by Cheryl Luther Michaels, Community Journalist
EAST MONTPELIER – So here I am again, the reluctant reviewer doling-out my considered opinion. As you may remember, if you read my book review of Stephen Russell Payne’s novel “You Were Always There” writing reviews of anything (plays, books, music) is just not my thing. But I’m very fond of both Rick Norcross and the Hardwick Gazette and if Rick Huff in Best of the West Reviews and The Barre Times Argus can publish a review of “God Bless the Mighty Pickle,” the Rambler’s newest release, then the Gazette ought to have one as well.
Four years in the making, Rick and the All-Star Ramblers and Airflyte Records released their new “God Bless The Mighty Pickle” CD at a celebration on October 22, at The Hotel Vermont in downtown Burlington. In addition to The All-Star Ramblers, the CD release party welcomed special guests The Blue Gardenias, Jon Gailmor, Jim Pitman and Coco Kallis of Coco & The Lonesome Road Band. All, along with Banjo Dan Lindner, appear on the new album, which includes seven new songs written by Norcross as well as tunes written by Spade Cooley, Tony Washburn and Coco Kallis.
The title song tells how the Rambler’s Green 1957 Flxible Starliner coach, known as The Mighty Pickle, became a showpiece at Marty Stuart’s Congress of Country Music Museum in Philadelphia, Miss. You can even hear The Mighty Pickle’s air horns featured within the song. Also on this recording, Country Music Hall of Fame’s Marty Stuart who is a five-time Grammy award winner, recorded personal comments including “Rick and the Boys, there they go in The Mighty Pickle.”
Many in the Hardwick area will remember The Mighty Pickle parked at Dona’s Car Store in Hardwick. Bear Bessette was the chief mechanic for over a decade, keeping The Mighty Pickle on the road for over 22 years of annual tours. The Mighty Pickle is featured in the Hardwick Mural on display across the street from the Buffalo Mountain Coop.
With 11 other songs on the CD you’ll have plenty of opportunity to tap your feet, clap your hands or get up and dance to the country and western swing rhythms. Coco Kallis sings her northeastern hit “New England Song” and Dave Rowell from Craftsbury sings the legendary Hardwick fiddler Tony Washburn’s “Love’s Coming Through.”
One song, “Moo Cow Milk” was written after Anson Tebbetts, Vermont’s Secretary of Agriculture, asked Norcross to write a song about non-dairy milk. The result includes the catchy line “Vermonter’s don’t milk nuts.” In “My Kissing Days Are Over,” written by Rick about the COVID-19 shutdown, Jamie Lee Thurston flew in from Nashville for a duet. And on “Out In The Cold,” Jonathan Edwards came over from Maine to nail the harp part.
Rick Norcross is a 1963 graduate of Hardwick Academy and has been a touring musician for 60 years. He has recorded a dozen albums with many featuring songs he has written about Hardwick among them. “God Bless The Mighty Pickle” is his best and last album and is currently getting radio airplay nationally, including WDEV and WLVB locally, and internationally in Scotland, Spain and Sweden.
“The Mighty Pickle” is available at all Rick & The All-Star Ramblers concerts and on-line at rickandtheallstarramblers.com.
