One Morning in May

Joe Valiante (a.k.a. Joe Val) was a skinny, diminutive typewriter repairman from Everett, Massachusetts — who, it turned out, also played a fiery mandolin and had one of the most piercing and powerful tenor voices in bluegrass music. His first album as leader of the New England Bluegrass Boys was released in 1971 and features classic material like “Where the Old Red River Flows” and “Do You Live What Your Preach,” and only the occasional hints of Val’s Boston accent betray the album’s origins as a product of New England rather than the Blue Ridge Mountains.