I remember the first time I heard this album. It was 1977. I was in college and a friend of mine drove 200 MILES to play me this record, which he had just purchased and listened to exactly once.

Well, needless to say, I wondered how the hell I'd done without this album for so long and I went out and bought my own copy. It has always been one of my favorite albums.

You can't classify this album, really; there's folk, there's bluegrass, there's old time country. (For some of the older folks on this record, like Roy Acuff and Maybelle Carter, this was sort of a last hurrah. Both appear flattered, although uneasy, about the situation in the between-song chatter, but once the instruments kick in they do it like the pros they were. Acuff's gentle admonishment of the Dirt Band -- he equates the situation to a man playing with boys -- is particularly hilarious, when you know in hindsight how professional it's all going to sound.) If you need to call this album anything, call it American music.

So many highlights, so little time: All of Doc Watson's stuff is amazing; Merle Travis and Earl Scruggs both play their hearts out and are truly amazed by the multi-talented longhairs from California and their younger Nashville counterparts, Vassar Clements and Norman Blake.

If you only buy two CDs in your life with this kind of music on it, make it this one and John Hartford's Aereo-plain. Both will make you dance and tap your feet and sing, and show you that country music, when it's done right, isn't such a bad thing after all.

In bluegrass and old-time circles this album is referred to reverently. Listening to it, you begin to realize what it was about traditional music that makes it so attractive. It is able to bring folks together, not only crossing generation gaps, but also, as evidenced in this ablum, crossing musical genres.

There are many folks, including me, who were first introduced to folk and bluegrass legends like Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin, Merle Travis, Vassar Clements, Mother Maybelle Carter and Earl Scruggs, through this album. We thought we were buying another Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album, but got much more than we bargained for.

This album is filled with memorable moments and performances. For example, among guitar flatpickers this recording of Doc Watson's "Black Mountain Rag" is the one that first hooked many of them onto flatpicking, causing them to leave rock and roll and never look back.

The mood of this album is informal and fun, with much in-between song banter among the artists, and yet the musicianship is impeccable. Like the banter before "Down Yonder" when Doc asks Vassar Clements "How DOES it go Vassar?" and Vassar leaps into the pickup and everyone else jumps in after him without missing a beat. And the moment that Roy Accuff tells everybody before one of his takes that he doesn't like to do retakes so get it right the first time.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to sit in on a long recording session with a bunch of bluegrass and country legends this is it. It is a classic recording filled with classic performances.

This album is the bedrock of modern country and bluegrass music. It also represents a turning point. Before this, there was country, there was folk, and there was bluegrass. This album found the commonalities in all three of these, while at the same time it showcased the best of each individual style. After this album, none of these three forms were ever so isolated again. The song selection is fabulous, representing a sort of sampling of classics from 50 years of country and bluegrass music. No record library is complete without Circle. As for Circle II, it is interesting, but never appraoches the magic that still, thirty years later, is evident in the first one.

This is one of the greatest albums in country music ever released. This was first released on 3 LP's in 1972 but it has been reissued on 2 CD's. While the whole collection is great, some of the great examples of the music include "Grand Ole Opry Song," sung by Jimmy Martin, "Keep On The Sunny Side," which Mother Maybelle recorded for the first time using autoharp on this set, Doc Watson's cover of the Jimmie Driftwood classic "Tennessee Stud" which became a hit for Eddy Arnold, the title track, all of Roy Acuff's work on here. Just like one review said, this is natural sounding and sounds fine the way it is. Buy this. This is a must for all listeners of music. You'll learn about where country and bluegrass music came from yet at the same time it is modern as many Dirt Band fans back in the day this first came out thought this was just another Dirt Band album, they found out different and this may convert you into a country fan if you aren't a country fan already just like it did to the rock and roll fans who heard this for the first time back when it came out.

Everyone, regardless of musical interest, should hear this recording. The sound is not only immediately satisfying, the best part is learning more about the source of the music itself... for example, why is Mother Maybelle Carter so revered (look elsewhere on the Amazon site)? Listen to "Wildwood Flower," and you'll be hooked.