Category Archives: 5 Star Albums

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“Brothers of the Highway” by Dailey & Vincent

Dailey & Vincent
Brothers of the Highway
Rounder Records
5 stars (out of 5)

By Aaron Keith Harris

Dailey & Vincent started at the top with their 2008 self-titled debut, and their string of great recordings continues with Brothers of the Highway, an 11-track mix of familiar old-school tunes, a couple of original compositions from Dailey, and a few guest star pickers to occasionally supplement the regular lineup of Dailey on guitar, Darrin Vincent on bass, Jeff Parker on mandolin, Jessie Baker on banjo, and B.J. Cherryholmes on fiddle.

“Steel Drivin’ Man,” a new take on an old topic penned by Dailey and featuring Bryan Sutton on guitar and Andy Leftwich on fiddle, is a dream for bluegrass deejays in search of a new track to kick things off with. It’s really fast, has lots of dynamic range, and carries the soaring Osborne Brothers-style harmonies that Dailey & Vincent has perfected, making it one of the duo’s very best recorded tracks.

“Back to Jackson County” is Dailey’s other new song on another familiar bluegrass theme—longing for home. It’s fresh and fun, avoiding the false sentiment that often make these songs fail with Dailey’s sunny personality buoyed by the lively band.

The well-known country/bluegrass material—including Bill Monroe’s mournful “Close By,” Wilma Lee Cooper’s break-up tune “Tomorrow I’ll Be Gone,” Pete Goble and Leroy Drumm’s rustically nostalgic “Back to Hancock County”—is perfect for a group that specializes in making the classics sound modern without watering them down.

Two covers are especially inspired: Porter Wagoner’s “Howdy Neighbor Howdy,” which perfectly meshes with the group’s genial presence on stage and in studio, and “When I Stop Dreaming,” the best-loved Louvin Brothers duet that I can say—without blaspheming—is every bit as good as the original. Not better, but just as good. No kidding.

Gospel aficionados will be pleased by “Won’t it Be Wonderful There,” another seamless blend of the bluegrass and Southern gospel styles, with the group’s remarkable bass singer Christian Davis in full effect.

“Where Have You Been,” written by Kathy Mattea, is the sort of tear-jerking acoustic ballad that I just don’t care for no matter who writes or sings them, but hearing Dailey shifting styles and backed by a string section was interesting enough for me to not deduct points.

Which brings me to the title track, a truck driving song previously recorded by George Strait. It has all the features of “Steel Drivin’ Man” but with what I immediately thought was the best song about truck driving I’d ever heard (I hadn’t heard Strait’s version, but my grandfather was a longtime truck driver, and I just realized am typing this review in the exact spot in the room in which he died a few years ago).

No use me describing this remarkable song—and album—any more, just get it and hit the road with the best bluegrass band going blasting through your open windows.

DV

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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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“Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard: Hard Time, Good Time & End Time Music: 1923-1936″ by Various Artists

Various Artists
Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard: Hard Time, Good Time & End Time Music: 1923-1936
Tompkins Square Records
5 stars (out of 5)

By Aaron Keith Harris

The story behind Work Hard is as wonderfully odd as the music this three-disc set contains. Some guys were cleaning out the house of a recently dead hoarder—Don Wahle of Louisville, Kentucky—and they knew enough to know that the boxes and boxes of 78 RPM records might be of interest to someone.

The Tompkins Square label culled much of its 42-track survey of hilbilly records from 1923 to 1936—including 19 cuts previously unissued in any format but 78—from Wahle’s collection, and the result is captivating.

I’ve always loved recordings from this era, because you can hear the performers (and those running the primitive recording equipment) trying to figure out exactly what it is they are doing. They’re not playing a barn dance with whiskey and dancing, they’re not playing in a church at the back of a holler, and they’re not playing in their parlor with family and friends gathered close. Most of them have never owned a record player. The closest they could have come to mass entertainment was a big fiddle contest, or the various radio shows that were beginning to fill the air and help songs and styles to spread quickly.

But one imagines the musicians recorded here shifting their feet, asking where they should stand and look, and holding back a little, not quite able to cut loose as in their native element. The picking is a little tentative at times too, but the effect is deeply satisfying. The rules of American popular music—country, pop, gospel, and even bluegrass, blues, and jazz—have long been codified 80 or 90 years after these sides were cut, and when we hear Earl McCoy’s staccato steel guitar on “John Henry the Steel Drivin’ Man” with that one unexpected note in his riff, Jimmie Tarlton and Tom Darby’s quavering, yodeling harmonies on “All Bound Down in Texas,” or the Happy Four’s shape-note arrangement with harmonica fills on “Climbing the Golden Stairs,” we can’t help but touch parts of our musical and cultural imagination stored way in the back of our amygdala.

The Work Hard songs on Disc One deal with imagery far removed from most of us—Fiddlin John Carson’s “The Farmer is the Man Who Feeds Them All,” Oscar Ford’s “The Farmer’s Dream,” Red Gay & Jack Wellman’s “Flat Wheel Train Blues, Pts. 1 & 2,” Pierre La Dieu’s “Driving Saw Logs on the Plover”—while talking about ideas we still confront: class division in “Poor Man, Rich Man (Cotton Mill Colic No. 2)” by David McCarn, consumer cynicism in “I’ve Got the Chain Store Blues” by the Allen Brothers, and the injustice of prohibition (alcohol then, certain drugs now) in “When the Roses Bloom Again for the Bootlegger” by Earl Johnson.

The Pray Hard cuts on Disc Three often address issues that came up when country boys went to the city, or city culture came to the country. The listener may not be entirely convinced to go dry by Gid Tanner’s “You’ve Got to Stop Drinking Shine,” but the scolding of the Georgia Yellow Hammers on “I’m S-A-V-E-D” will surely get him to takea firm position one way or the other. “The Gambler’s Dying Words” from Sid Harkreader & Grady Moore sports a melody quite similar to “Roving Gambler” to draw listeners close to hear their warining, reminding me of the chart my church youth pastor put up that pointed the impressionable to soundalike versions of dangerously secular bands.

The Kentucky Holiness Singers live up to their name with “I’m On My Way,” a tune with a proto-bluegrass mandolin break punctuated by a little shouting, and the Dixon Brothers turn in a lovely, pious performance on “Easter Day.”

The most fun here is of course on the 14 Play Hard tracks of Disc Two. Gid Tanner’s “Work Don’t Bother Me” captures the relish that those who worked so hard must have took to the weekend opportunity to tie one on and forget everything for a couple of days. The unnamed members of the improbably named North Carolina Hawaiians turn in a nifty “Solider’s Joy,” the dance number picked on ukulele, guitar, and steel guitar (picked Hawaiian style with some slides reaching into Duane Allman bird-chirping territory), the Carolina Ramblers rave their way through “Barnyard Frolic,” and the Hack String Band’s “Too Tight Rag” is the soundtrack to a cartoon short that hasn’t been made yet, with fiddle, mandolin, tenor banjo, and jazzhorn taking turns on lead licks.

I hadn’t heard of several of the acts on this set before, much less most of the songs, and this set can be enjoyed equally by old-time aficionados and new initiates into these strange and old sounds: you’ll get some of the more typical sounds from this style and era in songs you haven’t heard to death, and some real gems, patterns of sound you’ve never imagined, like the Taylor-Griggs Louisiana Melody Makers’ “When the Moon Drips into the Blood,” and Whit Gaydon’s “Tennessee Coon Hunt.”

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“Bluegrass Bluesman: A Memoir” by Josh Graves, edited by Fred Bartenstein

Bluegrass Bluesman: A Memoir
Josh Graves (Edited by Fred Bartenstein)
University of Illinois Press
5 stars (out of 5)

By Aaron Keith Harris

If you made a Mt. Rushmore for bluegrass music instrumentalists, there would have to be six faces—not five as Bill Monroe originally intended—and that sixth face would have to be the smiling visage of Josh Graves. Burkett Howard Graves, known professionally as “Buck” or “Uncle Josh,” was born in Tellico Plains, Tennessee (Monroe County, oddly enough) in 1927 and popularized the use of the Dobro, or resonator guitar, in bluegrass music.

Others, including yodeler Cliff Carlisle and his Hawaiian steel guitar and Bashful Brother Oswald, who played Dobro with Roy Acuff, had made the slide guitar sound part of country music, but when Monroe’s new brand of music called bluegrass branched off just after World War II, the Kentucky bandleader brought with him only guitar, upright bass, fiddle, and his own rapid-fire mandolin. Joined with Earl Scruggs three-finger banjo style, the new style became a separate and distinct form of country music.

In a series of recorded interviews that Fred Bartenstein has shaped into Bluegrass Bluesman: A Memoir, Josh Graves tells us how his Dobro playing was able to cut in and become a partner in what quickly became a highly stylized dance. First with Mac Wiseman and, starting in 1955 with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys, Graves’ tone-rich, loud Dobro sound—the right hand influenced by Scruggs’ picking style, the left hand by Lightnin’ Hopkins and other black blues players—cut through the other noise to become an accepted part of a music played by hard-headed men whose main innovation was to tweak and then codify tradition.

At 176 pages (including a foreword from Neil Rosenberg, an introduction from Fred Bartenstein, and 16 pages containing 41 great black and white photographs) Bluegrass Bluesman is a slim volume, but that’s one of its virtues. The effect is that of spending a a day on the bus with a genial host who has lots of great stories not only about himself, but of many of the founders of one of America’s unique contributions to world music. Some of portraits are less-then-flattering, but there’s nothing vindictive or gratuitous, just the confirmation that our musical heroes are people too, and that their foibles and faults sometimes had important effects on the music just as their incredible talents did.

About 20 pages are dedicated to short tributes and remembrances from well-known colleagues, friends, and acolytes, and there’s a short appendix from Bobby Wolfe about Graves’ best-known guitars that will be of great interest to many.
Bluegrass Bluesman belongs with Can’t You Hear Me Callin’: The Life of Bill Monroe, Traveling the High Way Home: Ralph Stanley and the World of Traditional Bluegrass Music, and Still Inside: The Tony Rice Story as essential portraits of musicians essential to the history of bluegrass music.

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“The Colored Pencil Factory” by Astrograss and “Blue Couds” by Elizabeth Mitchell & You Are My Flower

Astrograss
The Colored Pencil Factory
Foggy Borough Records
4 stars (out of 5)

Elizabeth Mitchell & You Are My Flower
Blue Clouds
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
5 stars (out of 5)

By Aaron Keith Harris

I was made an uncle almost four years ago, and since then I have started thinking about music for children for the first time. The first question to ask is whether there should be any difference in music children listen to. I guess there has been literature and music for children as long as adults have had the disposable income and free time to make it—and it would make sense that some subject matter isn’t appropriate for certain ages—but should music for children sound any different? Do silly voices and jumpy tempos appeal to children more? Why do they make versions of already juvenile pop music sung by insipid choirs of children?

I would suspect that most of the worst music for children is simply marketed toward their parents with no thought to the children themselves, but, happily, two recent examples of good music made especially for children have reached me recently.

The first is from Brooklyn-based Astrograss, who bill themselves as “NYC’s premier bluegrass band for all ages.” The Colored Pencil Factory looks to be their third recording for children, and its 16 tracks and 49 minutes are a fun listen even for a curmudgeonly bachelor. Their musicianship is truly first rate, with Dennis Lichtman’s mandolin kickoff to “Hey Blue Dog” worthy of Monroe himself, Jonah Bruno’s banjo on “Playground” influenced by Monroe sideman Rudy Lyle’s famous “White House Blues,” and standards like “Sawing on the Strings,” “Shortenin’ Bread,” “Cluck Old Hen,” and “Sail Away Ladies” presented with great fiddling by Sarah Alden with pretty much the same attitude one would find on any old bluegrass or old-time record.

Alden trades vocal duties with Jordan Shapiro and Tim Kiah, one of whom has a voice that favorably compares to Darrell Scott’s, though from the liner notes I can’t tell which. Though they’re aiming for happy enthusiasm rather than subtle blends, their harmonies are usually quite good, and the lyrics on the original tunes assume far more intelligence on the part of children than most other stuff I’ve heard.

Elizabeth Mitchell’s Blue Clouds is just a bit better and is as good as I can imagine a children’s album getting. Mitchell and husband Daniel Littleton are part of the indie band Ida, and with daughter Storey, who looks to be about 12 now, mom and dad form the band You Are My Flower, who have now released seven albums for children.

Blue Clouds is gentle, quiet, and melodic, with Jay Ungar and Molly Mason contributing their talents, and Storey and a handful of other children singing backup. None of the vocals from adults or children here are hokey, with the effect that children who listen are drawn into a sound that has a deeper meaning than just having fun or getting silly.

Indeed, Bill Withers’ “I Wish You Well” is a song that will deeply touch both parents and children. Other musical giants are adapted here: David Bowie’s “Kooks” speaks to the virtues of being different, Jimi Hendrix’s tender “May this Be Love” is a showcase for Littleton’s gorgeous guitar playing, the Allman Brothers’ “Blue Sky” (with a “Little Martha” intro) is an acoustic version as beautiful as the electric original, and Van Morrison’s “Everyone” may be the best cover ever done of one of the grumpy Ulsterman’s  songs, with flute and children’s harmonies filling out the playfulness of the original.

Throw in some originals, a couple of American folk songs (“Hop Up, My Ladies” and “Froggie Went a-Courtin’”), songs from Korea (“San Toki (Mountain Bunny)”) and Japan (“Yuki (Snow)”), and the 13th-century English tune “Summer is Icumen In,” and you’ve got an incredibly well-laden pallet of music that this curmudgeonly bachelor has listened to a few times for no other reason than it’s a great record.

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“Live at Red, White and Bluegrass” by Darin & Brooke Aldridge

Darin & Brooke Aldridge
Live at Red, White and Bluegrass
Mountain Home Records
5 stars (out of 5)

By Larry Stephens

When I reviewed their So Much In Between CD in August 2011, I was impressed by their talent. I still am. It shows through in every song on this new CD. My only reservation was that the first project might have been a little too much on the sweet and happy side.

They didn’t include any murder ballads on this new project but it’s definitely bluegrass. They do a fine version of Flatt & Scruggs’ “Foggy Mountain Rock.” I like six-piece bluegrass bands and this group of young musicians show off their talent on this number. Darin plays mandolin and guitar while Brooke plays mandolin and both sing lead. Rachel Johnson Boyd is the only band member who has enjoyed a history of national touring, playing with the Boohers and the Dixie Bee-Liners. She’s a talented fiddler. (Since the CD was recorded she has left the band, replaced by Becky Buller.)

Other band members include Matt Love (banjo, guitar), Collin Willis (Dobro) and Dwayne Anderson (bass and vocals). They can hold their own with any other band in the business.

This CD was recorded live at the Red, White & Bluegrass Festival and, since this is their stage show, it’s not surprising that some of the numbers come off last year’s album. “That’s Just Me Loving You” is an excellent duet that could be performed by any of the famous country duets while “Lonely Ends Where Love Begins” is a bouncy, uptempo song that underscores their repertoire. Speaking of duets, they have a superb version of Dolly & Porter’s giant hit, “Making Plans.” This illustrates how easily some songs can move back and forth between country and bluegrass without losing a bit of impact.

Another example of crossing genre is “To Know Him Is To Love Him.” Written by Phil Spector (whose downfall in life is another story), it’s been recorded under a variety of names by a long list of artists including Spector’s group, The Teddy Bears, the Beatles (“To Know Her Is To Love Her”), Bobby Vinton (“To Know You Is To Love You”) and then went to the top of the charts again when recorded by the Trio (Parton, Harris & Ronstadt). You might not visualize Bill Monroe doing it but it’s still a good fit for the Aldridges.

“He’s Already There” was my favorite song from their earlier CD and I put it in a small group at the top of the list on this CD. It has a good, moving beat and an interesting chord progression. It also illustrates how well a six-piece band sounds with the instruments complementing each other.

This CD is full of good songs. “Sweetest Waste of Time,” written and recorded by Australian husband-and-wife team Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson, is another country crossover that fits them perfectly while “No One Needs To Know” was a huge hit for Shania Twain that Brooke Aldridge and the band nail perfectly. A change of pace is “When He Beckons Me Home,” written by George Shuffler (who was in the audience that night).

This is a top-notch live performance by a young band that should be destined for greatness in the world of bluegrass.

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Lonesome Road Review’s Best of 2012

Five-star reviews:

“All In” by the Boxcars

“Outshine the Sun” by Foghorn Stringband

“Life Finds a Way” by the Grascals

“Life Goes On” by Musicians Against Childhood Cancer

“Papertown” by Balsam Range

 

Other notable releases:

“Hard Country” by Audie Blaylock & Redline

“Heart of the Country” by Chris Brashear

“The Gospel Side of Dailey & Vincent” by Dailey & Vincent

“Home from the Mills” by Jimmy Gaudreau & Moondi Klein

“Sing Me a Song About Jesus” by Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver

“They’re Playing My Song” by Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers

“New Bluegrass & Old Heartaches” by Bobby Osborne & the Rocky Top X-Press

“Road Into Town” by Danny Paisley & Southern Grass

“The Old Home Place Ain’t the Same Anymore” by Jussi Syren and the Groundbreakers

 

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“Outshine the Sun” by Foghorn Stringband

Foghorn Stringband
Outshine the Sun
Foghorn Stringband
5 stars (out of 5)

By Aaron Keith Harris

For the Foghorn Stringband, the dream of the nineties is indeed alive in Portland, just as long as you’re dreaming about the eighteen nineties. (I hope no other reviewer has made that connection to the excellent Carrie Brownstein/Fred Armisen sketch comedy Portlandia on IFC, but I’m too lazy to googlebing it.)

Oregon-based eight-stringer Caleb Klauder and fiddler Sammy Lind, now joined by Quebecois bassist Nadine Landry and Washington guitarist Reeb Willms, are as good as you can wrangle if you’re looking for the picking and singing old-time, with Lind knowing when to be a little ragged here and when to be a little fancy there and Klauder’s tenor pained enough to hit nostalgia without bleeding through to melodrama. The ladies are not here for ornamentation, but for strong and supple performance that gives the band the range and talent to handle the ballads, love songs, instrumentals, parlor songs, and white gospel that make up the twenty-one songs clocking in two minutes shy of an hour.

Foghorn could keep the feet tapping the hardwood all night long with Hartfordesque fiddle tunes like “Humpback Mule,” “Indian Ate the Woodchuck,” and “Salty River Reel,” and with “Lover’s First Quarrel,” which somehow manages to be concise and baroque at the same time.

But it’s the singing—whether solo or harmony—that’s made me keep this one spinning. The simple voice blends on “Distant Land to Roam” and “Just a Few Old Memories,” a simple tearjerker led by one of the ladies (I’m sorry to say, from the materials at hand, I’m not sure which) indeed evoke “another place and time,” like the scent of an old upright piano.

The drop-thumb rave-up “Whoa Mule” and two almost-bluegrass hymnal thumpers, “Outshine the Sun” and “Gospel Ship,” have the band running hard and true vocally and instrumentally.

The track that haunts me is the penultimate “Over the Garden Wall,” a sweet and strange romance from the Carter Family oeuvre made sweeter and stranger by this fine quartet.