Remember Josh Graves? How about Tut Taylor? Or Paul Franklin? For anyone other than guitar geeks the names conjure something like memories, if not quite formed enough to warrant the term. They are all steel guitar players, meaning they played guitars with a piece of steel. Slide players. Which means that they were side players, playing second to their more popular band mates: Earl Scruggs, John Hartford, and every country singer you’ve ever heard. Jerry Douglas is the only slide player that really gained a spotlight of his own, though the style of playing traces a long line through popular music and international geography—it comes from Hawaiian styles, though the Dobro was created by Slovakians: the Dopyera brothers, John and Emil.

Because we only seem to know about slide playing tangentially, rather than straight on, there’s a bit of mystery within it, and that mystery is at heart of this recording by Andy Hall and Roosevelt Collier, two slide players that met a few years ago on a music cruise they were both hired to perform on. Hall is the Dobro player of the Infamous Stringdusters, and while he plays across genres, his entrée was bluegrass. Collier is a blues player. The tracks on their album Let the Steel Play take in all of that territory and then some. Close to the top of the program they ease us in with a beautifully poetic take on “Maiden’s Prayer.” And then they’re off. There are some sharp edges, and left turns along the way, but it’s a wonderful collection of material. You can get a bit precious and find all those threads in here—rock and the blues, country and bluegrass, Hartford to Hendrix—though better is just to let all the echoes wash over you. In any event, it deserves your attention. Slide playing isn’t really a novelty, after all. Those guys were some of the hardest workers in show business.                

One of the delightful moments is this recording is in the 5^th track, when both segue into a lovely take on Bela Fleck’s “Big Country.” It’s a tune he’s presented himself a lot, most notably within the “Live from the Quick” release. It’s not as challenging as some of the things he does, which makes it a nice entrée to what he does. Moving between voices, shifting chords here and there. That all takes on an added dimension here, playing with Abigail Washburn. She’s a master of old-time banjo, he the master of everything else, and both add their separate personalities to the piece. Washburn is more poetic, Fleck more rhythmic. She’s more of a feel player, he more studied. That 5^th track, a medley, is the only instrumental on the album, and too bad there aren’t a couple more. Between them they can do no wrong, of course, though this is a better release than their last one. That one, their self-titled release, felt a bit rushed in a way, maybe a album for the sake of it. It was interesting for what it was—again, these two have the reputation as being masters, and it’s a reputation that is earned—but this release, Echo in the Valley, feels more polished, maybe, more thoughtful, in a way. In all, it’s a lovely way to while away a bit of time. They are interested in opening a big piece of musical territory, and they do.

When people who are really into wine talk about wine they don’t tend to speak in generalities, but rather a whole range of specifics. They talk about the hints of this and that, the various notes of such and such. Seeing people talk about these things on TV, it seems it’s not just descriptors. They seem to take enjoyment in all the elements of the wine as much or more as they like a wine as a whole. A wine isn’t a thing itself, but rather a collection of little things, all of which seem to deliver a little hit of appreciation or pleasure.

This new disc from Volume Five, Milestones, is much like that. There are some really great songs—“North Dakota” perhaps particularly—but it’s almost more about the parts than it is the whole. The mandolin chops are so clean, so dry, and so beautifully placed within the mix. The guitar entry to “Tell Me You’re Not Leaving” so perfect, with such a clear tone. In those things, and many more, there is a lot to love here, all of it pointing to the mastery of the musicians and the quality of the production. The content can be bleak, and there’s loads of heartbreak and bare-bones introspection on offer. The narrator in “North Dakota” says that it’s “less than you deserve, but you stay with me anyway.” The song ends with a hope to get the barley in the ground, if only to make it through another year on a farm that’s “twenty miles from either town.” The narrator of “Hayley,” has a history that is a bit murky yet clearly full of regret. There aren’t many moments of joy to go around, but maybe that’s just part and parcel of the genre (well, of course it is) and also one of the things that draw us to it.

Volume Five was named emerging artist of the year at this year’s IBMA. They’ve been at it for ten years, and have grown in that time, both as musically as well as a becoming a more cohesive group. There is a clarity of vision here, too, which buoys the quality of the work; the personality of the band is coming forward, and the members are stating that identity with more ease. For all of that, this album is easily their best to date, so to be named emerging artist after a decade of work isn’t really as wilting as it might seem. Emerging doesn’t mean new, necessarily but gaining a wider audience and a more prominent place. Indeed, Volume Five is really coming into its own, and rightly finding a place in a very busy musical marketplace. It’s certainly nice to see them gaining more attention at the IBMA. They deserve it. This album is definitely worth your attention.

You’ll be forgiven if you groan a bit when you see the track listing of this new release from Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur, “Penny’s Farm.” Like right there. Did you breathe out a bit, an almost imperceptible sigh, just then when I typed “Penny’s Farm”? Did you have flashbacks of John Cohen talking about how Dylan took “Penny’s Farm” from the Harry Smith anthology and turned it into “Maggie’s Farm”? When you read Geoff Muldaur, did you think of Maria, and her marriage to Geoff? And all those rehashes of the basket houses, and the tour busses, and the black and white clip of Maria, newly single, swaying with Jim Kweskin at the Bitter End, or the Gaslight, or whatever it was.

These are names and songs that have a lot of miles on them, and lots of stories attached to them, too. And, yes, it can take a bit of effort to push play on the mail-order gramophone. But, actually, you really should. Just put all that stuff away, put down the CD cover, and forget all the names and the miles. Try to listen to all of these songs as if for the first time. Because it’s absolutely worth any effort you can give it, though it doesn’t take all that much really. You’ll soon be reminded why you remember all that stuff in the first place. These are just fantastic songs. They’re like children’s stories, and they make children out of all of us. Tell me again about how my good wife will catch more fish than me. And how you played cards in Spain. And how Frankie shot her man. There she is, still wearing the kimono. Yes, it certainly is a little while to be here and a long time to be gone. I know exactly what you mean.

Truly, there’s a lot to love on this release. The guitar work is great, and the arrangements are simple, charming, and superb. They’re joined by Cindy Cashdollar and Suzy Thompson. As my daughter would say: I know, right? Yes, I know.

There are lots of memories, though the repetition is nice too. After all, that’s one of the reasons we like this stuff to begin with. The stories remind us where we are, and where we came from, even if it’s Toronto and we never ever did get around to fishing for catfish in the old fishing hole, truth be told. But it’s the idea, and the familiarity, that we love. And that picture on the cover? With the shack and the chickens? If you squint a bit, and turn a bit to the side, doesn’t it look a lot like home? I think it does. It really does.

This is a brilliant release in all kinds of ways. Musicianship, arrangement, recording. Each one of those is wonderfully on display. It’s there in the details, such as the strings entering on “Only in My Mind,” and then the pizzicato, or the way she sings the word “Barcelona.” There are harmonies added to isolated phrases that make you think, wow, that’s brilliant. So beautiful in themselves, but also so delightful in the level skill that they belie, and the way they help support and propel the narrative.

The writing is the thing that stands out, even given the quality of the setting and the skill. Ask anyone about writing songs and, more often than not, they’ll say something about a hook. But a hook isn’t songwriting, it’s marketing. Selling something. Writing, good writing, tells something. Though it’s even more than that. There’s a pleasure that comes from finding the structures-, in realizing the care and the complexity that went into crafting these pieces. There’s a delight that comes from seeing something that is just so brilliantly constructed. (Have you listened to Lightfoot’s “Great Canadian Railroad Trilogy” recently? It’s as much a marvel as it ever was.)

The first track, “Rookie Dreaming,” sneaks in, and just when you’re doubting it, it delights you. Before we get to the confessional voice—“I was movin’ too fast ” etc.—she’s already broadening the narrative, gesturing to a universal: “I was singing with the choir on the train/I was a traveling man/I did not yet have a name/I was a 1960s movie/I was a one-night love story.” Certainly, that’s the thing about confessional songwriting. It’s not about grabbing a guitar and telling us about your day. It might sound like that. “The wind is in from Africa/last night I couldn’t sleep … “ But it’s not. Andrews clearly knows that.

She often has the diction of Joni Mitchell, the full vowels and clipped Rs and Ts. She adds her own harmonies, as Mitchell did, and adds similar ornaments, uses similar phrasing. Most importantly, of course, is a similar attention to narrative. Like Mitchell, it might sound like she’s telling you about what happened last week, as in “Table for One” when she sings “Table for one/I’ve got no one I’m waiting on/I just pulled into town an hour ago/from the streets of Houston/to this diner in Ohio.” But she’s not, and it’s the idea that comes to mind, not the details. By the end of album, we don’t know her any more than we did at the beginning. Because it’s not about her. It’s about us.

I know that music isn’t a race, but if this album doesn’t win some awards this year, I don’t know what.

(Published by Hudson Valley Bluegrass)

Sam Bush is such a perennial of Americana music, from first gaining lots of attention with Newgrass Revival, going on to be the King of Telluride, and he’s just kept on going. Through it all, subtle is not something that anyone might readily claim of him, what with his mullet bobbing in time while chopping on stage.

That said, it’s always been clear that Bush is far more than his stage presence might suggest. He’s played on countless recordings, and is a master of many things, prime being an ability to apply himself to the music at hand. He can play quiet. Publicly, and on his own albums, he’s more inclined to be louder, and that’s true on this one as well.

On Storyman, this latest and long-in-coming release, he’s joined by a raft of greats, with whom he’s also had a very long association. They all co-wrote the songs here, even—as with Emmylou Harris—if they aren’t known as writers themselves.

Nevertheless, those associations are what make the album really work. These are all people really working at the top of their field. Likewise, it’s not a guest-based album of the kind we typically see—i.e., greats joining in to bolster the profile of a project. Here, these are people that Bush knows well, and has done for decades. The result is playful, interesting, and warm. Bush has nothing to prove, and that’s certainly on display here, making songs like “Bowling Green” really, um, sing. That’s his hometown, and the tobacco fields, the tunes, the history feels genuine. Because, of course, it is.

There are guest vocalists here, for the most part adding harmony, but the core band is the one that Bush has toured with recently. Truly a cabal of whippersnappers if ever there was one. Scott Vestal shines, as always, on banjo. Some of the arrangements sound a bit dated, harkening back to the kind of things he was doing in the late 80s and early 90s, such as the Reggae arrangement on “Everything is Possible.” I’m still not entirely convinced that it’s truly new. But, he says it is, so I guess he would know.

This album isn’t likely to bring many new listeners, but for those of us who have been interested in everything he’s done, it’s nice to have something new. “Transcendental Meditation Blues” is a standout, as is the ballad “Lefty’s Song,” featuring Allison Krauss.

Bush will no doubt be touring the ass out of these tunes this summer. Fair enough. Nothing here to bump “Howlin’ at the Moon,” from the set list, but it will add some welcome variety. And, you know, it’s Sam Bush after all.

Published in Penguin Eggs, Issue #71, Fall 2016

You’ve got to love this album, and I’ll tell you why. Look at the liner notes. Each song lists the people that join Naiman, adding their stuff to his. Chris Coole’s there pretty much on every one. Love that. Naiman is credited on every track, less because he’s there than because he wants us to know which banjo he played: Vega Tubaphone, Romero. Love that! Honestly, gives your heart a bit of a thrill at every mention. Then, right after the banjo, there’s the tuning he used. Love that!!!

The reason why I love all of this, and why you should, too, is because Naiman himself so clearly loves it. There’s no other reason. He’s from Toronto. That says something. No, there’s no money in the banjo, and if you live in Toronto, it’s not cool either. If not for a very deep love, this wouldn’t be here at all. He loves clawhammer banjo—its tone, the tunes, the lilt—and it shows.

He wants to share it. And he does, quietly, carefully, and as comfortably as an old shoe. This is a beautiful, thoughtful, glorious collection of tunes that we can get lost in, precisely because Naiman does. Love it, love it, love it.

I’m forever being impressed with the level, variety, and quality of music coming out of Hamilton. The city doesn’t have the reputation of Cape Breton or Nashville, New Orleans or Muscle Shoals, and one reason might be because there isn’t just one genre of music being produced, but so many. So, too, that the blues people, for example, don’t know what’s happening in the bluegrass or fingerstyle guitar community. But the recent unearthing of a long lost Gordon Lightfoot recording at a Hamilton studio is telling, in a way. The Band signed their first contract here, just as it gave rise to Daniel Lanois. Today it’s the home—bet you didn’t know this one—of Emory Lester, one of the foremost bluegrass mandolin players in the world. We tend to look at locals and think, “well, she’s pretty good for here.” But Alfie Smith is great for anywhere. And he lives here. And on and on it goes. Hamilton, when you really get down to it, is an embarrassment of musical riches, in spite of the fact that so few seem to really think of it that way.

This latest release, A Devil’s Urge, from Dave Pomfret only supports the point. I worry that people might hear this and think, “yes, he’s good, you know, for here.” But if it wasn’t clear before, he’s good for anywhere. (Musically anyway. As a graphic artist … um … let’s say, given the cover art here, his desire exceeds his grasp.)

He clearly is willing to take some risks, and they pay off. The horn parts that bring in “Ballad of the Body Building Bandit,” set an aggressive tone for the album, and underscores the intention to work beyond the tried and true rock format. There’s some clarinet in here, too. Nice.

The stories that he tells perhaps don’t stray as far, and the writing sticks close to the typical rock themes: failed relationships, trouble, and regrets. The tune “Bury the Hatchet” takes it into overly aggressive territory—he sings, “I’ll bury the hatchet, as long as I can bury you too”—and it perhaps backfires a bit. It’s a revenge song, but it edges into psychokiller territory. Maybe she was better without him, one starts to think. Just saying. It might just be a safety issue.

Where the album really shines is in the richness of the production, and there’s an impressive cast that have lent their skills to the project. They bring a lot of grit and depth, while also opening up some space on the ballads, as on “Maybe It’s Me” and “She Can’t Smile Anymore.”

From top to bottom, there’s a lot to like. I only worry that the album won’t gain the kind of legs that it should. Because it deserves an audience, one beyond the city limits. I hope that it finds it.

This isn’t a live album in the way that you think: it’s live in the sense of two musicians playing together, no overdubs or added tracks. There’s less audience noise than you’d expect from a live album, as in none at all. There’s more effect than we’d expect to hear on a live album, at least one that wasn’t recorded in the 80s. They say that it was recorded in a “handful of hours” within a single day. Um. Okay. I’m not sure why it matters one way or the other. It’s not a race, but if you need a stopwatch, fair enough.

Martin Harley is a dobro player, and he has the kind of voice we’d associate with the Avett Brothers, were we inclined to do so. Thin, forward, requiring a pretty face to come out of. Daniel Kimbro plays bass and adds a strikingly sympathetic backing vocal.

So, yes, there’s a bit of bravado here, though it doesn’t take long to really get on board. Harley’s playing is delicate, tasteful, and beautifully rich, restrained even when he ventures into rocking-out territory. Kimbro’s bass is gorgeous and full. At times be bows it, which is a nice touch. Between that and the vocals, there are moments when it feels like someone else has stepped into the mix, but they haven’t. It’s just the two guys, and their ability to move between moods and feels is a testament to the quality of the arrangements.

There are some covers here, including a slow take on Leadbelly’s “Goodnight Irene.” It’s like a porch swing on a hot summer’s day. Bees buzzing, all of that. It’s lovely. There’s also a lovely take on Tom Waits’ “Chocolate Jesus.” As such, Harley and Kimbro make some connections that are as welcome as they are surprising. “Automatic Life” is one of those songs that you can get stuck on in the car, which is a great place to listen to this album. It’s a great accompaniment to staring at the horizon, thinking about where you’ve been and where you’re going. And then the song ends and you remember that you haven’t got a clue.

The panhandle of the title is the Texan one, not the Floridian, and the album comprises a something of a tour of the writers and the styles that we associate with the singer/songwriter culture of Texas. All but two of the songs are written by Ely, though they reference many others, including Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, and Guy Clark. There are two covers, a nice take on Clark’s “Magdalene” and Butch Hancock’s “When the Nights Are Cold.” Ely doesn’t bring anything particularly new to either, and both serve as reminders of how great the originals were. Which, perhaps, is partially the intent.

Ely has spent the bulk of his career straddling the folk/country/rock divides, such as they are. In 1972 he founded The Flatlanders with Jimmy Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, though the band was short lived. Their “Dallas” was meant to be a hit, though it wasn’t. (It’s puzzling that it didn’t catch on a bit more, actually.) Some sessions from 1972 weren’t released until 1991, and then bearing a title that is as good a précis of the band’s career you could ever hope to find: “More a Legend than a Band.”

Commercial success is fickle, of course, and whatever opportunities the Flatlanders were unable to make something of, on breaking up the members went on to find success as solo acts. Given the focus of their individual careers—Hancock tends to gravitate to folk music, and Gilmore to country—it’s easy to wonder if the Flatlanders suffered a crisis of identity more than anything else, with each member pulling in different directions.

Certainly, a more complex place than we might be prone to give it credit for. Ely has said that he was surprised at how many minor keys he used here on the songs that he wrote for the album. It’s darker than we expect out of Texas, perhaps, and light years away from smiles and winks of Bob Wills. This album isn’t folk, or rock, or country, but a conflation of them all. But it’s the songwriting that, rightly, pulls the focus.

published in Penguin Eggs, issue #69 

On the face of it, Ben Nesrallah is the height of improbability. He’s 26 years old, has grown up in Montreal, and he plays old-time music in a duo with a friend he’s had since childhood, Trevor Pool. Together they make up The Noisy Locomotive. Their latest release, “All Nature Soon Will Settle Down to Rest,” isn’t just a lot of fun, it’s also a quick , adept tour of the form and its history.

For many Canadians, the music is unfamiliar, confusing. It’s associated with the movie Deliverance or the frantic dancing that George Clooney did, complete with fake beard and bib overalls, in O Brother Where Art Thou. Certainly, it’s easy to make fun of, and people laugh even when they don’t quite get the joke.

The fact is that there is much more here than most people think, and it’s the tradition, more than anything, that Nesrallah and Pool seek to promote. And, as they make clear in their shows and their work in schools, it’s truly one worth promoting, perhaps now more than ever.

Prior to the 1920s, there wasn’t such thing as old time music, or at least it wasn’t called that. It was just called music. It came to America with the English, Scottish, Irish, and German settlers, and once in the new world, took off on its own. Over time, it continued to change and evolve, creating a number of variant styles throughout Appalachia. In time, musical styles across the eastern United States were as unique and clustered as English accents are even today. You could tell, within a few miles at times, where a player was from just by hearing them play.

Through the 20th century the sound of old-time music became more homogenous. So much so that these days, wherever you go—Tulsa to Tokyo, San Diego to St. Louis—the old-time style that you are most likely to hear is the Round Peak style, a highly influential music that comes from Surry County, North Carolina. Surry County is, um, small. Round Peak—the town that gives its name to the style—is even smaller still. But, if we wanted to stretch a point, we could say that for much of the 20th century, the epicenter of the Round Peak style was even more exact than that: Tommy Jarrell’s house, a small, white clapboard bungalow in Toast, NC, a town just west of Mount Airy. Jarrell was a great teacher, a lively personality, and a magnet for young players who wanted to learn old-time music. Some, such as Mike Seeger and Bob Carlin, made the drive down from New York City; others, such as Riley Baugus and David Holt, arrived from within Appalachia. But they came in the hundreds for the same reason: to sit at the feet of the master.

There are lots of indirect descendants, too, and Nesrallah and Pool are terrific examples of that. They play lots of classic tunes, including “Jimmie Brown the Newsboy” and “Lulu Walls” and they remain close to the traditional style. Fiddle often is forward in the mix, we might say these days, taking the melody and embellishing it through bow work and all those beautiful drones. The banjo is played claw hammer, and supports the syncopation of the fiddle melody. In much old-time music guitar is relegated to a back seat, providing rhythm for the fiddle and banjo. Here, that’s what it does for the most part, providing the accompaniment to the fiddle and mandolin.

“It’s music at a human level,” says Ben. “We’re all just so plugged in these days, in our own little worlds. The idea of sharing music by actually sitting down and playing with each other and learning from each other. It’s kind of a lost art form.

You can sit in a circle with a bunch of folks here, and I like that it’s not about ego or one person over another. It’s about sharing and having a good time and building something together. It has a lot to do with the idea that it’s not about the individual, it’s about the community, building a sound, and being in the moment.”

For many people, particularly in Ottawa and Montreal where Nesrallah and Pool come from and play, it can take some getting used to. Old time music is social music, meant for dancers to dance to—and for players to participate in—more than it is to be sat in front of and listened to. It’s about being together, not showing off. While instruments will take turns with the melody, they don’t solo in the way that bluegrass, blues, and jazz musicians do. Instead, they play the melody straight, pretty much, which can make the music sound repetitive (and, well, it is).

What’s also wonderful about the music (and I realize that this might take a bit of a leap of imagination for the uninitiated) is the subtlety. Slight variations have meaning. Sometimes, delightfully so. “Jimmy Brown the Newsboy” certainly has a home within old-time music, though we know it today perhaps largely because the Carter Family had a hit with it in 1931. On the recording by Noisy Locomotive the mandolin intro and turnarounds—the bars that Earl Scruggs added to the arrangement—quote another Carter tune, “You are my Flower.” (There are five Carter songs on the Noisy Locomotive’s latest disc, All Nature Soon will Settle Down to Rest. Can you spot them all?)

It’s delightful to have those kinds of nods and winks. For many people, these songs aren’t just songs, they’re like favourite bedtime stories, full of drama, history, interesting turns, and familiar faces. Tommy, Earl, Maybelle, AP, Charlie, Mac, and Bill. (And look, there’s good old Jimmy Brown, still not wearing any shoes!) This is music that comes to us through various filters, voices, and years. Like the steps of the Agora, they’ve been shaped and burnished over the years by all the people they have supported. Even if you don’t know all the details, you still can have a sense of that a lot of people have been here before, and there are hints of all lives that these songs have touched.

Those kinds of historical details, or whatever they are, aren’t essential though they can add some of the charm. When used best, of course, the songs aren’t presented for the nostalgia, but in order to say something new. “We’re bringing in old songs for a reason,” says Ben. “They’re songs that happen to be resonating with us at a certain point in time.” No, you can’t buy a table for 15 cents, as in the lyric of “Stern Old Bachelor.” For that matter, bachelor probably doesn’t mean the same thing it did in the 30s, when the Carter’s recorded it (at a time when AP and Sara were estranged, still singing together even when they couldn’t speak to each other anymore).

But the messages are larger than the details. The music is about austerity, disappointment and, as Ben says, “the struggles and the grief and the good times too.”

“Old time and the old country tunes, it’s just a style of music that resonates within us. And with any traditional genre, it’s got that soul in it,” he says, then adds with a chuckle, “And, hey, it’s just a lot of fun.”

Innovation has long been an important part of the musical endeavour, and it’s often the first person to happen upon a new idea—rather than the people who refine it—that remains foremost in our minds. That’s certainly true in bluegrass, and Bill Monroe will remain the king of the genre even when a majority of the bluegrass audience isn’t familiar with his recordings. Becky Buller includes the Monroe penned “Southern Flavor” on her recent album, though it’s likely that the majority of her audience won’t recognize it for what it is. Monroe, even if listeners aren’t aware of it, continues to be a force within the music.

That’s fine of course. Where the idea of innovation can start to get away from us is when it exerts too much of an influence on the music that other people are making, or becomes too much of a touchstone for the production and the consumption of musical ideas. In the world of mandolin, the force that looms large these days is Chris Thile. He’s an innovator extraordinare, and he’s also highly visible. Ask anyone to name a mandolin player, and if they can name one, he’s it. Most would then be hard pressed to offer a second.

His music is as distinctive as his stage persona—he’s as remarkable an entertainer as he is a musician. In the concert footage of the performance of “The Auld Triangle” Thile gets laughs with nothing more than a well timed tilt of the head, a glance, an upraised thumb, or a shrug, as after the line “Humpy Gussie was creeping.” That’s because everyone in the audience is fixated on him. Rightfully so. He’s just that compelling a performer, with an instinct for stagecraft that has been honed over the arc of a long, busy career. It looks effortless, of course, and that’s part of it too. Still, that shrug got a laugh from an audience of 1500 people—it’s not everyone who can command so large a room with so little.

It’s that command and confidence that affords him room for his musical innovation. His audience will follow him anywhere, and he rewards their trust—he takes them all over the place, and for the most part we’re all grateful for it. Even in the New York Times his playing is still discussed as bluegrass mandolin—with the ubiquitous references to Bill Monroe—though he’s come so far from that point that the reference doesn’t really have any meaning. He’s very nearly created his own genre. Perhaps the only thing it lacks is a name.

What’s unfortunate, perhaps, is that other players are left to deal with the elephant in the mandolin room—Thile—in the awareness that they are invariably going to be compared to him. The choices are to tag along, or to give him wide berth. On her latest release, Sierra Hull has chosen to tag along. She’s made motions toward Thile’s style of playing and composition before, though never as blatantly as this.

She does it masterfully, of course. She’s long been worth our attention, even at a tender age (that becomes a comparison, too: both Thile and Hull are prodigies). Here she uses the light, clean touch that we associate with Thile, creating music that’s made with the delicacy that a microphone can afford. Monroe was the Ethel Merman of the bluegrass world, trading tonal quality for projection. Hull can do that, though here she’s the opposite: clean, clear, intimate. On “Weighted Mind” she varies between muddy and clean, using all the paints in the box, though it’s still very close music, full of all the dissonance and complexity that has become Thile’s signature sound. On “Stranded” and “Queen of Hearts/Royal Tea” Hull also writes with the autobiographical tone that Thile does so well. Or, if we’re being totally honest, better.

Sadly, that type of material feels like a distraction, as if the force of Thile and the genre that the Punch Brothers have defined has been too seductive, too overbearing. On this album, the best tracks are the ones where Hull remains closer to her own persona, or at least the persona that she’s presented in her music in the past. “Lullaby” uses a more familiar structure, one which allows her voice to really do what it does best.

One of the best things I’ve heard from Hull in the last while is her duet with Mac Wiseman on “You’re a Flower Blooming in the Wildwood” released in 2014. There her playing is adept, sympathetic, and entirely authentic. She’s supporting Wiseman, and while her playing and singing wouldn’t thrill a Vegas audience, it does thrill a listener who knows what she’s doing. Her solo is straightforward and, it’s the economy that exposes it for what it is: masterful. It’s that authentic voice that I hoped to hear on Weighted Mind. Instead, it feels like she’s wrestling with someone else’s persona rather than simply relaxing and being herself.

Ronnie Reno is, I hate to say it, one of the last of a dying breed. He began his career in music at age 8, and while he’s spent a lot of time on stage, throughout his career it was mostly in the service of people that claimed a larger part of the spotlight: Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, the Osborne Brothers, Johnny Cash.

The reason for remaining a part of the game for so long, if not commanding a greater portion of the spotlight, is because not only is he a brilliant, he is also tenacious. When he was 8, he stood on a milk carton to be seen. In a sense, he’s been standing on that milk carton ever since for no other reason, perhaps, than it’s just what he had to do. For him it was a job, just as making movies was for James Stewart. Someone once asked Steward why he made some duds, even later in his career, and his response was, well, it’s my job. If I’m not working, and I’m offered something, I take it. There are few stars in Hollywood like that today, and I’d venture there are few bluegrass musicians like Reno anywhere. He’s out there doing it because, well, that’s what he does.

This album, “Lessons Learned,” brings all of that to the fore. You can hear his experience in his voice and his mandolin. It’s called confidence. Which is different than bravado, of course. You can hear that too. Just rock solid, take it or leave it confidence. He’s not trying to impress anyone, he’s just trying to present some songs, and he does it impeccably.

Part of that, though, means that he’s not reaching beyond his audience, which is one that straddles bluegrass and country music. It’s traditional in the sense that he’s not breaking any barriers, yet the production is slicker on this project than some bluegrass audiences might like. There was quite a bit of knob-twiddling in the studio, which is unfortunate, as it didn’t add anything. Some might say that evened some things out, while others might feel it removed something. A bit of grit would serve the sentiments. There are drums throughout, and they are emblematic of a production style that comes more from Nashville than Asheville. Again, it depends on what you like, I suppose.

The sentiments here are more typical of country music, which is where Reno spent most of his career. Sorrow, lost loves, and, yes, lessons learned, and it’s not calculus he’s talking about. The band, however, is strong, and Reno’s mandolin—something that gets a particularly welcome outing on “Reno’s Mando Magic”—is worth the price of admission.

No, it won’t burn up the charts. But, a fall day, in the car, Reno’s a fine companion to have along.

Since they began, there has been a goofy quality to the Steep Canyon Rangers, though in a good way. They were five young people with good hygiene, great senses of humor, and good chops out to have some fun. When they caught the ear of Steve Martin at a party in rural North Carolina—his wife is a friend of a friend of the band—they became his touring band and, ever since Martin’s Rare Bird Alert (2011) they’ve been his studio band as well. As a result they’ve gone to places—Carnegie Hall, recording with Paul McCartney—that most bluegrass musicians can only ever dream of. They’ve toured big halls and done a wealth of media, again, which most bluegrass musicians, including some of the greats, never attain.

It’s easy to envy them, but then again, it’s equally easy to wonder what might have been had they not had (at least what seems) such an effortless rise. Martin himself considers this idea from time to time, as in a recent issue of Fretboard Journal when he says, thinking of when he first started working with the Steeps, “I was a little bit worried. I thought, ‘Well, I’ll taint them a bit. They’re a traditional bluegrass band, and they’re teaming up with a comedian.’”

The fact is, he indeed may have tainted them a bit. The hard luck story is central to bluegrass and country music. It suits hard luck, the life of the underdog not cruise ships and pop royalty. Would we wish that on someone? No, we wouldn’t, though just as Martin may have worried, the gravity of his association may have thrown them a bit off course creatively.

I say this because there is a tension in the work of the Steep Canyon Rangers along these lines. Too much success may not be the best thing for a bluegrass band. On their last couple releases, and especially this one, Radio, they break from tradition (actually, they never were avowedly traditional in their presentation) by adding drums, lap steel guitar, and lots of swoops and swoons. With Radio they’ve also added a sixth member to the band, Mike Ashworth on percussion. Also very present on this album is Jerry Douglas, who produced it, including having a large hand in editing and arranging the songs.

All that said, I’m not sure I buy what the songs are intending to sell. There is some lovely instrumental work, for sure, including the mandolin and banjo on “Looking Glass.” Mike Guggino, on mandolin, often takes a back seat to other members of the band that often command center stage, both literally and figuratively. Which is too bad. Another very strong entry in this collection is “Down that Road Again,” which features Graham Sharp on lead vocals. Woody Platt typically takes the lead role, though he lacks the kind of introspection that Sharp can clearly bring to a song. (True to the idea of being relegated to a back seat, Sharp’s name in the band’s Wikipedia entry links to the wrong Graham Sharp, a UK Olympic ice skater.)

That song, “Down that Road Again,” is an example of what the band can do best, though leads into a song, “Break,” that is the other side of the coin. Platt’s vocals are indelicate, over confident; Nicky Sanders’ fiddle breaks are indelicate, overconfident, and he’s reaching for things that he’s unable to deliver, something that he’s doing with an increasing frequency.

The Steeps make very nice music, and I wanted to love this release which, it has to be said, is the best work they’ve yet done. As I’ve thought with each of their past releases, it still sounds like their best work is yet to come. Platt has said that, “We’re just getting started. It’s almost daunting, to think about how much more there is that we want to accomplish as the Steep Canyon Rangers.” The thing is, I wonder if the success they’ve had as a result of their work with Steve Martin hasn’t derailed things a bit. Yes, they get lots of ovations, though a bit of humility at this point—getting back to the basics and just telling good stories—might be what they need more than accolades. Are we happy for their success? Of course. But business and music are two different things. Are they making the best music that they can? For whatever reason, no, I don’t think they are. Not yet, but they remain a great band to watch.

Muscle Shoals, Alabama, is the place that musicians have travelled to when they wanted to change, to sound different. Aretha Franklin went to Muscle Shoals as an unknown pop singer who had recently been released from a recording contract. When she came back, she was Aretha Franklin, the one that we know today. The recording studio there—Muscle Shoals Sound Studio—began as a cinder block bunker in Sheffield, Alabama, literally in sight of cotton fields. Aretha, as with all the people that the studio recorded in the early days, arrived without a band, and used the session musicians that the studio had on hand. Locals, to a person, were white with thick southern accents. Bono, from U2, noted rightly that they looked more like supermarket cashiers than soul musicians.

Still, there they are on Franklin’s “Respect” the first song she recorded at Muscle Shoals. Wilson Pickett came, as did The Rolling Stones, Elton John, U2, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, and on and on. It’s one of those improbable stories that, for whatever reason, is true: this little place in the middle of nowhere, with these musicians, has had a huge impact in the world of pop, country, and rock music.

It’s the Muscle Shoals sound that musicians come for, one that is a bit grittier, more soulful, more situated in R&B. For some, they’re hoping that a bit of the storied success of the studio will rub off as well.

For the SteelDrivers, however, the sound on this album isn’t really different in any tangible way from what they’ve been doing all along. Chris Stapleton, the original singer for the band, has a rough, gouged voice that, if it doesn’t do delicate, it does loud, brash, assertive. It’s the kind of voice that people respond to, especially the ones who like to get up out of their seats and wave their arms around.

Stapleton solidified the place of the band within the grand sweep of bluegrass: rough and ready. He left the band in 2010, with Gary Nichols stepping in, a singer who continued pretty much in the same vein, though perhaps tending a touch more to the country end of the musical spectrum. He’s featured on 2012’s Hammer Down, though it’s clear that the band has been looking for a project that will gain a bit of a bigger splash, and they’ve found it in The Muscle Shoals Recordings. It’s gritty, forward, and full of all the allusions we expect from the outlaw end of the musical spectrum. “Brother John” is a criminal on the run. “Drinkin’ Alone” is about drinking and fighting. Elsewhere there is regret, cheap thrills, excess, ill-conceived affairs, and all of it drenched in country wisdom. “When the gas is gone, you’ll be left out in the rain.”

It’s the right mix for radio, and the album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard bluegrass chart. The playing is tight, just as we’d expect from the SteelDrivers, and there is a lot of crossover here with the tropes of country music, not limited to the focus and the hooks of the lyrics. There are only two ballads in the lot, though they both lack delicacy. “River Runs Red” attempts to capitalize on the patriotism that follows the Civil War, and tries to gain emotion through strained vocals and quotes of “Dixie” and “Home Sweet Home.” And it works in the way that an advertisement does: hits the right notes to gain some attention to itself without adding anything to the conversation.

The album’s pretty good, I guess, if this is the kind of thing you’re into. But it’s an album made to appeal to a wider audience, namely a country audience. It’s achieving that goal, and no doubt this album will get a Grammy nod in the bluegrass category. Which I’m not sure is a great thing.

(for HVBA) It’s hard to be a Dailey and Vincent fan because they can be so unabashedly shameless. Where other bluegrass musicians grew up wanting to be like Bill, or Earl, or Doc, these guys grew up wanting to be the Statler Brothers. When I first saw them live I was turned off pretty much instantly by the pure geekiness and showiness of it all. On stage they are less people than they are Muppets.

Which is too bad, because they are truly great singers and can craft a song beautifully. They won me over when they released Brothers of the Highway in 2013. It’s a fantastic album, and it made me reconsider the one before it, Brothers from Different Mothers, which actually is pretty good too. When they came out with their tribute to the Statler Brothers I was enough of a fan to say, ok, that’s fine, it’s good for what it is.

This live album was recorded in Manassas, Virginia, but it comes, conceptually, straight out of Branson, MO. Glitter, rhinestones, bright lights, corny jokes. The instrumentation is way over the top, an orchestra adding soporific strings to four of the tracks, and soporific piano pretty much everywhere else. Their love for the Statlers is given another airing in “Elizabeth,” though other tracks are arranged to sound like the Statlers. “American Pride” is meant as a patriotic song, and it achieves it in the way that truck commercials do, by being artless and shallow. They play the same card in “Til They Come Home” about soldiers returning from overseas. People will applaud these songs because they’ll feel they have to, not necessarily because they want to. Dailey and Vincent are going for ovations through the easiest routes, and no doubt they’ll get them, though the applause will be as shallow as the songs.

It seems that they’ve got their sights on Vegas, and, clearly—and I think regrettably—they’re headed in the right direction. But if you’re a fan of bluegrass, and moved more by stories than by showmanship, you’re probably not going to be a fan of Alive! In Concert.

(Penguin Eggs, issue #66) The Honey Dewdrops (Laura Wortman and Kagey Parris) have been around for a while now, perhaps flying a bit below the radar. In that time, Laura’s cut her hair, Kagey’s grown his beard, and they’ve otherwise built their skills, their confidence, their attention to detail, and this year might just be their year. At Merlefest this past April their sets were enthusiastically embraced, and that enthusiasm was well placed: gorgeous harmonies, thrilling arrangements, and some remarkably insightful, honest writing to apply all of that to.

In interview, when they could be talking about themselves, or their songs, or business, or the drudgery of life on the road, they instead say things like this: “Touring is like collecting images of landscapes, sounds of voices, contents of stories, moods of places and environments. All of that can be useful. It tells you something about human nature, about how the world works, little by little.”

With this album, the Honey Dewdrops have truly defined their moment. If you’re not giving some attention to it, then you should be. Like, right now. Start with “Horses.” Let me know how it goes.

(KDHX) Folk music is a lot more like golf than you might think, were you ever to think this kind of thing. The more muscle you put into it, the more erratic your game becomes. You can’t force it. You need to set your grip, and your stance, and not mess with them. Keep your head down. Keep things economical; let the club do the work. You’re the fulcrum of a pendulum, not a hammer to a nail. There’s a difference, and it’s a big one. Good golfers know that.

Apparently, good musicians know that too. It’s that kind of trust and economy that really underlies this simply brilliant album from Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle. There is no muscle here. Instead, they find their grip on the song, give it the support that it needs from them, and then they trust the song to do the work. The darkness in songs like “Little Black Train” is there without us needing to underline it; it’s darker if we don’t.

That might sound simple, but it’s not. Economy can be terrifying. Playing a song that has only an A-part—no identifiable chorus, no bridge, not even a little turnaround in sight—brings its own unique challenges. There’s just very little to hold on to, and that’s where the terror comes in, one that makes lesser musicians start running for ornaments, flash, and complexity. It’s just easier to get an ovation with “Orange Blossom Special” than it is ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and that’s because monotony can feel like an ever-present risk.

But it’s that kind of negotiation, and the unflagging trust in the songs, that makes Anna and Elizabeth so breathtaking and so unique. “Orfeo” begins with a single voice over a drone of the uilleann pipes, and when the vocal part ends, there is a long drone before the pipes take up the melody. Stark as stark can be. Yet the result is mesmerizing. That drone in the middle is like a pause in conversation, one that many people would be compelled to fill, though here it is fearlessly left to stand alone. And it’s utterly powerful.

“Everything serves the voice and the story,” says Anna. “We try to be direct storytellers—to express these songs in a way that people of today can feel connected to. We aren’t trying to transport people to the past—rather we are trying to bring the past back into the room, bring history into our understanding of the present.”

There isn’t a note amiss here, and the arrangements are deceptively complex, as with the harmony entries and exits in “Father Neptune.” Yet, in a time when some bands present old-time music as camp, Anna and Elizabeth choose to bring forth the dignity in these songs, and it’s absolutely welcome. Like the Carter Family mounting the stage in their Sunday best, this album grants a respect to the harmonies, the tones, the instruments, the depth, and the ideas that drive these songs. “Voice from on High” is slower, more reverent here than most people would play it, as is “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me.” The result is something akin to hearing the songs for the first time. They bring the ideas forward, and with it the humanity behind them.

There are many comparisons to be made to another groundbreaking recording, Hazel and Alice, and I suspect some of them are intentional. Alice Gerrard sings on this recording, though her inclusion feels less like a cameo and more like a necessity. To find her here is as about as remarkable as finding her in her own living room.

If there is one roots album that will be selling better twenty years from now that it is right now, this is it. Albums like this don’t come along every day, or every year, or maybe even every decade. They are albums that are transformative, and that become a touchstone that later recordings invariably refer back to. This one is one of those.

(For Sing Out! magazine) I suspect that the Quebecois band Le Vent du Nord is unfamiliar to many in the English-speaking world. Which is too bad, because they are exceptionally skilled, exceptionally experienced, and exceptionally entertaining.

Since they formed in 2002, the band has been breathing new life into the traditional music of Quebec, often taking up some of the most traditional songs you could ever hope to find there. On their 2005 release, Les Amants du Saint-Laurent, they begin with the title track which, musically, is as much a statement about music historically in Quebec as it is about the band itself. The piece begins with the instruments that the Habitants would have played: a button box accordion, a mouth harp, a bodhran. As the piece advances, it’s like we’re coming forward in time, ultimately to electric instruments. It’s about the past, and it’s about the present, too. And it’s kind of thrilling the way it all plays out.

As there, this new album, Têtu, digs deep into the tradition and, again, it is presented as modern and vital. There’s a hurdy gurdy in here, and a mouth harp, and fiddles. There’s also a masterful approach to arrangement. “Petit reve IX” begins in a very traditional vein yet then expands to include complex harmonies, and a very rich, full arrangement that draws connections to the classical music of Europe. “La march des Iroquois/Papineau” does the same, though in a different way. Men’s voices in a drone harmony, singing non-sense syllables, accompanied by a bhodran. It sounds like a historical piece, something that might be sung over a round in a bar somewhere on the periphery of polite society. But then the harmonies grow, as does the counterpart, and you know that you’re here, now.

This is music that benefits from close listening, and a repeated listening. There’s something just, well, thrilling in the off-chords in a “D’ouest en est,” and the piano accompaniment, on that departs from the one/three accents we associate with eastern Canadian folk music, accenting rather in the way that a jazz pianist does. “Amant volage,” too, brings a jazz tradition to the music, yet in a wonderfully sympathetic way. The musicians here are not interested in building walls around the music they cherish, and they also are clear to locate themselves within the context of North American music today.

One of the things that I love about this recording, as with all the recordings that Le Vent du Nord have done, is that they clearly identify their audience as francophone. They are making this music for their community, and perhaps not thinking of the larger world of north American music, or the music industry that supports it. The notes are all in French, the only exception being a sentence or two describing each song in English. These descriptions are like found poetry, and can be as enigmatic as the capsule descriptions that Harry Smith wrote for the liner notes of his Anthology of American Folk Music. The description of “Chaise ardent,” on of the traditional tunes included here, reads, “Extreme curiosity drives the character to hell, literally, to see what has become of his lover.” The description of “Papineau” reads “After the Patriot’s War, an author took the liberty of changing the characters, probably to free himself of a political obsession.”

It sounds like curation, in a way, yet there’s always a wink or a nod or a bit of wisdom. The description of “Confédération” reads “A song about North-American French speakers who can often be forgetful. Perhaps they don’t recall their own existence.” Truly, that’s a message to us all. Le Vent du Nord reminds us that North America is perhaps a bigger, richer place than we my typically give it credit for.

by Glen Herbert

(For KDHX radio) There’s a scene in the first season of Nashville where Rayna James approaches a young rock producer to make her next album. She’s only written one song toward the project, but nevertheless, she’s more interested in her sound. She gets drunk, cuts a track at the hipster’s studio, and presents it to the CEO of her record label, who isn’t thrilled. Undaunted, she says, “this is my sound.” It’s a moment where she appears—and I realize that it’s written to be this way—defiant, confident, taking charge of her career by thumbing her nose at the bean counters.

Fine. But if I were the CEO I would have responded, “That’s your sound? Okay, but where are your songs?” She knows as well as he does that they haven’t been written yet. To be so fixated on sound, in the absence of content, seems a bit like an artist saying, “well, I don’t know what I’m going to paint, but it’s going to be red.”

Still, watching that scene between Rayna James and the producer, it’s easy to wonder if there was a similar interaction between Emmylou Harris and Daniel Lanois just prior to the creation of the Wrecking Ball album. I don’t suppose Lanois was resistant, but I think Harris’ desire was probably the same: to find a new sound. And she did. And, even now, she still hasn’t recovered from it.

The irony is that, in interview, Harris has said that her goal is to find her way back to the living room, that is, to what music was like before she was so much a part of the industry of music; a time when music was sitting around with friends, singing songs; a time when, I think we can infer, it was less about sound, or the electronic patina of a recording, than it was the content of the songs themselves. It wasn’t about sound, but heartache, loss, joy, friendship.

Indeed, Harris’ best work is when she is closest to that ideal, in recordings where she doesn’t rely only on the “sound”—using the term as Rayna James does—but trusts the content to get the message across. Listen, for example, to how she uses her voice on “Get Up John” or “Smoke Along the Track” from At the Ryman. It’s an understatement to say that she has a brilliant voice, and on those recordings she uses it to just to sing the songs, not to sell them or sell herself. There are none of the swallowed syllables, excessive vibrato, or breathed tones that characterize her later work. It’s not fair to compare her voice now to what it was thirty years ago, I realize, but again, I don’t think it’s about her voice—her voice has been remarkably consistent through the years—it’s rather about the choices she makes about how to apply it to a song. “Boulder to Birmingham,” “I’ll Go Stepping Too” everything on Roses in the Snow or Evangeline or Last Date—yes these recordings are from a long time ago, but they are also from a time when she clearly trusted the content, and it showed.  Those songs worked because she filled them with air, and then she let them go.

She can still do that, and we see glimpses of it from time to time. In 2002 she played Merlefest, as did all of the other members of the Nash Ramblers (though with other acts) the band she had with her for At the Ryman. Wrecking Ball had been out for seven years at that point, Red Dirt Girl for two, but it was the pre-Lanois voice and approach that flowed from the stage. She was having a blast, joking with Sam Bush about baseball, and she just sang the songs. It was, hands-down, the best performance I’ve ever seen from her.

The teaser and title track for this latest release—The Travelling Kind, a second album of duets with Rodney Crowel—suggested that it might be closer to that than she’s been in a long time. The track that ends the collection, “Le Danse de la Joie” is a broader arrangement, but it succeeds in the same way. Still, those two songs aren’t representative of the album as a whole. More typically, Harris forces the lyric, trying to put emotion into it rather than simply bringing forward the emotion that is already there. These songs are all very well written, after all, and expertly crafted and arranged. All she has to do is sing them, to trust them, and let the content do it’s work. As a demonstration, compare the entry of “Higher Mountains” or “Her Hair Was Red” on this recording with that of “Icy Blue Heart” from Bluebird. There, she stepped back; here, she steps forward, and in the process loses something. She wants these songs to sound mournful, and does it by sounding mournfully, which just becomes distracting. The breathed syllables on “No Memories Hanging Around” break the phrases where they shouldn’t be broken. She’s thinking too much about sound, not enough about the narrative.

The best moments on this recording, and there are more than a few of them, are when Crowell takes the lead vocal and Harris the harmony. She has always been an electrifying harmony singer, and it’s her presence on the two Trio albums, with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, that take the material from good to great. Here, “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Now” is a standout for exactly that reason—she supports Crowell, who happily lets the song speak for itself, the harmony beautifully supporting his ability to do so.

In any event, I’ve been hoping that Harris would find her way back the living room, and had hoped that this album might be it. Instead, it’s another indication that she could if she wanted to, but for whatever reason is choosing not to.

Update: Since I posted the review below, Jeff Place, an archivist at Smithsonian Folkways, was in touch to note that I’m confusing the Library of Congress Collections with those of the Smithsonian. “All the Lomax etc collections are at LOC, I drew from the much smaller Rinzler Archives at the Smithsonian, which is really Folkways and 12 other small labels.” Clearly, a very important distinction.

When I heard that Smithsonian Folkways was releasing a collection of classic American ballads, I was intrigued, maybe a bit excited, and also assumed that I would love it. Given that I’ve just said that, I guess it’s clear that the album is, at least in some ways, a disappointment.

Continue reading “Classic American Ballads from Smithsonian Folkways”

We read a lot of reviews in the popular press, be they for movies, or books, or music. And there was a time when we knew what they were for, or at least we thought we did.Continue reading “Your album sucks …”

(For Sing Out!) There is a recording of John Hartford in the studio giving direction to the musicians he’s gathered there. Whatever the song they were prepping – it may have been “Madison Tennessee” – he says, “this is not going to be a showstopper. I want to do this like it was ‘Brushy Fork of John’s Creek.’ I want it to be straight ahead, where it leads us to the music, and not tricky.”

It’s an idea that was central to Hartford’s career, or at least the later part of it: his performances relied entirely on the content, and his arrangements were careful ones, built to support the content, to lead us to the music. He felt that it wasn’t his job to promote the music so much as to hold it up, to turn it around, and to show it to us.

Jayme Stone is cut from the same musical cloth. He’s accomplished enough as a musician to stop a show, and to be tricky, but what makes his work so effective is that he doesn’t. Like Hartford, he trusts the content, is obviously excited by it and wants to share his excitement with us. Like a child bringing a grasshopper in from the yard saying, “Look at this!” He’s not interested in building a better grasshopper, rather he wants to bring the grasshopper to us so that we can see how cool it really is.

Stone’s latest release, the sprawling Lomax Project, is an excellent example of that impulse. Over the course of 19 tracks he pays tribute to song collector and musicologist Alan Lomax, who would have been 100 this year. Lomax has had more influence on folk and roots music than most of us know, and then some. Stone has gathered a fantastic group of musicians to survey all the corners of the musical world that, at one time or another, attracted Lomax’s attention, from the hollows of Appalachia to the Caribbean.

There are lots of very familiar songs here, though Stone writes that “the unexpected chemistry of collaboration [makes] music that’s informed by tradition but not bound to it.” It’s a fine balance, and you need to give yourself over to it a bit. Some songs, such as “Shenandoah” and “Goodbye Old Paint,” are so familiar that any adjustments can feel artificial or forced.

But, even if some things might work a bit better than others, it’s true that everything on this disc is interesting, and everything benefits from repeated listening. It doesn’t hurt that Stone is collaborating with some of the best, including Tim O’Brien, Bruce Molsky, Julian Lage, Margaret Glaspy and Brittany Haas. Molsky’s “Julie and Joe” is gorgeous, marrying two traditional tunes, “Julie Ann Johnson” and “Old Joe Clark,” the second done here in a minor key rather than the typical major, and drawing on a Cajun style of fiddling. It’s one of those tracks that you get stuck on, playing again and again.

Stone’s role, perhaps more than anything, is musical director, bringing together the kinds of musicians that share a vision of traditional music as alive, important, and beautiful, and with the kind of chops needed to show all of that to us. The variety of songs is wonderful, and the program includes an a capella call and response work song, “Sheep, Sheep don’t you Know the Road,” and a calypso piece, “Bury Boula for Me” featuring Drew Gonsalves. There’s a charming song, “T-I-M-O-T-H-Y” that apparently was collected by Lomax in the Dutch Antilles. It features Tim O’Brien and Moira Smiley. Did I say it was charming? When you listen to it, you’ll see what I mean.

There is a lot on this recording, and there is a lot in the package, too including two essays as well notes on each of the songs. All of it is absolutely welcome. Stone is the leader, but this isn’t a “banjo album.” Rather, it’s an album of beautiful, intriguing, thoughtful music coming from a collaboration of outstanding musicians who apply their talents together.

It was a big project to undertake, perhaps, and of a kind that we see less and less of these days. It’s an album with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It asks us, as listeners, to immerse ourselves in the idea of it all, and it rewards that attention as much as it captures it, leading us to the music, rather than pushing us to it. It’s something we may not be so familiar with these days: give and take.

This disc is an absolute, unbridled joy. Five musicians—two Finns, two Danes and one Brit—use the instruments and music of Scandinavia to, as far as I can tell, have about the best possible time you can ever think of having. A fair amount of traditional music, including jigs, polkas, fiddle tunes—there’s even a Schottische in here—is woven together with new material and new ideas and instrumentation, including bringing things like Northumberland pipes to the music of Italy, or hardanger fiddle to the music of England.

The band ranges across European music with an academic gaze—in the notes for “Menuet from Falster,” to give a typical example, they write that the piece “was written down in 1917 by a lady called Karen Suder and collected by local musician Rasmus Roxværd”—though the object, very clearly, is celebration not curation. There are at least as many exclamation points in the liner notes as there are umlauts, which is saying something (it looks like someone sneezed, what with all the dots).

In any event, these musicans’ spirit and their ability is infectious, poignant, and invigorating. Sometimes, especially in the world of folk music, we forget about the big wide world out there, or that irony and sarcasm aren’t the only serious emotions left to us. This disc is a breath of fresh air and a reminder that we aren’t alone. Apparently we’re surrounded by Scandinavians.

(For HVBA) This is the first thing that anyone will know about this album, so I’ll get it out of the way: Mac Wiseman is 89 years old. He’s old, even for bluegrass. In pop music terms, he’s ancient. There aren’t any pop musicians that we’ll be listening to when they are 89.

Age can be weakening, of course, or at least a gauge of what a performer has lost through the years. So many performers have pushed the envelope too far, such as B.B. King or Doc Watson, both of whom were placed on stage after the point they should have taken a pass and left us with the memory that both, sadly, didn’t have.

But, age is also a double-edged sword. It can take some things away, though it can add something, too. Like wisdom, or perspective. Joni Mitchell’s 2000 recording of “Both Sides Now” couldn’t be more different than the one she made in 1969: her voice is diminished by decades of smoking, the pace is slower, the accompaniment is strings rather than guitar. And it’s gut-wrenching in its beauty. Age, partly because we’re aware that this is a song she wrote when young and is now singing as a senior, adds a poignancy that is, in a word, remarkable. At an age when most pop stars have retired, she delivered a performance that we’d simply be poorer without.

Wiseman, with this recording, Songs from my Mother’s Hand, has shown himself to be in that same category. His instrument isn’t what it was in the 50s and 60s, but it’s not a question of quality, it’s just a different instrument. His voice at 89 is an important one, and he is using it to tell some stories that he likely couldn’t have told before, or at least not told as well.

The songs he presents here foreshadow that: they are all songs that his mother copied down in a series of notebooks from listening to them on the radio. She collected the songs in order to play them, and Wiseman, understandably, treasures those notebooks today. They are songs about life and death, poverty and uncertainty, faith and doubt.

Some of these are songs that he’s recorded before, and comparing this recording to the earlier one is telling. His earlier recording of “Little Rosewood Casket” is more confident, cleaner, perhaps slicker. The one on this album is better, more honest. It’s rougher, but age makes it a clearer reflection of what the song is about: reflecting, and comforting those who will be left behind.

It’s not all sad, and he takes a lovely romp through “Old Rattler” and “Blue Ridge Mountain Blues.” But it’s the ballads—and this album is rightly and understandably weighted toward the ballad end of the spectrum—that really grab our attention through their poignancy. The tear-jerker “Put my Little Shoes Away” could easily become morose, but Wiseman of course knows what he’s doing, and navigates the song expertly, steering it toward meaning and thoughtfulness rather than, well, not.

The musicianship here is gorgeous, though a standout is perhaps his duet with Sierra Hull, “You’re a Flower that is Blooming in the Wildwood.” Hull’s mandolin is so tasteful, so supportive, that you simply get lost within it. No hot licks, just a wonderful support to a wonderful song. Her harmony vocals are cut from the same cloth.

Songs From My Mother’s Hand will prove to be an important one in the scope of Wiseman’s work, though we needn’t think of it that way. It’s just a beautiful album that tells some stories, expresses some ideas, and we’d be poorer without it.