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“Feller & Hill and the Bluegrass Buckaroos” by Feller & Hill

Feller & Hill
Feller & Hill and the Bluegrass Buckaroos
Blue Hill Records
4 stars (out of 5)

By Larry Stephens

Southern Indiana has produced some excellent bluegrass musicians. Michael Cleveland and Ron Stewart hail from southern Indiana and then there’s Milan. Milan High School won the Indiana state basketball championship against Muncie Central High School in 1954, the victory being significant as Milan was the smallest town to win a state championship in the United States at that time (and still the smallest in Indiana to do so). The 1986 film Hoosiers is based on the story of the 1954 Milan team.

But bluegrassers know about Milan for another reason, because that’s the home territory of the Holt brothers of the Boys From Indiana. The original group included Aubrey and Jerry Holt, along with their uncle Harley Gabbard. Later Tommy Holt joined the group. Aubrey now appears on the road with his son and Tony’s group, the Wildwood Valley Boys.

Tom Feller is one of the clan, too, son of Judy Holt Feller and cousin to Tony. Tom was filling in on bass for WVB at the same time that Chris Hill (Gerald Evans and Paradise, Karl Shiflett, James King Band) was in the band. Both have enjoyed varied careers in music and have now become partners. Appearing on their debut CD as their Bluegrass Buckaroos (though it isn’t clear how many of them are really band members) are Brian Blaylock (lead guitar, Dobro), Cody Jones (bass vocals), the aformentioned Michael Cleveland and Steve Thomas (J D Crowe) on fiddle, and Glenn Gibson (Dale Ann Bradley, Marty Raybon) also on Dobro. Feller plays the acoustic and pedal steel guitars, mandolin, bass and sings various parts while Hill plays the banjo and sings various parts. As you would expect, the musicianship of this group is excellent.

They offer a great combination of classic bluegrass and some classic country. Many songs cross the boundary between the two genre so many times that you can’t pin them to one or the other. “Big Blue Roses” (Tom T and Dixie Hall) has a walking bass line and has a pure classic country sound. Along with Buck Owens’ hit, “Together Again,” you can hear some Don Rich in Hill’s voice, a reminder of Rich’s untimely loss that staggered Buck Owens’ career. (From Wikipedia: In a late 1990s interview, Owens said, “He was like a brother, a son, and a best friend. Something I never said before, maybe I couldn’t, but I think my music life ended when he died. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever.”)

Tom Holt wrote three of their songs. “Will Heaven Be Like Kentucky” is a Boys From Indiana number and the likeness of Feller’s voice to Aubrey’s and Tony’s voices is remarkable. “Lost Love” is a slow song that highlights a great tenor line on the chorus while “Those Old Things” will touch a chord with those of us that have a few decades of living behind us.

Who I am is gravel roads,

Pocket knives and fishin’ poles

And balin’ hay on a summer afternoon

Microwaves just can’t replace

Those hot biscuits mama made

Yes, it’s those old things that make me who I am

Yep, that about says it.

“Wasted Words” (written by Don Gibson, a hit for Ray Price) is another borrowed country song that they do well and they don’t forget gospel music. “My Lord Keeps a Record” is a well known Carl Story song that they sing to minimal accompaniment, while they move right along on the Inspirations’ “Is That Footsteps That I Hear, ” a fabulous southern gospel number.

They use new material, Mark Brinkman’s hobo story “The Old Kentucky Man,” and old material like the Delmore Brothers’ “Southern Moon” and the well used “Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar,” but they’ll touch a lot of heartstrings with a written by Judy Feller, “What Will You Bid For My Old John Deere.” You can feel the heartbreak as an old farmer watches as all his dear possessions go on the auction block.

If you’re a fan of the classic sounds of bluegrass, you won’t waste a penny when you buy this CD.

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“Roads Well Traveled” by Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver

Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
Roads Well Traveled
Mountain Home Music Company
2 stars (out of 5)

By Aaron Keith Harris

If this CD had arrived in the mail with no cover or promo sheet, I would have had no inkling this is a Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver project until the sixth track, which features the unparalleled bandleader singing lead on “Dobro Joe,” a bouncy  bluegrass tune that’s essentially an update, on a different instrument, of Jim & Jesse’s “Fiddlin’ Will,” which closes this 11-song, 37-minute effort. Those two cuts, along with the expertly picked “By the Waters of the Clinch,” a Lawson original mandolin instrumental, are indeed about all the Doyle you’ll get here.

The rest is, if I am reading the liner notes correctly, songs sung by Mike Rogers and Corey Hensley—I listened to this all the way through three times and can’t tell the difference—backed by a featureless mix of bluegrass, Southern gospel, and contemporary country arrangements.

The songs are standard Nashville, which is to say they contain lots of little details with which the listener is supposed to identify—such as graduating from Ohio state, enjoying the taste of tomatoes and cornbread, and pride in one’s ability to change a flat tire—but do not allow for any emotion to be conveyed or felt.

Special opprobrium must be heaped on “Say Hello to Heaven,” a lachrymose tale about a man prayerfully trying to forgive a drunk driver who killed a family member (or members, I can’t stand to go back and listen long enough to find out). There may be a songwriter alive who could make something worthwhile out of that scenario, but we know Lewis N. Hyatt is not that songwriter.

There may be some people who could enjoy this disk—it is smoothly executed with good harmony singing—but having one of the true greats, and great gentlemen, of American acoustic music spend his time and ours on something that bears so little of his genius is frustrating.

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“The Story of the Day That I Died” by Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice

Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice
The Story of the Day That I Died
Rebel Records
4 stars (out of 5)

By Aaron Keith Harris

There’s something about Junior Sisk’s voice that makes it perfect for bluegrass. It’s got the ragged edge of a Blue Ridge mountain top, and he balances emotion and restraint like few of his fellows in country or bluegrass.

That means that he kicks the heck out of straight-up, hard-driving numbers like the McCoury-esqe “High in the Mountains” (with banjo man Jason Davis giving Rob a run for his money), the whimsically sadistic “Old Bicycle Chain,” the nostalgic “Good to See the Home Place Once Again” (check out Billy Hawks’ greasy fiddle break), and “Drinking at the Water Hole,” an anthem for those of us in southwest Ohio with roots in the Commonwealth across the river.

There’s plenty more packed into this 12-track, 36-minute project, most notably the title track, which Sisk puts across with the pain and humor required for a tale of a creative way to get back at your cheating wife. “The Story of the Day That I Died,” written by Ashby Frank, could easily pass for a long lost Tom T. Hall track and is a sure contender for song of the year at the various bluegrass awards.

One of the best vocals of Sisk’s career is “If the Bottle Was a Bible,” his wounded vocal getting every drop of meaning from the rich lyrics co-written by Ronnie Bowman. There’s more hard emotion on “A House Where a Home Used to Be,” which favorably recalls both George Jones’ “The Grand Tour” and Longview’s “Lonesome Old Home.” And speaking of Longview, Joe Mullins brings his incomparable banjo picking and tenor voice to an old-school duet of “Lover’s Quarrel.”

Mandolinist Chris Davis leads on the contemporary gospel of “Prayers Go Up,” and bassist Josh Tomlin steps out front on “Another Lonely Day,” adding a slightly more mainstream tinge to a well-produced album that’s puntcuated by a kickin’ run through the traditional banjo instrumental “Jesse James” and “Walking in Good Company,” a gospel co-write between Sisk and his father, Harry Sr. that could have been written 50 years ago.

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“Kiss My Doublewide” by Bobby Dean

Bobby Dean
Kiss My Doublewide
Lamon Records
2.5 stars (out of 5)

By Larry Stephens

As the title track kicks off I begin to envision the video: a smoky bar, lots of young, ruggedly handsome guys and young, beautiful women in tight jeans, all crowding forward with waving arms and looks of adulation. Then reality sets in. I’ve played those smoky bars and clubs and most of the men were not young, nor rugged, nor handsome, and the women …

But I digress. That’s what music should do—take you to another place. “Kiss My Doublewide” is a good honky-tonk song and Dean carries it off well. The unnamed band is competent, but it’s hard to say more about them because country music rarely features the band except as a backup to the singer and a few turnaround licks. Dean’s (not to be confused with Bobby Dean and his Timeless Country Band) voice is on the unusual side, described as “twang” in his press release. Think of Jim Nabors singing a country song in his Gomer Pyle voice and you won’t be far off (that’s descriptive, folks, not poking fun at anyone).

The CD follows a pattern of cover songs and an occasional original, all originals attributed to McGee/Schnyder. The CD could stand more original music and fewer covers because Dean doesn’t hold up well on ballads, especially when you make a mental comparison to the original artist. There’s too much twang to do a heartbreaker.

“Country Country” (give it a second and you’ll get the title) is a play on what, in the writer’s opinion, makes country folks country folks (now I’m doing it) but I confess the only time I drink from a mason jar is iced tea at Nick’s in my hometown. It makes a good country song but it also underlines another issue with this CD. Being indie and recording using your own wallet forces some decisions about economy, but he recycles a few too many numbers here. “Country Country” was the title song of his previous album, and he also recycles “Me and George Strait,” a well written love song, and “The Grand Tour.” Dean’s twang is too pronounced to grab your heartstrings the way George Jones did with this song.

“Little Sister,” an Elvis hit, is hot enough that Dean carries it off but “Don’t Cry Momma,” his version of Presley’s “Don’t Cry Daddy,” just doesn’t capture the mood because of the twang.

“Tonight I Climbed the Wall” (Alan Jackson) doesn’t fare well but “Brokenheartsville” (Joe Nichols) is a better song for him though the twang is strong.

There’s a niche in the country music field for Dean, but his honky tonk is better than his broken hearts.

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“It’s Just a Road” by the Boxcars

The Boxcars
It’s Just A Road
Mountain Home Records
5 stars (out of 5)

By Larry Stephens

Have you read and heard the arguments about what is bluegrass (or country, or southern gospel, or whatever) and what isn’t? Despite all attempts at definition (including “it ain’t bluegrass without a banjo”) the most persuasive argument is sometimes, “I know it when I hear it.” Some CDs and some bands may leave you scratching your head because the music is enjoyable but it has to be hammered just a bit to fit into the bluegrass niche you’ve formed in your mind.

If you’re comfortable with the likes of Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Larry Sparks, and Jimmy Martin, to just name four, in the “yeah, that’s bluegrass” category, then you’ll not be disappointed (or prompted to disturb your hair follicles) when you listen to the Boxcars. They have just a little experience in the music: Ron Stewart is a multi-instrumentalist who has played with many stars, including JD Crowe; John Bowman started with Doyle Lawson then played with Alison Krauss and the Isaacs; Adam Steffey also played with Krauss and the Isaacs, and has recorded and performed with a long list of country and bluegrass stars plus being named mandolin player of the year nine times by the IBMA; Harold Nixon was part of Crowe’s New South for six years and plays a fantastic bass (watch this break!); and Keith Garrett was part of Blue Moon Rising. He is a singing definition of bluegrass and is making his mark as a composer.

Even great pickers and singers like this band can go astray without good material. That’s not an issue on this CD. The title cut is from the pen of Garrett as well as “Cornelia,” a blues-infused, swinging number about a heartbreaker that should be sung around campfires at every festival. Nixon takes a break on the doghouse bass that will have audiences applauding everywhere they play. Garrett also co-wrote “Caryville.” Bluegrass lovers love dark songs and one line from this song should be enough for you to buy this CD: “I don’t think God lives in Caryville.”

According to the band’s website, they went into the studio with no plan for the recording. Plan or not, they managed to reach back through the years for some great songs. When the Carter Family recorded “I’m Leaving You This Lonesome Song” (listen to a bit of it) it moved along at a good pace, but The Boxcars shred the landscape with it, leaving no doubt about their instrumental prowess. Another from the Carter Family is the “Coal Miner’s Blues” and they take a Hank Williams’ ballad, “Never Again (Will I Knock On Your Door),” and supercharge it.

Ron Stewart’s no slouch as a songwriter, either. “The Devil Held The Gun” is a dark song about love gone wrong while “Skillet Head Derailed” (wouldn’t you love to know where that title came from) is an instrumental that will be copied by many regional bands.

From the happy “You Took All The Ramblin’ Out Of Me” to “Trouble In Mind,” an oft-recorded (Eddy Arnold to Janis Joplin, Tennessee Ernie Ford to Jerry Lee Lewis/Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Keith Richards) blues standard from 1924, recorded here as uptempo swing, they take you on a bluegrass roller coaster. Your only question when it’s over is, can I ride again?

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“They Called It Music” by the Gibson Brothers

The Gibson Brothers
They Called It Music
Compass Records
5 stars (out of 5)

By Donald Teplyske

At a time when select Americana labels seldom release a bluegrass album, Compass Records is coming to the fore as a consistent source of good bluegrass: the Special Consensus, Dale Ann Bradley and Larry Stephenson, of course, but also Peter Rowan, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen, Rebecca Frazier, the Bankesters, and Claire Lynch… the new releases keep coming.

The Gibson Brothers joined the Compass fold a couple albums back, and since that time have rapidly built upon the foundation they established recording with Hay Holler and Sugar Hill. Each of the album’s I’ve heard from the Gibson Brothers has had much to recommend it, but there comes the time where a new album from almost any superior bluegrass band is met with a bit of a shrug. We tend to take our “stars” a bit for granted, expecting every album to be “great,” whatever that means.

Maybe I’m only speaking for myself, but I suspect I’m not.

By near any measure, the Gibson Brothers are at the pinnacle of the bluegrass world. They are the reigning International Bluegrass Music Association Entertainers of the Year, and have picked up a handful of awards from that organization the past three years. At various times, they have topped the most significant bluegrass charts- Bluegrass Unlimited, Bluegrass Today, and Bluegrass Music Profiles.

They Called It Music is pretty darned fabulous. One cannot accuse the Gibsons of resting on their laurels; they continue to push themselves toward producing stronger, more varied music, recording songs that they have spent time uncovering, as well as more than a few they’ve written themselves. The gentler, songwriter-type songs are adroitly mixed with catchier radio numbers, a pair of which—”Buy A Ring, Find a Preacher” and the title track—are frontloaded.

No two songs can be confused, and the album’s closing number, an Eric Gibson composition entitled “Songbird’s Song” is incomparable; transcending bluegrass while strengthening its definition, this one may prove timeless.

There is no mistaking the vocal intensity of the Gibson Brothers, and on They Called It Music the emphasis on harmony is as palatable as ever. Leigh Gibson, the younger brother, has a smooth, pleasing voice while the Eric’s is higher, more piercing and Del-like: lovely, that.

No matter which is singing, it sounds real good. Leigh’s finest of many lead turns may be on a terrific new song from Joe Newberry, “The Darker the Night, the Better I See;” this barstool anthem is pitiful and blue—absolutely beautiful. I was gobsmacked from the moment he sang, “I’ve honky tonked most all my life,  my day begins at the edge of night.”  Leigh also takes the lead on his brother’s “Dusty Old World,” a song that contains the album’s cleverest line: “My heart’s a loyal hound and when love it’s found, it won’t leave your side once its tracked you down.”

Meanwhile, Eric shines when singing Mark Knopfler’s “Daddy’s Gone to Knoxville” and the title track, a song that emphasizes artificial labels are less important than the music itself. Reno & Smiley’s (and the Paisleys’, and Cowboy Copas’)  “Sundown and Sorrow” serves as a fine snippet of what the Gibson Brother’s sound is all about—yesterday’s classic lines within a sleek outfit designed for today.

The duo return to Shawn Camp on this album. Written with Loretta Lynn, “Dying For Someone to Live For” flat out stops time; this one could go on repeat for an hour without bother. As well, with Camp the brothers wrote the reflectively sentimental “Something Comin’ to Me”, a song made more personal to the co-writers with the addition of lyrics in honour of their passed father.

Their band had been stable until the recent departure of Joe Walsh, who plays mandolin throughout this album. Walsh’s contributions to the album are obvious, and I appreciated his playing several times, including on “Dying For Someone To Live For” and his gentle kick-off to “Home On The River.” Fiddler Clayton Campbell lays out sweetness at every opportunity (as on the album’s lead song) while co-producer and bassist Mike Barber appears to be in for life considering how long he’s been part of the family; his exploration of deep tones is much appreciated within “Something Comin’ to Me” and “Home On The River.”

A masterful recording, this eleventh one from The Gibson Brothers. If it ever did, it should no longer matter from which state they originate, or whether their family roots are entwined with Kentucky grass. The Gibson Brothers know bluegrass like few others, and they perform it as enthusiastically and professionally as the finest in the business. Indeed, an argument could be made that, with this album, they demonstrate that they are the finest in the business.

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“Old Sock” by Eric Clapton & “Electric” by Richard Thompson

Eric Clapton
Old Sock
Surfdog Records
1 star (out of 5)

Richard Thompson
Electric
New West Records
5 stars (out of 5)

By Aaron Keith Harris

Eric Clapton’s place as the godfather of rock guitarists is undisputed—of course because of his brilliant early work, but also because he seems like a nice guy who has outlived greater talents like Hendrix and Duane Allman—but as a solo artist his work has been erratic, reaching a new low with the fittingly—and frighteningly—named Old Sock. All of the adjectives it brings to mind apply to this 12-track, 53-minute set that nearly put me to sleep on a recent road trip.

There are only two new songs here—more about them later—and the remaining 10 are don’t seem to have been chosen for any other reason that the minimal effort they required. A folksy “Goodnight, Irene” and a syrupy “Born to Lose” (from Ray Charles’ country and western phase) would be bad enough, but tossing in three chestnuts from the so-called Great American Songbook in as well, all with shimmering strings and Roy Conniff-style backing vocals, is just painful, surpassing even the dreck that Rod Stewart has been shoveling for the last decade or so.

“Further on Down the Road” (Jesse Davis/Taj Mahal), “Till Your Well Runs Dry” (Peter Tosh), and “Your One and Only Man” (Otis Redding) sound like faux-reggae rejects from the 461 Ocean Boulevard sessions, while the late British blue guitarist Gary Moore’s “Still Got the Blues” is most assuredly devoid of any trace of the purported blues. A soft arrangement, a lazy vocal, and a brief guitar solo that could have been pieced together from three or four other solos from different songs just doesn’t cut it.

Neither of the new songs did Clapton write. “Gotta Get Over” almost comes to life, but not quite. It’s a decent song, with a decent vocal and lots of those familiar guitar fills that Clapton does better than anyone, but which have been done to death. The other original is “Every Little Thing,” which may have already wrapped up the award for worst track of 2013. Not only is it another of the faux-reggae lot, complete with a faux-Marley title, but its chorus halfway in assaults the listener with the worst sound that can be captured by a recording engineer: a children’s chorus. After this debacle, I’d be surprised if we ever got a good new track out of Clapton again.

However, the constant stream of great work from Richard Thompson continues. Electric was recorded in Nashville with Buddy Miller producing, with Thompson including, for the most part, just Taras Prodaniuk on bass, Michael Jerome on drums, and, occasionally, Siobhan Maher Kennedy on backing vocal. Without anything to hide behind, Thompson’s strengths as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist—both electric and acoustic—continue to amaze.

“Stony Ground,” “Sally B,” and especially “Stuck on the Treadmill” have the thump and heft of the sort of rock songs that aren’t getting made much these days: a cranky guy belting out pointed lyrics and driving the point home with guitar solos that sound like the gleam on a shiny new barbed-wire fence you glimpse as you’re about to hit it face-first after being thrown over the handlebars.

“Salford Sunday” and “Where’s Home?” have the folk tinge that Thompson’s work has had since his days with Fairport Convention, the latter featuring the incomparable Stuart Duncan on fiddle and some of the Buddy Miller sound that one might have expected on the rest of the disc. (I also wanted a Thompson/Miller guitar duel, but I guess Buddy knew better). “Straight and Narrow” is another rocker that Thompson does well—a grungy look at an unattainable, frustrating vamp—but I’ve never cared for the Farfisa organ sound.

Another Nashville luminary—Alison Krauss—lends her translucent voice to “The Snow Goose.” Though it’s only for a couple of slight passages, the two voices together are as as gorgeous as a summer sunset sliding through the clouds.

Thompson has always been able to write about the bitter and the sweet of mature relationships as well as anyone, and “Another Small Thing in Her Favour” and “Saving the Good Stuff for You” are two more that resonate more deeply than anything new I’ve heard lately.

“My Enemy” and “Good Things Happen to Bad People” are aptly situated near the middle of Electric, and they amount to 11 devastating minutes of haunting melody, harrowing guitar work, and a vocal/lyric meditation on self-hatred and contempt for the world that holds everyone to account. The effect is not quite cathartic, leaving the listener to deal with the scab that’s just been scraped off.

Electric is my frontrunner for this year’s best album, and it’s going to take something remarkable to change that.

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