup behind the verses, Freeman plays tenor and lead on the chorus). Pete: lead; Neil: baritone; Mike: tenor.
	Quill Pig From the fertile musical mind of Bill Gaston comes this catchy banjo tune. We usually quiz the audience before we play this tune to find out who knows what a quill pig is! That tells us who the natives of Vermont and New Hampshire are. We'll reveal the secret here: A quill pig is the old north country name for a porcupine.
	Emily's Bridge Vermont is full of folklore about strange happenings. This song is based on a nineteenth century tale of a young woman waiting to elope with her lover at the Gold Brook Bridge, an old covered bridge in Stowe, Vermont. He was delayed, she thought she had been jilted, and in despair she hanged herself from the rafters of the bridge where her ghost supposedly still waits. Pete: lead; Neil: baritone; Bill: tenor.
	I'll Love Nobody But You A classic Jim and Jesse tune that we recall everybody doing back in the 60's. As with many tunes that are overplayed, it fell out of favor for a long time but we still like it. We do it here as a trio all the way through. Neil and Freeman play twin fiddles, (Neil plays lead, Freeman tenor and lead on the vocal choruses). Bill: lead; Neil: baritone; Mike: tenor.
	Traveling Blues This kind of "don't fall in love with me, I'm a rambler" tune used to be a staple of Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmie Skinner and the country singers that followed them. Here's our take on it. Neil: lead; Pete: baritone; Mike: tenor.
	Yellow Barber Freeman brought this bouncy traditional fiddle tune to the band. It's one we hadn't heard before, but we fell in love with it immediately.
	My Heart Cries Out Pete can't even remember when he wrote this tune, it was so long ago, perhaps around 1975. As he says, "I couldn't even recall the words; it's a good thing Bill learned it back then!" Bill: lead; Pete: lead on chorus; Mike: tenor; Neil: baritone.
	Bridge To Gloryland This gospel tune may hold the record for the longest authorship time for a song from inception to completion. Neil wrote the chorus for this tune in 1977 but, despite numerous attempts over the years, couldn't find the right verses to fit it until 2006! Once he found them, the song immediately felt "natural". Neil: lead; Pete: baritone; Mike: tenor; Bill: bass.