by Bruce Eder

Merle Travis's first instrumental long-player is a guitar masterpiece, encompassing originals ("Black Diamond Blues," "Walking The Strings"), covers of other people's old hits ("The Waltz You Saved For Me"), and a few antique pop songs ("On A Bicycle Built For Two," "The Shiek of Araby"). In its time, this album was considered as significant as any Chet Atkins album, and an important showcase for the electric guitar, in particular, though Travis would do even better than this a couple of years later on his all-acoustic Walkin' The Strings.