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“Next Go ‘Round” by the Blue Canyon Boys

The Blue Canyon Boys
Next Go ‘Round
www.BlueCanyonBoys.com
4½ stars (out of 5)

By Donald Teplyske

Those who have been involved in the bluegrass world for longer than twenty minutes recognize many universal truths. One of these is that our new favorite band is often just one mail delivery away.

Now five discs into their career, the Blue Canyon Boys have only recently come to my attention. I believe they were recommended to me as a band to pursue for a concert booking a few years back, but so were the original Quicksilver, the Osborne Brothers, the Bluegrass Cardinals, and Jimmy Martin; like those, the suggestion didn’t get too far past a polite, and I hope not dismissive, smile. We bluegrass folks also have our fair share of universal regrets. Because, dang me—the Blue Canyon Boys are a group we all should direct some attention toward, and I wish I had listened a little less smugly to the suggestion.

Categorizing the group is relatively pointless, but if forced I would suggest “contemporarily traditional.” The quartet is well-rooted in the sounds of the past, but isn’t afraid to sweeten and broaden their approach with effects (the sampling of seascape sounds that open “Down Along the Cove,” for example), subject matter (the title track, inspired by the realities of drug addiction), and vocal treatments (four-part  a cappella on the album-closing “I Bid You Goodnight.”)

Like any bluegrass band worth extended listening, the Blue Canyon Boys aren’t any one thing. Yes, they appear young, but only when compared to the median age of a blue-haired festival. Yes, they wear suits on stage, but they don’t appear to be doing so with any sense of irony. Yes, they are great musicians, but they also concentrate on ensuring that their vocals are creatively arranged and pointedly executed. Yes, they admire the Country Gentleman (covering “Darling Alalee”), but—well, there is no “but” to that one.

In searching the shelves here in the Bluegrass Bunker, I came across the group’s 2005 debut, Just an Ol’ Dirt Road; apparently banjo-less at the time, the group now features Chris Elliot (Spring Creek) on the 5-string. The Blue Canyon Boys’ sound has developed in the eight years since that album was released—fuller with more drive—but the heart remains consistent: it is all about the song!

The band frontloads this 46-minute offering with original material: five of the first six songs come from within the band. While the majority of the set is comprised of covers, there is neither a measurable difference in the quality of the writing and presentation nor a feeling that one has “heard” all of this before elsewhere.

There is honky-tonk swing plainly evident within “Heartaches Welcome” (“The sign said, ‘Heartaches Welcome’ as I walked in that barroom…”), and that theme nicely complements a rendition of Buck Owens and Don Rich’s “Before You Go,” which is kicked into overdrive by the 5. Both sung by Gary Dark (mandolin), the songs reveal the country influences of these Colorado-based bluegrassers.

Equally “hard country” is Jason Hicks’ own “Like a Heart That’s Grown Weary of the Blues;” that one is pure lonesome. “Going Up,” is borrowed from the Gosdin Brothers, while the brothers Stanley give them “Nobody’s Love is Like Mine” and “Harbor of Love,” although Drew Garrett (producer, bass) notes they learned the latter from the Bray Brothers. In these years following “the year of Bill Monroe,” an interpretation of “Sitting Alone in the Moonlight” remains particularly welcome, while Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys have their “Roustabout” taken for a twirl.

Not that it is a competition, but I found myself repeatedly drawn to the songs of Jason Hicks. His “Down in the Misery” utilizes working in a mine as a metaphor for life’s challenges, while the “final wishes” of  “Up On the Hill” are rich in imagery, and the harmony vocals are killer—a brave choice for an album opening track.

With Next Go ‘Round, the Blue Canyon Boys have most assuredly earned my attention. Highly recommended.

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“The Farthest Horizon” by the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys

Sleepy Man Banjo Boys
The Farthest Horizon
www.SleepyManBanjo.com
2 stars (out of 5)

By Donald Teplyske

Straight up—I don’t get it.

Unless I’ve had a relationship with them—family members and friends, students I’ve taught—I’ve never been into hearing kids play music for my own aesthetic enjoyment. I’ve often stated that I don’t believe anyone should record before their 18th birthday.
I’ve felt that way about every 12-year old country singer I’ve seen in too short shorts and too much makeup on a county fair stage. I’m reminded of it each time I witness a teenager performing a ‘tweener at a folk festival. Hell, I felt that way about Chris Thile and Nickel Creek, as good as they were, and the Abrams Brothers did nothing to dissuade me of this unpopular opinion.  I’ve been justified in holding this narrow-minded attitude a hundred times, not the least of which was when I finally saw and heard Cherryholmes live.

I know it isn’t logical, and I realize it is patently unfair and close-minded. And I understand that I’ve likely missed some good music because of my staunch, codgerly ‘rule.’

When the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys—New Jersey brothers Jonny (10), Robbie (13) and Tommy Mizzone (14)—started making the rounds a year or so ago, I completely ignored them.

I didn’t tune in to see them on Letterman. I didn’t go searching for them on YouTube. Again, I didn’t care. When the phenomenon didn’t fade away like farmers doing “Gangnam Style” parodies, and I was assigned this album, I did at least look at some of the clips and did a little reading. Who am I to argue with J.D. Crowe, Andy Leftwich (who plays mandolin throughout this album), Mountain Heart, and Pete Wernick?

I still don’t get it.

I accept that they are kids, and their hearts are in the right place. I trust that the parents are not living their dreams vicariously through offspring, and that the boys are doing this because they want to. And I understand the novelty.

I’ve listened to The Farthest Horizon likely a dozen times. The tunes make pleasant background music. But I hear nothing—including Leftwich’s mando contributions, because they don’t stand out—that I couldn’t hear at any decent bluegrass jam or local festival. It isn’t bad, not by any means. The instrumentals sound fine. The music sounds good, and I suppose that should be ‘good enough.’

What I don’t hear is ‘life.’ The instances where Ashley Lilly, granddaughter of bluegrass pioneer Everett Lilly, sings are interesting from that perspective, but underwhelming except to give my ‘rule’ additional merit. I can’t argue that the trio of brothers from New Jersey doesn’t have musical talent, because they obviously do. Guitarist Tommy Mizzone seems to have a style I might enjoy in the future.

I’ve certainly heard more skilled versions of “Gold Rush” and “Shuckin’ the Corn.” Their original instrumentals don’t stand out; only a single one has stayed with me longer than the time it took to play. “The Man from Danville,” obviously inspired by the playing of Tony Rice, is memorable, but not necessarily remarkable. The lyrics to “Always the One” read like they were discovered scribbled onto a middle-schooler’s notebook.

At the outset, I admitted that I don’t get it. But if you don’t hold child musicians to the same standard as adult professionals and can enjoy them on that level, you will find something good here.

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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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“Go Parker!” by Jeff Parker

Jeff Parker
Go Parker!
Lonesome Day Records
4 stars (out of 5)

By Larry Stephens

Jeff Parker has been immersed in bluegrass music since 1967, including stints with the Renfro Valley Barn Dance. He was a member of the Lonesome River Band (2001 – 2007) then joined Dailey & Vincent in 2007. This is his second solo album, following Two Roads to Travel from 2004.

Given his history in bluegrass, it’s not surprising that his latest CD has a traditional sound, albeit the inclusion of the dreaded piano and drums. He invited a host of friends to appear on the CD, including Jamie Dailey (harmony vocals) and Darrin Vincent (harmony vocals and bass), Mike Bub (bass), Ron Stewart (fiddle, banjo and guitar), Cia Cherryholmes (vocals and banjo), Ned Luberecki (banjo) and Matt Despain (Dobro), plus others. The quality of the music is unsurprisingly outstanding.

He steps off into acoustic country with “Hello Darlin’.” No one will ever top Conway Twitty’s growl (although Shawn Baldridge [Goldwing Express] comes close) but Parker does just fine with it, backed by Josh Shilling’s (Mountain Heart) piano and Shawn Brock’s drums. There are not many bluegrass fans who don’t also enjoy classic country music, and this is a good one.

“Plant Some Flowers By My Graveside” was part of Bill Monroe’s repertoire and Parker (with Dailey & Vincent) gives a touching rendition. Another from the same era (also co-written by Jimmie Davis, with Dailey & Vincent joining on the track) is “Let’s Be Sweethearts Again.” If you’ve been around bluegrass any time at all you’ve heard someone sing this song. This arrangement tests Parker’s vocal range but he hits the high notes without a quaver or flat tone. (And, of course, Jamie Dailey can hit notes higher than cirrus clouds.)

You won’t hear many songs in bluegrass that were also recorded by Duke Ellington and contemporaries like Cab Calloway, but from 1924 comes “How Come You Do Me Like You Do,” proving that it’s not necessarily a song’s pedigree that makes it bluegrass, it’s how the artists performs it. Parker and crew rip through it and most listeners would never guess that it is a jazz standard. This isn’t the only song with hot licks. “Lord I Hate To See My Darling Go” scoots along at breakneck speed.

Reaching back again, Parker (with Cia Cherryholmes) gives us an old Louvin Brothers’ song, “When I Loved You.” “Sweet Mary” is a beautiful song about losing love, kicked off by Matt Despain’s Dobro while “Cold Rails” has more of a country sound.

This is a CD filled with good music and artists at the top of their game, centered around Parker who, because of his duties as a harmony singer with LRB and D&V, may often be underrated as a lead singer. Let’s hope he doesn’t wait another nine years for his next solo project.

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“Barstool Monologues” by Mike Cullison and the Regulars

Mike Cullison and the Regulars
Barstool Monologues
JOEDOG
4 stars (out of 5)

By Larry Stephens

I confess: I’d never heard of Mike Cullison before this CD. So I nearly had a heart attack when I heard the opening bars (no pun intended) of “Wish I Didn’t Like Whiskey.” This is the real McCoy, country music that’s actually country music, honky-tonk like it used to be (do today’s big stars even record honky-tonk anymore?).

The concept is simple. Hollis, the bar owner and bartender (Cullison), is holding court for us, describing the patrons nursing their drinks until closing time in his crossroads bar. Each one has issues and he’s seen them all. He tells us about their problems, then along comes a song to describe them in greater detail.

Cullison (who portrays the image of a man who has nursed a drink or two) co-wrote all the songs. The house band has some seasoned professionals. Mark Robinson plays guitar and sings “Good And Evil,” a hard driving rocker about a woman—what else?—Randy Handley (a member of the Mark Robinson Band) plays keyboard and sings a bluesy “I Can’t Let You Drink Alone,” a song about a man wanting to talk to a friend who is down and low.

Brian Langlinais, a self-described roadhouse singer, guitarist in MRB, is one of the better singers on the CD. This time out he’s playing the vest frottoir, a zydeco staple that’s essentially a washboard worn like a shirt. He sings “Who Turned You Loose,” a song reminiscent of some Travis Tritt hits, replete with an accordion and a steel guitar that sounds like a slide guitar. His wife, Natalie, does a good job with the vocals on “Ghost Of My Heart,” a song of heartbreak, a story of a woman shackled to a memory.

Rounding out the band are Daniel Seymour (bass, acoustic guitar, mandolin; another MRB member), Jason Amaral (percussion), Michael Webb (accordion; Poco), Ben Graves (harmonica), Mike Daly (steel guitar; Hank Williams, Jr. band) and Jeremy Garrett (fiddle; Infamous Stringdusters). These are all seasoned professionals and the band sounds like they’ve been playing together for years.

Other singers on the CD include Jon Byrd (“Prayin’ For Rain,” a man far away from home and wishing he was back), Davis Raines singing a hearbreaker, “‘Til I See Her With Him,” Travis Lamb (“Just Another Night”) and Tiffany Huggins Grant (“As The Cold Sets In”).

The songs aren’t all million sellers but they’re good and, as a classic country fan, I’ll take any one of them over ninety percent of what I hear on “country” radio today. The singers are all good – greatness is in the ear of the listener and they’re all quite good enough to have a fan base around Nashville. If you’re a fan of honky-tonk then you need to listen to this one.

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“Last Train from Poor Valley” by Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett
Last Train from Poor Valley
Lonesome Day Records
4.5 stars (out of 5)

By Donald Teplyske

Danny Barnes. Wayne Taylor. Richard Bennett.

Three performers with little connecting them beyond there being another professional musician with the same name making music.

Namefellowship aside, this Richard Bennett is the bluegrass guitarist, not the Mark Knopfler (and Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Cherry Bomb, and Neil Diamond, etc.) sideman. Well-established for more than three decades in the bluegrass big leagues, Bennett has worked with J.D. Crowe in the New South, Lou Reid in Carolina, and as a sideman for many artists. He has previously recorded solo albums for Rebel Records, one of which—A Long Lonesome Time—is in this writer’s opinion, one of the finest albums heard from the late ‘90s.

A dozen years ago, in my first review for Bluegrass Now magazine, I wrote about the Auldridge, Bennett, and Gaudreau album Blue Lonesome Wind, and within that piece stated that “the pearl which glistens most true [ouch, that hurts! And how did it ever pass by the editor?] is Richard Bennett’s home spun vocals, which, at times, are vaguely reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot…without a splash of false showmanship.” In the years since, nothing has changed: Bennett’s voice remains pure and strong, woven through years of singing folk-influenced bluegrass music.

Featuring an instrumental and vocal cohort of bluegrass veterans—Rickie Simpkins (fiddle), Crowe (5-string), Ron Stewart (fiddle, banjo, mandolin), Harold Nixon and Joe Sharpe (bass), Shayne Bartley (mandolin), and even bluegrass Danny Barnes (mandolin)—Bennett has created an album that lacks the bluegrass bite some of us find most attractive, yet is thoroughly enjoyable as a cracking collection of largely country and folk to MOR standards given gentle acoustic folk-laden, bluegrass treatments.

Several songs standout amongst this set. “The Ballad of Jesse James,” a song written by Barry Metcalf I’ve not previously encountered, features exceptionally clean guitar lines from Bennett. Bennett’s original “Roan Mountain Rag,” resurrected from 1997′s Walking Down the Line, is given a slightly extended treatment herein. Lightfoot’s 1972 classic “Don Quixote” features some lovely fiddle flourishes as Bennett gives the song a “just right” vocal treatment.

The moments that most strongly bluegrass are contained in numbers including the country standard “Wrong Road Again,” the traditional “Handsome Molly,” and Merle Haggard’s “Working Man Blues.”

The album proper closes with Bennett performing “Tennessee Waltz,” and reminds one of why his name is so often mentioned alongside Tony Rice’s. The “one-take” bonus track “Leavin’s Heavy On My Mind” stands up to everything contained on the album.

I’m not sure I needed to hear new renditions of “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” and “Georgia On My Mind,” but other listeners—and obviously Bennett—may feel differently. Another oft-recorded chestnut, John Hartford’s “Gentle On My Mind” is always a pleasure to hear, and this interpretation is simply stunning; again, Bennett’s voice and guitar sounds are the stars, but everything within this take, down to the bass playing, sounds absolutely ideal.

Last Train from Poor Valley, named after the Norman Blake song, is an album that should appeal to all bluegrass listeners and most Americana and traditional-leaning country fans. If you appreciated Home From the Mills from Jimmy Gaudreau and Moondi Klein last year, or Cahalen Morrison and Eli West’s Our Lady of the Tall Trees, you are sure to enjoy exploring the latest from Richard Bennett.