Friday’s Forgotten Gems: The Blue Ridge Rangers

Music is a way of life here at Capture Kentucky. We love, live it and do our best to share it. While doing that, we’re often reminded of great songs, albums and artists that may or may not have had the success that we felt they deserved. It’s a series we’re calling “Friday’s Forgotten Gems!”

In this debut edition, I wanted to pick a song that was personal to me. A song that not a lot of folks may know. I grew up with a Dad that loved music and he always talked about “The Blue Ridge Rangers.” He said that it was the next John Fogerty project after Creedence Clearwater Revival came to an end.

I searched every single record store, department store and once the internet arrived, I scoured sites like eBay, iTunes and even a few sites, like Napster, that weren’t exactly legal. I had many years of searching and frustrations. Not only because I was curious, but I also knew how much the album clearly meant to my Dad. Dad had one of those huge turntable stereos that were a large piece of furniture. He had an extensive library of music, or at least from my memory he did.

Unfortunately, Dad lost nearly everything they owned in a fire. The Blue Ridge Rangers was always the first album he spoke when discussing their loss. So I knew that hurt him the most from a musical perspective.

Finally, just a couple of years before he passed, I found a CD version of the Blue Ridge Rangers on an obscure vinyl site. It was shipped from Romania and it seemed to be a bootleg, but I did not give a crap. So I paid up and also ordered the two Traveling Wilburys that I had little luck finding.

Now the song Dad talked the most about was titled, “Workin’ On A Building.” A gospel song that likely originated in the South or even possibly in the Caribbean’s. As I listened to the song for the first time, I suddenly realized why Dad enjoyed it so much. He was born in 1957, so when 1969 rolled around, Creedence Clearwater Revival was all over the airwaves. They released four albums in 1969 alone. “Working On A Building” was a call and repeat song. Sung very much in the style of the Old Regular Baptist Church, which is what denomination Dad grew up with.

So for him, at least from my perspective, John Fogerty was one of the biggest stars in secular music in his lifetime and the Blue Ridge Rangers were singing a song he likely heard most of his life in the churches he attended as a child.

The puzzle pieces finally fit for me and I understood his love affair with that version of the song. It also brought into focus his feelings of loss and just how much that song meant to him.

So here ya go, if you haven’t heard this one before, hopefully, you’ll enjoy it now!

We hope you enjoy what we do here at Capture Kentucky. We do our best to shed a positive light on Kentucky and her people.

If you have a song that you’d like to suggest we take a look at, feel free to link the info on our survey.

Thanks for reading!