Rebel Records has announced the release of A Forbes Family Treasury, a mammoth two volume retrospective on one of the great family groups of Bluegrass Gospel music.
The 36 songs featured on this collection represent the best of the group's earliest recordings for Rebel during an amazing three year period between 1984 and 1986 (the group came out of retirement to record two more albums for Rebel in the mid-1990s).
Many of the tracks are available again in CD (and now digital) format for the first time in over 10 years, while six of the songs (three on each volume) had been previously unissued until now.
A Forbes Family Treasury will officially release on Friday, November 6th.
It has been said many times that family groups in country music have that "something special" in their singing—a closeness and warmth in their harmonies that is difficult to duplicate—sometimes unique; The Forbes Family is a perfect example of this general truth.
Their selection of material was unmatched, and their arrangements of songs were never showy but always appropriate and tasteful, with a good part of their repertoire featuring difficult a cappella songs that they sing to perfection.
The four members of the family—Homer, Jay, Lori and Lisa—developed their singing style at very early ages, influenced by the work of The Marshall Family, The Country Gentlemen and Doyle Lawson, among others.
What was unusual was the fact that they were born and raised in central Pennsylvania, not in the usual traditional bluegrass hot beds of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. But Harrisburg and central Pennsylvania were in fact a major market for Southern Gospel, and the Forbes Family learned some of their material from high profile, nationally-known groups like the Florida Boys and The Happy Goodman Family—they later adapted some of these songs to a more Bluegrass style.
Homer Forbes was the leader of the band, playing the banjo and fiddle and singing lead and harmony vocals. He was followed in age by Lori (handling the acoustic bass and singing harmony vocals), Jay (mandolin, Dobro and bass vocals) and finally Lisa (the group's soaring lead singer). The guitar player on these recordings was also the only non-family member of the band, Tracy Keenan. He worked with the Forbes Family from their early days in Pennsylvania up through the late 1980s.
The group began singing together in 1977 when they were in their early teens, and they were only 17, 18, 19 and 20 respectively when they moved to North Carolina in hopes of gaining further experience and exposure in one of the key markets in the country for Bluegrass gospel music.
A few regionally released projects generated considerable publicity for the band and brought them to the attention of the famous Easter Brothers of Mount Airy, who helped them land a contract with Rebel Records.
The Forbes Family went on to release four albums for Rebel during the mid to late 1980s, and it is from those spirited recordings that the songs for these two volumes were chosen.
This anthology features a selection of songs from a wide variety of sources—from older classics like “The Prettiest Flowers Will Be Blooming,” the a cappella “Gloryland” and the lovely “Gleams of That Golden Morning” to several excellent contemporary pieces like Claire Lynch’s “Come Unto Me,” “The Other Side of Life” by Alan O’Bryant and the Dolly Parton favorite “Sacred Memories.”
Ron Block, the versatile banjoist/guitarist with Alison Krauss’ Union Station and a longtime admirer of The Forbes Family, adds a praising tribute to the group with his poignant liner notes.
Although they appeared on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion and were sought for overseas tours and various festivals, The Forbes Family gave up extensive traveling in the late 1980s in order to raise their own families. However, they have left us with a wonderful legacy of superior recorded material—much of it included on these two compilations. This was a special kind of group that comes along only once in a long while.
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