Adam Steffey
One More for the Road
Sugar Hill Records
4 stars (out of 5)

Chris Thile won the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Mandolin Player of the Year Award in 2001, breaking a string of eight years in which Ronnie McCoury won the award. A year later, Adam Steffey, a veteran of Alison Krauss’ Union Station then with The Isaacs, won the award and kept it for six out of seven years.

Whereas Thile’s playing is out-of-this-world and not at all bounded by the conventions of bluegrass music and McCoury’s playing is bluesy and biting, Steffey’s is clean, bright and always groove-inducing, making him perhaps the prototypical modern bluegrass mandolinist.

Steffey’s sophomore solo CD shows off that signature sound in settings that include fellow award-winning or all-star pickers like Clay Hess and Dan Tyminski on guitar, Barry Bales on upright bass, Stuart Duncan on fiddle and Ron Block on banjo.

The wide-open, insistent “Deep Rough” evokes a crisp Saturday morning on the golf course, while the Celtic-inflected “Durang’s Hornpipe” benefits from the old-time banjo picking of Adam’s wife Tina Steffey. “Half Past Four” and “Barnyard Playboy” will underscore the reason why it’s hard not to use a variant of the word “groove” more than once when discussing the Steffey style.

Steffey’s deep baritone voice makes its first appearance on the 3 a.m. lament of the brooding title track and shows its versatility on Red Allen’s old school “Lie to Me.” Mark Rader’s “A Broken Heart Keeps Beatin’” and Steffey’s self-penned “What Give You the Right” are — here’s that word again — groove-heavy workouts that fit his voice perfectly, and Ron Block’s “Trusting in Jesus” injects a welcome bit of gospel into the proceedings.

That would be almost enough for a good album, but the disc’s 12-track, 37-minute roster  is rounded out by three stellar vocal cameos: Tyminski leads a raucous “Let Me Fall,” Ronnie Bowman nails Kris Kristofferson’s “Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends” with a performance that would make George Jones proud, and Alison Krauss turns in another classic guest appearance with the stunning “Warm Kentucky Sunshine.”

by Aaron Keith Harris

Hagar’s Mountain Boys
Forever Yours
No label
3 stars (out of 5)

We first saw The Hagar’s Mountain Boys, in one of their very first performances, at the Rivertown Bluegrass Society in Conway, SC about four years ago. At that time they were raw, just beginning to feel their way into becoming a band. A year or so ago, at the Willow Oak Bluegrass Festival in Roxboro, NC they were schedule for six sets over three days. This heavy duty schedule stretched their repertoire and their voices to the breaking point. Nevertheless, their work showed an increased maturity of vision as well as vastly improved performances and musicality. The addition of Blake Johnson on vocals added significant talent to their sound.

Now, with the release of their new CD Forever Yours, under the guidance of founder and front man Ricky Stroud has produced a fine, traditional bluegrass album that should have broad appeal.

Produced by Jason Moore , Mountain Heart bassist, Forever Yours offers four originals, one penned by Blake Johnson and the others carefully selected, as well as several appropriate covers that span the bluegrass waterfront pretty well. Except for the appearance of Jim Van Cleve on fiddle, the present recording displays the talents and skills of the band you’d see and hear at bluegrass festivals or other performances.

As news of this young band gets around, they are being seen more widely, including an appearance in Florida this winter. The tempos and strong rhythm the band generates captures the excitement of traditional bluegrass with most songs having been written fairly recently.

Blake Johnson shows a first class high baritone bluegrass voice with good timbre and plenty of soulfulness, communicating emotion and commitment to the song. It’s an honest and strait forward voice that’s easy to listen to and rewarding. His range of emotion and ability to sell content adds a fresh dimension to the genre. His singing on Travis Tritt’s “Anymore” reaches out to a listeners heart. He does a creditable job on bass.

Ricky Stroud plays solid and tasteful mandolin as well as contributing a good lead on one song. His harmonies are dead on and he’s to be commended for having the humility, as the band’s founder and front man, to leave the heavy vocal lifting to the very talented Johnson.

Mike Johnson, Blake’s father and the band’s guitarist, contributes three leads and offers solid harmonies. The band shows its musical versatility on the traditional a capella gospel song “Lord, Don’t Leave Me Here,” Cliff Smith on banjo offers capable work along with good vocal harmonies.

Forever Yours is a very pleasing effort by the Hagar’s Mountain Boys. It has been released on a private label, and can be obtained from the HMB Web site. Steve Gulley wrote the liner notes. This CD presents a refreshing new band in a good light. It’s worth your attention.

by Ted Lehmann

The Claire Lynch Band
Whatcha Gonna Do
Rounder Records
4 Stars (out of 5)

Claire Lynch’s new CD on Rounder Records, Whatcha Gonna Do, falls comfortably into the realm of Americana, its bluegrass, country, folk, blues, and jazz roots showing clearly through in a delightful collection of mostly new songs.

She presents a set of twelve songs each chosen to show off her light, friendly, and emotionally subtle voice and the musical versatility of her very fine band. As befits a band whose members have already won five IBMA individual awards and are nominated for an additional two in 2009, the band demonstrates musical depth and variety with plenty of melody and versatility.

Lynch builds on her bluegrass and acoustic roots to create an album worth repeated listening and thoughtful appreciation. With a train song, a mine song, a couple of road songs, some light gospel, and an appreciation for rural life and values, Whatcha Gonna Do fits easily and comfortably within the bluegrass world while offering lots of opportunities for lovers of other genres to discover and appreciate Lynch’s musical vision.

Lynch has either written herself or co-written four of the songs in this collection. “Highway” is a women’s road song that celebrates re-discovering one’s self worth on the endless road. “Face to Face” (co-writteen with Donna Ulisse) is a light and hopeful gospel song. “Widow’s Weeds” provides and old-timey sound and feel while lamenting continued mourning for a lost husband. In the last cut on the recording, Lynch celebrates the dark loneliness of the deep southern woods in a song called “Woods of Sipsey” dedicated to her grandmother.

The CD makes the obligatory nod to Bill Monroe in “My Florida Sunshine,” one of Monroe’s more forgettable, though tuneful, songs. For me, “Barbed Wire Boys” and “Great Day in the Mornin’” are among the highlights. Singer songwriter Jesse Winchester makes a guest appearance; otherwise the band for the CD is Lynch’s road band.

With the versatile and virtuoso playing of Jim Hurst on acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, and, in one cut, mandolin, and Mark Schatz’s always impressive work on bass, the CD does not lack for strong instrumental play. Jason Thomas on fiddle and mandolin, although less known than the others, is impressive in his work here. Lynch’s voice is flexible and engaging, and the harmony vocals contributed by Hurst and Thomas are unobtrusive, while making the appropriate contributions.

While Whatcha Gonna Do may not appeal to hard core traditional bluegrass music fans, its broader appeal is undeniable. It fits neatly into the progress of her music. People who attend Lynch concerts will see and hear the band on the recording, a good feature, and will find the recording an excellent representation of her live performances. The CD is easy to listen to, but not easy listenin’. It’s worth buying and adding to any collection.

by Ted Lehmann

Ricky Skaggs
Solo: Songs My Dad Loved
Skaggs Family Records
4 stars (out of 5)

When Skaggs returned to bluegrass music after a highly succesful career in the country field, he kept Kentucky Thunder as the name of his band. Even though the personnel has changed, his use of the band setting to showcase his own virtuosity, as well as that of his elite sidemen, has not changed. Until now.

On this loving tribute to his father, Skaggs plays a number of instruments – acoustic guitar, resonator guitar, round hole and f-hole mandolins, mandocello, octave mandolin, steel-string and gut-string fretless banjos, fiddle, piano, bass, Danelectro electric baritone guitar and percussion – achieving a simplicity and intimacy over 13 tracks and 40 minutes approaching that on Skaggs’ masterpiece duet album with Tony Rice.

Fred Rose’s “Foggy River,” with its loping rhythm and effortless vocals, serves as a great tone-setter for the set. It’s followed by “What is a Home Without Love?,” one of two Monroe Brothers tunes — the other being “This World is Not My Home” — that play to Skaggs’ strengths as a harmony singer and honor the fact that Hobart Skaggs played in a similar duo with his brother Okel before Okel died in World War II.

Skaggs includes three instrumentals here and each is a pleasant surprise: “Colonel Prentiss,” with some great, greasy old-time fiddlin’, the sprightly drop-thumb banjo workout “Pickin’ in Caroline,” and “Calloway,” a nice and easy fiddle and banjo tune.

Roy Acuff’s “Branded Wherever I Go” and a Stanley-inspired take on “Little Maggie” get a straightforward treatment from Skaggs’ signature tenor voice, while the novelty song “I Had But 50 Cents” Skaggs sings with a twinkle in his eye.

It’s no surprise that Skaggs connects most viscerally with the gospel material: the gently menacing “Sinners, You Better Get Ready,” a retelling of Pslam 23 “Green Pastures in the Sky,” the call-and-response “God Holds the Future in His Hands” and “City That Lies Foursquare,” on which Skaggs’ keen embodies the yearning for Heaven.

by Aaron Keith Harris

Red Molly
Love and Other Tragedies
Red Molly
4 stars (out of 5)

Red Molly is an all-female trio of very talented folks based out of Stony Point, N.Y. that have put together an extremely entertaining project called Love and Other Tragedies.

Although this CD isn’t exactly in my musical wheelhouse it is an excellent project with great use of vocal harmonies as well as a good variety of material ranging from Melissa Monroe’s “Is the Blue Moon Still Shining” to Gillian Welch’s “Wichita”.

Five of the thirteen songs on this project were written by band members Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner and Carolann Solebello and they stand up well along side songs written by other, more recognized songwriters. As singers, these ladies show that they can handle up tempo tunes as well as slow contemplative ballads with equal ease.

The ladies are ably accompanied on this project by Jake Armerding on fiddle, Duke Levine on mandola and electric guitar and lap steel, and Mike Weatherly on bass, with some vocal help from Anthony da Costa, Fred Gillen Jr. and Steve Kirkman.

“Wichita” is an excellent song to open the CD as it shows the difference between the use of mandola as opposed to mandolin. The mandola is a much more weighty instrument and gives the whole CD a darker tone with much more low end.

“Beaumont Rest Stop,” written by Laurie MacAllister, is all about leaving home when you really don’t want to and coming home when you have to. “The Mind Of A Soldier,” written by Abbie Gardner is a ballad of longing for the soldier gone to war and the need for a man, hopefully the right one.

“Summertime” is Carolann Solebello’s contribution to the songwriting aspect of the CD and is a reflection on home and the simple life as opposed to something more complicated.

Melissa Monroe’s “Is the Blue Moon Still Shining” has a Laurie Lewis-like sound to it, which isn’t a bad thing at all. The Dobro is particularly effective in this piece and the harmonies make for a very smooth presentation.

“Honey on My Grave” is another Abbie Gardner written song and, to mind, speaks of getting earned respect.

“Old Dancin’ Fool” is an old fashioned waltz type tune that has a nice flow and the laziness  of it all is very relaxing, with the song suggesting that we “close our eyes and hold to each other” and everything will be OK.

“Sentimental Gentleman from Georgia” is a strong swing tune with a bluesy turn that makes good use of vocals and the mandola fits it very well.

“Wayfaring Stranger” is traditional song that has been arranged a hundred different ways but this arrangement, although not a lot different from most, has a haunting sound with the mandolin backed by the lap steel and fiddle.

“This Farm Needs A Man,” written by Laurie MacAllister is all about the trials and tribulations of men gone off to war and the woman doing the “best I can” under the circumstances.

“Make Me Lonely Again” is about the plight of the wallflower who finds a mate and wishes that she could return to the wallflower life where she was happily lonely and didn’t realize it.

“Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” is a very old song that may have been first recorded by Rev. Gary Davis. In the bluegrass genre it is probably best know by Hot Rize ,but Red Molly does a credible job in keeping the lamp trimmed and burning in anticipation of the returning of the Lord.

“May I Suggest” is an a cappella number that is an apt ending to the CD as it features the honey sweet vocals of Red Molly.

All in all this is a very strong performance and certainly deserves a listen. A solid four stars out of five.

by Charlie W. Hansen

Dailey & Vincent
Brothers from Different Mothers
Rounder Records
5 stars (out of 5)

Every once in a while, an album comes out that reminds me why I first fell in love with bluegrass music: the soaring, tight harmonies, the sense of fun in seeing how much you can do within the limits of the genre, and, of course, a driving banjo.

Dailey & Vincent’s eponymous debut album did that for me, and their sophomore album Brothers from Different Mothers does it again, staying mostly within the formula that worked last time, but reaching for, and grabbing, that little bit extra that keeps it fresh and eminently exciting.

Joe Dean Jr.’s banjo kicking off “Head Hung Down” signals that the energy meter is set to 10 right off the bat, with the vocal trio of Jamie Dailey (guitar), Darrin Vincent (mandolin, arch-top guitar and bass) and baritone Jeff Parker (mandolin) clearly in fighting shape.

That’s even more evident on the next track, Roger Miller’s “You Ought to Be Here with Me,” which features a gorgeous high-lead trio on the verses and a stratospheric tenor line that Dailey hits on the chorus.

“Your Love is Like a Flower” isn’t the Flatt & Scruggs hit of the same name, but a quick-stepping showcase for Vincent’s lead vocals on the verse and for the duo’s brother-style harmonies on the chorus.

The brother duet is back on the gospel of “When I’ve Travelled My Last Mile,” with an arrangement that recalls their stellar performance on Gillian Welch’s “By the Mark” on the last album.

“Years Ago” is a cover of the Statler Brothers’ 1982 country hit about a guy slinking into his ex’s wedding, and an unabashed tribute to that group’s southern gospel sound, driven by a Scruggs-style guitar figure, some light percussion and, again, those amazing harmonies.

Next is another Statler Brothers tune, “There is You,”a happy duet that morphs into a trio on the choruses and ends with an understated southern gospel crescendo.

The boys get back to straight bluegrass with “Girl in the Valley,” a Dailey-penned song that he previously recorded with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver.

Ron Spears’ “Please Don’t Let Our Sweet Love Die” is another modern update of a classic bluegrass song, this time in the form of a country weeper with Dailey offering proof that he’s every bit as great when singing a simple lead as when he’s harmonizing.

Sometimes gospel numbers take the momentum away from an album, but the opposite is true here, with “Oh Ye Must Be Born Again” and “When I Reach that Home Up There” serving as opportunities for more great southern gospel-style harmonies and demonstrating the band’s obvious love for the message of that sort of material.

In between those two powerhouses, lies a simple, perfect take on Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ lonesome, yet hopeful, “Winter’s Come and Gone.”

A modern gospel tune framed with simple guitar and a string quartet, “On the Other Side” closes the album on a sentimental note, one that took me a few listens to get used to given its difference from the rest of this project, but in the end, it was — again — the perfect harmonies that won me over.

This one’s easily my favorite bluegrass release of 2009.

by Aaron Keith Harris

David Davis & the Warrior River Boys
Two Dimes & a Nickel
Rebel Records
5 stars (out of 5)

A true bluegrass gentleman, David Davis doesn’t release albums terribly often. But when he does…Wow!

Since taking control of The Warrior River Boys more than twenty years ago, and including this new Rebel recording, Davis has only released five albums of new material. That this is the third release in just over five years would indicate that Davis may have found his stride.

A David Davis & the Warrior River Boys album sounds like no one else’s. While certainly commercially palatable, Davis occupies a fine niche within the bluegrass market. He doesn’t seem to have the populist appeal of a Skaggs, Cherryholmes, Lawson, or Vincent, but he possesses an artistic vision as defined and assured as any of those mentioned.

David Davis albums have a bluesy, literary quality setting them apart from the annual releases of several more commercially successful artists. Witness his 2004 treatment of Bill Grant’s “In the Shade of the Big Buffalo” or “Chancellorsville” and “The River Ran Black” from 2006’s Troubled Times. To give them their proper due, Davis albums should come leather-bound as is afforded the finest classic writing. Like those of Blue Highway, Davis releases have substance balanced by cracking good performances.

That Davis writes none of the songs on Two Dimes & a Nickel matters not; the man works tirelessly to uncover songs of unusual quality, and then interprets them to best reveal their stories, emotions, and messages.

As he has in the past, Davis turns to West Virginian Alan Johnston for standout songs. Just when one thought the John Hardy story had been examined from every possible slant, along comes Johnston’s “Two Dimes & a Nickel” revealing a fully realized, multi-dimensional man, albeit one with anger-management issues.

The album’s strongest track is Tommy Freeman’s “The Brambles, Briars and Me.” Again, a seemingly exhausted vein — infidelity leading to lonely contemplation — is explored, but the songwriter finds fresh perspective. A flipside to “Long Black Veil,” this time out the best friend and the straying wife pay the ultimate price at the hands of the cuckold. Stalking the hills, the betrayed spends time among the brambles and briars remembering not only their transgressions but what he lost as a result. The song is positively spooky in its matter-of-factness, and the Warrior River Boys — especially Owen Saunders’ fiddle contributions — make it haunting.

David Davis brings to mind Buzz Busby as Davis tends investigate the dark sides of relationships and society, exploring the qualities most of us resist or keep hidden.

Like the best of Johnny Cash’s recorded material, Davis’s songs possess a cinematic scope. Thematically similar, Freeman’s “Tennessee Line,” Jim Eanes’s “Broken Promise,” and Jim Kelly’s “Never Looking Back” are fully-realized treatments that could provide inspiration to filmmakers. While very different from John R. in voice, Davis frequently favors a half-spoken singing style reminiscent of the Man in Black.

Ensuring familiarity, the band hauls out a couple festival favorites in “I’ve Been All Around this World”  and “The Train That Carried My Girl to Town.” “Never Looking Back” could be a song written in 1964, so straightforward it is in its approach. Yet the song never seems to resort cliché, even as the rambler compares life to a railroad.

Whenever a bluegrass band illuminates the mountain music roots of a rock song, one must be impressed. The Marshall Tucker Band’s “Blue Ridge Mountain Skies” is re-imagined and sounds more bluegrass than much currently resting on the national surveys. The lyrical phrases are compacted befitting the chosen tempo, and the instrumental breaks are elongated allowing the banjo and mandolin to breath life into the tune. It’s fresh, vibrant, and inventive.

The same can be said for the entire album. Once again, David Davis and his Warrior River Boys —  Saunders, Adam Duke (guitar), Marty Hayes (bass and tenor vocals), and newcomer Robert Montgomery (banjo and baritone vocals) — have ideally captured their truly unique approach to bluegrass.

Kudos to the Rebel team, and artistic director Christopher Kornmann, for encouraging and designing a album package and booklet that have timeless qualities. The photography captures the reflective moods of the songs, the layout is clean, and the effects are appropriate for a nontraditional-sounding bluegrass album that embraces the history and spirit of the music.

A classic recording.

by Donald Teplyske

Mac Wiseman
Bluegrass Hits and Heartsongs
Rebel Records
4 stars (out of 5)

Though he has grabbed some of the spotlight in recording with Del McCoury and Doc Watson (Mac, Doc & Del, 1998) and John Prine (Standard Songs for Average People, 2007), Mac Wiseman remains one of the lesser-appreciated founding fathers of bluegrass music. This is partly because, as Jon Weisberger points out in the liner notes to this attractively packaged product, his best-known recordings from the early 1950s were for Dot Records, which went under and thus did not keep Wiseman’s work in print.

About 20 years after those Dot Recordings, Wiseman went into the studio for Vetco Records to re-record some of those hits and to finally commit to wax other songs that had become a part of his stage repertoire. This 14-track, 38-minute collection is taken from the two LPs that resulted from those sessions, which included Billy Edwards on banjo, Buddy Griffin on fiddle and autoharp, John Palmer on bass, Tater Tate on fiddle, Jeff Terflinger on mandolin and Tommy Boyd on Dobro.

Just a few bars into the opener “My Little Home in Tennessee,” it’s easy to see why deejays everywhere refer to Wiseman’s as “the voice with a heart.” Not the bluegrass requisite “high, lonesome” by any means, that voice is more of a sentimental crooner’s, yet it works, even on upbeat, twin-fiddled banjo-driven songs, probably just because of that intangible “heart” that Wiseman always projects. Just listen to “Don’t Let Your Sweet Love Die” and how he holds out the note on that initial “tears,” or the word “Heaven” on “I Haven’t Got the Right to Love You,” or the easy intensity of “Four Walls Around Me.”

As good as those performances are, Wiseman is simply devastating on more emotional material like “When the Roses Bloom Again,” “Mary of the Wild Moor,” “The Letter Edged in Black,” and “Knoxville Girl,” a murder ballad made truly terrifying by the sweetness of Wiseman’s delivery. Even a tune like “Reveille Time in Heaven,” which could easily be too maudlin, sounds sincere coming from Wiseman.

This collection admirably serves as both a solid introduction to Wiseman’s body of work and as a snapshot of him at the height of his vocal powers. The only thing wrong with it is that it’s too short.

by Aaron Keith Harris

Lou Reid & Carolina
My Own Set of Rules
Rural Rhythm Records
4.5 stars (out of 5)

It has been four years since the last release from Lou Reid & Carolina, 2005’s excellent Time. Unlike that star-studded album, My Own Set of Rules features the touring line-up of Carolina augmented by only guest fiddler Ron Stewart. The result is a cohesive, focused presentation of traditionally-rooted but thoroughly modern bluegrass.

The lineup of Carolina has remained quite stable in the interim. Fronted by bluegrass and country music veteran Lou Reid (Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Ricky Skaggs, Seldom Scene) on mandolin, Trevor Watson continues as the resident 5-stringer. Mrs. Reid — Christy — has moved to the bass position with Lonesome River Band alumnus Shannon Slaughter taking over the guitar position while also providing outstanding vocal harmony.

The addition of Slaughter, one of bluegrass music’s under-valued voices, is a boon for Reid and Carolina. Slaughter has a distinctive baritone voice that moves down to bass and up to tenor throughout the project. Taking only a single lead spot, on his own “Blue Ridge Girl,” Slaughter is a nice complement to Reid’s tenor, especially on mid-tempo tracks such as “Picture Me There.”

While many contemporary bluegrass instrumentals serve as little more than digital filler, Watson’s “Beat the Train” is not only a lively banjo and fiddle showcase, the song has a couple changes of pace that sustain interest. Slaughter’s guitar break is impressive while Stewart’s signature fiddling imprints the tune in the listener’s consciousness.

The album contains several songs of a gospel nature.

A song from 2009 MerleFest/Chris Austin Songwriting Contest winner Dennis Duff, “Daddy Tried,” provides both the faith- and family-based sentiments largely required from bluegrass albums. While the message and even arrangement is familiar, the band’s restrained execution and Reid’s controlled delivery maintain the song’s integrity. Especially impressive within this number is the tone Stewart achieves, working with the voices of the singers to create a fiddle sound that approaches perfection.

The a cappella “It’s Hard to Stumble (When You’re Down on Your Knees)” features a quartet arrangement that is quite unlike anything I can recall hearing on a bluegrass album, and clearly delivers the message that this edition of Lou Reid & Carolina are not afraid of risk-taking. The result is a remarkably crafted and memorable vocal treatment of another Slaughter original.

The recently popular southern gospel tune “John in the Jordan” features a four-part harmony on the chorus that is as pleasing as every other element of the disc.

The lively tune “Left Handed Dreamer” gives the album its title: “My own set of rules seem to keep me on the inside, chasing after some elusive dream.” A free-spirited ode, the song captures the essence of this album: take life as it comes, and hit the road again tomorrow!

Christy Reid’s vocal harmony contributions add a different sound to the band, a softer but lively female presence that is not only appealing but very effective.

Perhaps what is most remarkable about the strength of My Own Set of Rules is that it has been executed while Reid continues as a member of the bluegrass super-groups Longview and the Seldom Scene. While those outfits record and tour sporadically, more than one bluegrass performer has seen his career sidetracked by attempting to spread himself too thinly. This disc contains no evidence that Reid is in any danger of succumbing to such a fate.

A high-quality bluegrass album, My Own Set of Rules demonstrates that Lou Reid & Carolina remain one of the finest outfits on the circuit.

by Donald Teplyske

Heather Berry & Tony
Before Bluegrass
Blue Circle Records
3.5 stars (out of 5)

Having just received this 2008 release, I am a bit embarrassed that such a bounty managed to pass me by for over a year.

Relatively unheralded, Before Bluegrass is an impressive and worthwhile collection of mountain parlor music of interest to those who yearn for the sounds of a much earlier and seemingly simpler time.

Heather Berry’s voice has been included on the most recent Daughters of Bluegrass projects and she has been leading her own group for almost a decade. Her husband Tony Mabe is a North Carolina native who has played with the Jeanette Williams Band. Both only 21 years of age, this is their first project together.

The duo trade off three instruments — guitar, banjo, and autoharp — with no song featuring more than two of these. The album was recorded off the floor, and no punch-ins, vocal tweaking, or overdubbing were included. As a result, the album radiates a warmth and simplicity that allows the listener to picture the couple performing only for them.

Given its thesis of presenting music that predates bluegrass — recalling the Carter Family and Monroe Brothers — the banjo is played clawhammer style, and provides a rhythm that drives the melody on songs such as “Scissors and Paper” and “Creecy Greens.” The autoharp selections are wonderfully presented, a lovely contrast to the guitar playing that accompanies it.

Throughout the album, including on “When the Sun Comes Out Again,” it appears that one is listening to a guitar player of greater renown that Tony Mabe.  The picking on “None For Me But You” and “A Prisoner’s Prayer” is most impressive.

The majority of the songs come from the prolific imaginations of Dixie and Tom T. Hall, and almost all contain sentiment and structures that could easily have been written in the 1800s. “Hazel Creek” has the couple trading off verses “Mockingbird” fashion, while “Hound Dog Blues” could be pulled from a Charlie Poole or Dock Boggs side.

“Can You Hear Me Now” was previously featured on Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver’s 2007 release More Behind the Picture than the Wall, and has a well-executed, challenging country harmony. The song benefits from the female perspective of this rendition.

Heather and Tony have included three songs of their own, and these stand unabashedly alongside those crafted by the far more experienced Halls. The strongest of these tracks is “Public Enemy Number One,” which reflects on the impact of choices made when one falls for a career criminal, in this case John Dillinger.

While decidedly not a bluegrass album, there is no reason why those who appreciate bluegrass music would not enjoy Before Bluegrass. It is a wonderfully executed celebration of pre-war country music, played and sang with clarity and passion.

by Donald Teplyske