Skip to content
What’s up Sorry State readers? I hope everyone is having a nice week. If you live anywhere along the east coast, I’m sure you’ve been dealing with all this rain the last couple weeks, especially this past week with big Debby rolling through. I had the pleasure of waking up the other day and walking into my kitchen to be greeted by a water bubble forming on my wall due to a leak in my gutter. While it’s annoying to deal with, I know a lot of people had to deal with a lot worse with this storm than I did, so if that applies to you, you have my sympathy. This leads me to the record I’d like to talk about today: Whiskey Before Breakfast by the great Norman Blake. That title sounds more and more appealing the more problems that come my way. This album was released in 1977 on Rounder Records and features 14 acoustic tracks. When an album opens up with the lyrics “I got high, Lord I got in jail,” you know you’re off to a good start. This album also features a healthy amount of instrumental tracks such as Under the Double Eagle, Salt River, Arkansas Traveler and a couple more with some real nice pickin going down on them. Good thinking music. Me and Dom both share a love for the track Old Grey Mare, which, as you could maybe gather, is a song about an old grey mare. We’re usually big fans of any old bluegrass/folk song about an animal, train, or even the local paper boy (poor Jimmy Brown.) Anyway, this is a great album start to finish. Next time you need some good country picking in your life, why not turn to ol Norman Blake.