Maurice Hope – August 2, 2016 at 12:38PM
Tags:_AMERICANA
Here we have a duo that make real bluegrass music, and with ace pickers Randy Kohrs (Dobro), Mark Fain (bass), Tim Crouch (fiddle, mandolin) and Mark Sumner (banjo) in support of their sublime harmony vocals and warmly textured lead vocals the listener is in for a treat.
Recorded at the Slack Key Studio in Nashville, and produced by Sumner the duos latest edition (The Road That Brings You Home, 2014 been the last) of down home story-telling style of bluegrass brings a feel of rural, back porch and old-fashioned family values to the table. Jim provides a rich story-telling style of lead vocal; ever warm he brings the lyrics to life. He is not alone on that score either for Lynna takes over on free as the wind, banjo, Dobro and fiddle driven “Yesterday”. While of a mellow feel she recalls olden times, and how her mother on falling victim of Alzheimer’s would ask what time the train was due hence the song “Last Train Out”.
Southern Indiana-based Jim and Lynna songwriting is aided by co-writes with Craig Market, John Pennell, Nancy Beaudette and Kerry Kurt Phillips. As a bonus Market (harmony vocals on “Just Like Me”), Pennell (bass on a particularly strong “Give Me Back Tomorrow”) and John and Jeremy of The Chapmans add vocals to a song they recorded, “Notes From Home” (a beautiful reflective affair doused in dobro and banjo the soulful lyrics pour like water from a faucet) drop by to give the album a little more body. As if it were needed.
On making fun of rural America, and a generous slice of humour James Woolsey chimes in with “Pike County Blues”. Of a more serious note “Freedom” is a tribute to all the war veterans, and those still missing, and how they are not forgotten. To close the album James performs a song of faith. A subject close to his heart for more than one reason comes by way of the understated sensitive “Expectations”. Not least among its virtues you have the exquisite Dobro, fiddle, mandolin and bass.
Maurice Hope
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