The Best Albums of 2017

This year's records were so good that even I didn't know which way this was going to go until the bitter end. It seems that real country has a fighting chance, real blues is still alive, and Europe cares deeply about what's going on here in America -- so deeply that their art reflected their concern in unsettling ways.

That said, let's get to it.

9. Midland, On the Rocks: The rap on these guys is that their brand of country has an authenticity problem, which is funny for an industry that bestows its highest accolades on guys who do bad Gregg Allman imitations for millennials.

I hear echoes (no, waves) of Keith Whitley (the really good stuff before he left J.D. Crowe and The New South), Glen Campbell, and George Strait.

If there's routine pop with a twang here, blame it on a record company and a willing producer; you don't sing and pick like this if you want to be the next big thing in bro country. Nashville desperately needs these sounds. If music like this is the way back to real, so be it.

8. The Medlars, The Medlars: The contrast is so jarring it's almost unbearable: a delicate, pastoral setting sketched out with banjo, cello, flute, and doleful horns. And then, that voice -- big, brassy, untutored, and raw, singing the harsh realities and rough-hewn joys of English country life.
The pentatonic scale hasn't had a workout this vigorous since the heyday of traditional bluegrass.

7. Karen and the Sorrows, The Narrow Place: There are echoes here of modern country, and Tom Petty's country rock, circa 1980s. Karen Pittelman's vocals take some getting used to. Even so, she reveals herself to be an able writer of tunes that fogies like me still call "real country music".

If you're in a bluegrass or classic country outfit, and you're not thinking of covering one of these songs, you're doing it wrong.

6. Gregg Allman, Southern Blood: Much was made of the fact that Gregg Allman was dying as he recorded this, his final album. In one sense, this was as it should have been; the physical effort alone made him a tragic, heroic figure.

In another sense, that narrative couldn't have been more wrong. At his best, Gregg Allman always sang this kind of music, with precisely this level of world-weary desperation. If we lost anything when he passed, it was the crucial presence of the down-and-out in popular music.

5. Eric Bibb, Migration Blues: A singer and picker of uncommon subtlety and skill, Eric Bibb grabs a listener's attention from the first hushed and urgent notes. Like all true blues people, he has a heart for the oppressed and forgotten, and he's at his best when he's bringing equally-marginalized music, like blues and gospel, to the fore.

This is the kind of music for which the NEA was founded, and for which, so many plutocrats would like to shut its doors. It's no accident that our country was a lot kinder when music like this actively influenced the music in the Top 40.

4. I'm With Her, Little Lies: Separately, I'm With Her got their start in progressive bluegrass bands like Crooked Still and Nickel Creek, but the drive, instrumentation, intensity, chops, and even some of the repertoire on display here have more in common with high-octane traditional grass.

That said, the trio handles contemporary fare with equal skill. This is a band of tremendous versatility; in that, they remind me of the classic Seldom Scene. Next year promises a full CD from them, and I can't wait.

3. Offa Rex, The Queen of Hearts: Although you'll hear strains of Pentangle, Steeleye Span, and Fairport Convention here, with their debut album, Offa Rex has created a sound that's lush, textured, entirely unique, and instantly identifiable as their own.

A collaboration between American indie faves, The Decemberists, and English folk singer, Olivia Chaney, Rex shines brightest when classically-trained Chaney handles the vocals. Decemberists frontman, Colin Meloy, lacks the diction and drive to pull this singing style off, but makes up the lack with crunchy guitar work that sometimes verges into early Black Sabbath territory. Bonus: A cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" that restores the song to its folk roots.

2. Brian Owens, Soul of Cash: With this CD, soul crooner, Brian Owens, gives the music of Johnny Cash a stoned soul makeover, and gives us the album the world has been waiting for since 1962, when Ray Charles released Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music.

The songs are entirely familiar, yet completely reconstructed. There's not a predictable moment on the record, so it's impossible to choose highlights. The closing track, initially disappointing because it's not a Cash tune, serves as Owens' raison d'être for anyone who, in these polarized times, wonders why he bothered.

1. Judy Dyble and Andy Lewis, Summer Dancing: It's been said that crisis reveals character, and any casual observer of current events has seen character revealed in surprising ways since Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States.

What I didn't expect was the way character was revealed in ... home design.

Ikea teamed with Hay Designs for rooms that looked like kindergarten classrooms doing double duty as funeral homes. Liberty of London's noisy-scary florals with their goth backgrounds and muddy, clashing colors brought Maurice Sendak kicking and screaming into the Donald Trump era.

There were black houses, and black rooms -- the kind of places that might have inspired this record of sun-dappled nightmares.

Art is the first world's great escape, but Dyble and Lewis won't stand for it. They insist that adult problems be faced in an adult way, which usually means they're never quite solved.

Yet, in Dyble and Lewis's psychedelic world, as in the real one, dew still sparkles on the grass. The sun still shines. We still get our silly moments after nights without sleep, and those casually-vicious betrayals that add up. All aspiring adults must face the fact that it's never either/or, but both/and -- both climate change and Summer Dancing.

Dave Evans: Pretty Green Hills

Why do we view traditional bluegrass as music whose colors and edges have been faded and blunted by the passage of time?  Maybe it’s because almost no one infuses traditional grass with as much drive and vitality as Dave Evans.

There’s a mix of classic and contemporary songs on Evans’ latest, but if you don’t know the classics, you’ll find yourself sneaking looks at the liner notes to figure out which songs are from the golden age of grass and which were written just for this album.  Evans, whose picking combines an old-time ring with driving authority, takes no prisoners.

Equally adept on banjo (his main instrument) and guitar, Evans plays both on the album’s hair-raising title cut, from Tom T. and Dixie Hall. And his vocals, here and throughout, are pure, unfiltered, mountain soul.

Evans understands that for yet another version of a classic to succeed, he has to invest as much heart in it as he would a song he’d just finished yesterday.  No rueful, barstool karaoke here:  With Evans, every note means something. The traditional tunes, “Cora Is Gone” and “East Virginia Blues”; Hank Williams’ “(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle”; and “Sea Of Regret” (popularized by the Stanley Brothers) are sterling examples of these principles at work.  You know the stories are not going to end well – not because you’ve heard the songs before, but because Evans is a born storyteller.  His delivery puts you on the edge of your seat until the last notes die away.

The instrumental work is just as satisfying.  Evans and crew give a chestnut like “Soldier’s Joy” such a fresh, sprightly reading that you’d never know they’ve played it a million times in a million other bands. Evans makes you glad to hear the old songs again; you can’t wait to discover what he and the band will do next.

Little touches, like the high-stakes vocal harmonies of “Cora Is Gone”, and Mike Garris’ swinging bass (which drives a startlingly fresh take on Lester Flatt’s “Head Over Heels”) make these old, familiar tunes new again.

Special mention should be made of Bobby Hicks, whose sublime fiddle work casts a honeyed glow over every track on which he plays.

“Pretty Green Hills” is a bracing, welcome reminder of bluegrass’s mountain origins, and a perfect gift for those hard-to-please, traditional ‘grass fans on your Christmas list.

Originally published on The Lonesome Road Review.

The Best Bluegrass Gospel Album You've Never Heard

... and I have no idea why that is. "The Voice Of God" landed with a thud when it was released in 2010, in a genre where gospel records typically receive generous reviews, consistent airplay, and brisk sales.

It isn't the first time I've said in these pages that The Voice Of God is one of the best, most innovative bluegrass gospel CDs ever recorded. Mentioning it again so soon has made me wonder whether it's that very innovation that scared folks away. Then again, maybe it was all about the message of Jesus vs. the message of church culture.

A lot of gospel, regardless of genre, is short on theology and long on the hereafter. While the hereafter is why gospel is here, so to speak, there are people on earth right now who need Jesus' message of love, healing and forgiveness. Then, there's the welcome condemnation of hypocrites -- something Jesus also preached regularly that might hit a little too close to home for some.

Nevertheless, Don Rigsby has collected a fresh, eclectic group of songs peopled with hypocrites, liars, alcoholics, prostitutes, drifters, orphans, addicts, thieves, and Christian faithful -- exactly the kinds of people to whom Jesus preached. The songs come from writers as diverse as Albert Brumley, Gillian Welch, Skip Ewing, Tom T. and Dixie Hall, Paul Craft, and Phil Wiggins (of Cephas and Wiggins).

The musical styles run the gamut from mountain balladry to country gospel, from blues to bluegrass gospel (from both black and white gospel repertoire). Through it all, Rigsby and his crackerjack band, Midnight Call, keep their fingers firmly on the pulse of traditional, high-lonesome bluegrass. Audiences have come to expect spine-tingling harmonies and sky-high leads from Rigsby and his band. They won't be disappointed.

There wasn't a more innovative bluegrass album released in 2010 -- or a better one. "The Voice of God" should appeal to hardcore fans and newcomers alike. Maybe it will, if I tout it to a completely new audience.

Download this one, folks. If traditional bluegrass can accept blues (Rory Block makes a memorable appearance here) and black gospel from the likes of Bill Monroe and The Nashville Bluegrass Band, surely it can accept them from Don Rigsby, too.

Better Late Than Never: The Best Albums of 2016

What possessed me to account for my favorite 2016 releases on Twitter while ignoring that task here?

Let's put it down to the annus horribilis that was 2016, and get the bookkeeping done, at long last. After all, there will be another year's music to sift through soon.

Here, with video or audio of my favorite track from each album, are my favorites from the year that was:

10. Fly; Danielle Lewis
Like most young women, Danielle Lewis is obsessed with Taylor Swift-style pop, but her second EP provides ample hope that trendiness will fall by the wayside in subsequent work.

With her clear, pure soprano and an ear for melodic quirkiness, Lewis puts me in mind of the early work of both Joni Mitchell and art rocker, Jane Siberry. Lewis' gift for traditional Welsh singing distances her even further from the pack. A young woman to watch.
Listen: Hiraeth

9. Swimmin' Pools, Movie Stars; Dwight Yoakam
Yoakam has done bluegrass before -- most notably, with Ralph Stanley. But this marks his first full bluegrass record. He assembled a crackerjack team of bluegrass music's first-call session players, and re-recorded a batch of his own tunes in traditional bluegrass style.

Ricky Skaggs does this sort of thing quite competently; he did, after all, start his career as teenage member of Ralph Stanley's Clinch Mountain Boys. But it's Dwight Yoakam, the rightful heir to the bluegrass-drenched Bakersfield Sound of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, who does it with greater emotional truth. The only complaint I have is that Yoakam didn't reach back for some of his earliest hits.
Listen: What I Don't Know

8. Cycle; Lady Maisery
One of the most innovative bands of Britain's vibrant folk music scene, Lady Maisery distinguish themselves with exceptionally-strong performances and compelling arrangements of traditional tunes, as well as off-the-beaten-path selections from the likes of Todd Rundgren and Sandy Denny.

Foot percussion; unusual instruments (Rowan Rheingans' dad is an instrument maker with some intriguing hybrids to his credit); a strong social conscience; and a resurrected, wordless singing style known as diddling (Americans, shut up right this minute) make this album and this band one to treasure. Who knew folk music could be this unpredictable?
Listen: Diggers' Song

7. Whole and Cloven; Nathan Bowles
The clawhammer style of banjo playing is generally confined to the old-time (i e. pre-bluegrass) country and string band music of the Appalachian South. With Whole and Cloven, Nathan Bowles transforms clawhammer banjo into a style of playing equally applicable to chamber music, adding some neo-classical, Windham Hill-style piano for good measure (It's no accident that bluegrass banjoist par excellence, J. D. Crowe, was profoundly influenced by the rolling blues and gospel piano of Fats Domino).

Superb music for the road or a pastoral Sunday afternoon, Whole and Cloven is superbly innovative as well.
Listen: Gadarene Fugue

6. Auprès du Poêle; Ten Strings and a Goatskin
These young Prince Edward islanders display amazing versatility. They can be rollicking and boisterous, righteously angry and socially conscious, good humored and a little bit naughty.

They do it all in two languages, with breathtaking instrumental technique and a repertoire that encompasses traditional songs and fiddle tunes from the United States, Great Britain, and Quebec.
Listen: Maudit Anglais (The Damn Englishman)

5. Rattle and Roar; The Earls of Leicester
Spurred by his love of traditional bluegrass music as played by the first generation of bluegrass artists, in 2015, Alison Krauss vet Jerry Douglas -- the man who Eric Clapton once called "the Muhammad Ali of the dobro" -- assembled a who's who of bluegrass musicians. 

Their mission? Resurrect the repertoire of bluegrass pioneers, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs (The Earls of Leicester -- get it?), their corny humor, understated showmanship, dazzling musicianship -- even their Stetson hats and string ties.

Their debut effort won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album and, suddenly, millennials who'd logged festival time grooving to bluegrass jam bands like Leftover Salmon and Greensky Bluegrass were singing along to "Hot Corn, Cold Corn" (Bring along a demijohn/Yeeeess, sir). On this, their sophomore effort, the Earls haven't let up, and that's as it should be.

Once, all top-name bluegrass acts sounded this driven. The Earls of Leicester offer hope that the best bands might push themselves to sound this hair-raising again.
Listen: What's Good For You (Should Be All Right For Me)

4. Rise Aurora; Rosie Hodgson
Norma Waterson. Shirley Collins. Sandy Denny. These are the first ladies of English folk music. One day, Rosie Hodgson will take her place beside them all. She possesses Waterson's stately vocal style -- an astonishing choice in 2016. Like Denny, Hodgson reinterpret traditional songs, and writes her own tunes in a traditional style, with subject matter that's would have been as relevant to Hodgson's Renaissance forebears as it is to her millennial contemporaries.

In an age when "authenticity" is little more than a buzzword, Rosie Hodgson exemplifies it with every note she sings. Rise Aurora is the kind of debut that inspires listeners to commit to further journeys with the artist.
Listen: Rise Aurora

3. God Don't Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson; Various Artists
I'm sure this is an odd way to review a record, but here goes: The songs are the stars here, and this compilation is worthwhile if only for casually-interested hipsters to trace some classics of bluegrass, gospel, and rock to their origins.

The standout performance comes from Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, but there's also fine work from Maria McKee, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band.
Listen: Tom Waits: The Soul of a Man

2. Blue and Lonesome; The Rolling Stones
Rockets and V8 engines. Railroad tracks and factory floors at 8:05 a.m. Mid-20th century blues sounded like our world. With digital devices and electronic blips dominating our soundscape, nobody but old hands like The Rolling Stones could reproduce those sounds with anything approaching meaning or emotional truth.

The Stones absorbed more than instrumental sounds, though. At the feet of men like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, they learned to sound cool and confident, even as they were singing about entire worlds falling apart.

Yet, the Stones themselves were hardly the originators of these musical homages to the sounds of industry and emerging technology. They were careful and humble students (just imagine it!) of men who, goaded by poverty and opportunity, traveled north. Men who, when they arrived, traded in their acoustic guitars for electric instruments that could be heard over Friday night throngs in sweaty clubs -- instruments that mimicked the industrial sounds those Southern migrants heard in their new, northern homes.

And so, The Stones learned. With Blue and Lonesome, they came back to the music they had studied so long ago, and they did it exactly right. Which means they finally got good enough to stop learning and start teaching. To have the technique down so cold that they didn't have to think about being perfect anymore. They just were.

Listen: Hate To See You Go

1. Hearts Broken Heads Turned; Jarlath Henderson
As I write, I still can't get over how remarkable this record is.

Henderson is an accomplished uilleann piper who cleaned up on Britain's competition circuit. With this, his debut album, he expands the relevance of his instrument across centuries, playing it not only in the conventional manner, but recording the instrument's ambient noises -- key clicks, the inhalation and exhalation of the bellows, etc. -- and processing them electronically for hypnotic, haunting sounds that could not come from any century but this one.

His ultra-traditional vocals would have been familiar to Appalachian singers like Roscoe Holcomb and Ralph Stanley, whose ancestors brought the style with them when they came. (No, melisma does not originate with the noisy and tasteless Mariah Carey). For a fan and practitioner of traditional acoustic music, the sheer daring of this record is earth-shattering.
Listen: The Making of Hearts Broken Heads Turned

Ron Block: DoorWay

Ron Block is the sort of Christian artist who opens minds simply because his presentation is so atypical. But on DoorWay, his second solo outing, that freshness is only partially evident.

“The Kind of Love” gets the album off to a passionate — perhaps even challenging — start. “I want to get inside your heart/To have your heart to live in me/The two to make one beat.” As Block writes in his song notes, “God created us for union with Himself; the Bible is full of depictions of God as a lover.”

Block explores this concept further in the title cut (“Hands and knees on the desert floor/Pounding out a prayer to the Lover of his soul”) and “The Blackness of the Need” (“I knew I knew the answer ‘cause I’ve seen it all before/You’re the only answer I can see/And when the question’s ended I will say forevermore/I found You in the blackness of the need.”) This is as far away from “Jesus Loves Me” in whole notes as you can get — a spiritual palate cleanser that brings new inspiration with every reading.

“Love’s Living Through Me When I Do” succeeds with a plainspoken lyric about our faulty perception of separateness from God: “The problem lives in what I see/A separate Him outside a separate me.” “Someone” offers more subtle pleasures. It’s the story of a man who leaves the spiritual home of God’s loving embrace to seek his own vision of Paradise. That it follows the same arc as the “leaving home to seek greener pastures” stories so often told in classic bluegrass gives it a cultural resonance both deep and haunting.

Fans of Block’s bluegrass work will be pleased to find two bluegrass numbers here. “Along the Way” is driven by the superstar trio of Block on banjo, Dan Tyminski on guitar, and Stuart Duncan on fiddle. “Be Assured,” one of the highlights of Tyminski’s first solo project, boasts equally capable instrumental work from Block and Duncan, especially.

The prickly guitar intro to “Flame,” and its vivid lyrical images, wouldn’t have been out of place on U2’s classic album The Joshua Tree. After spending a lifetime lost in a spiritual wilderness, the wandering soul who tells this story has the devil’s number: “You crucified the Son of Love/He called your work His Father’s cup/Risen from among the dead/Messiah’s heel crushed Serpent’s head.”

With all that promise, “Flame” falters with a generic B theme that’s much weaker than its thrilling opening. That, in essence, is DoorWay’s fatal flaw. Despite some worthwhile — even extraordinary — elements, the album is marred by generic melodies, performances, and production values.

Block’s most powerful lyrics (“The Kind of Love,” “DoorWay,” “The Blackness of the Need,” “Flame”) are blunted by the kind of one-size-fits-all melodies that are all too prevalent in terrestrial radio formats from smooth jazz to adult contemporary to New Age to Christian (The album’s back-to-back instrumental tracks, “Secret of the Woods and “I See Thee Nevermore” are just as anonymous.) Lyrics this intense deserve music to match, and it simply isn’t to be found here. And, while Block (who sings lead throughout) is a competent vocal technician, he lacks the nuance, power, and distinctive delivery necessary to be a memorable lead singer.

“Love’s Living Through Me When I Do,” with its promising minor key melody, is emblematic of the way the entire album is undercut by a production style that’s almost numbingly homogenous. Block has assembled a stellar roster of guest musicians, but their distinctiveness is buried in the production.

The uniqueness that made A-list musicians out of Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Sonya Isaacs, Suzanne Cox, and Homer, Lisa, and Lori Forbes is smothered in a production that harkens back to the country music of the 50s, with its anonymous choirs of backing vocalists. Only Tyminski’s vocals (barely) escape this fate.

“DoorWay” was made to fulfill a spiritual hunger, and it succeeds admirably on that level. Those looking to fulfill a musical hunger will have to look elsewhere.

Originally published on The Lonesome Road Review.

The Charlie Sizemore Band: Good News

So, what’s news? That Charlie Sizemore is back and better than ever, with a new CD featuring soulful vocals, an exceptionally tight band, and songwriting that’s witty, poignant, and packed with novelistic detail.

Released in August, Good News is Sizemore’s first album after a five year sabbatical that allowed him to focus on his family and his law practice. Though it includes songs in the classic country mold, it also marks a return to bluegrass.

On the classic country front, the John Pennell/Harley Allen collaboration, “Devil On A Plow”, is a standout. A dry-humored chorus leavens the sentimental mood of the verses, and Sizemore puts the mixed emotions across as naturally as if he were talking with friends. The half-whispered line endings of “Blame It On Vern” (legendary honky-tonker Gosdin, that is) ache with last-call resignation. You can almost see the smoke from the singer’s last cigarette curling in the air.

Among the bluegrass highlights is “No Blues Is Good News”, about a man in the throes of new love. Here, the lonesome in Sizemore’s voice contrasts so painfully with the giddiness of the lyric that you wonder how long the relationship is going to last. On Hugh Prestwood’s “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart”, every nuance of Sizemore’s lead is matched by sensitive harmonies from Matt DeSpain and Danny Barnes. DeSpain and Wayne Fields (clawhammer banjo) set the chilling scene in “The Silver Bugle” (Sizemore, with Tom T. and Dixie Hall), a Civil War-era legend from Sizemore’s home on Puncheon Creek, Kentucky.

There’s a reason this outfit is billed as the Charlie Sizemore Band; from the crackling banjo kick-off of “I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up” to the final wail of the dobro on “Good News When I Die”, the playing sparkles. The band (Sizemore on guitar; Danny Barnes, mandolin; Matt DeSpain, dobro; Wayne Fields, banjo; John Pennell, bass) is tight, but that can be said about a lot of bluegrass bands. What sets the CSB apart is a confidence under the gun of studio time that allows them to play full out when the music calls for it.

You can store up a lot of bluegrass in five years. Lets hope Sizemore and the band don’t have to wait another five to let it out.

Originally published on The Lonesome Road Review.

Bluegrass Artists Explore the Lure Of the Mines

The lure of the mines -- and their dangers and tragedies -- is the subject of many a bluegrass song. Some of the best are spotlit in this exceptionally strong collection from Rebel Records.

From bluegrass legends to promising newcomers, from hardcore traditionalists to boundary-breaking progressives, the full spectrum of bluegrass artists is represented here. The breadth of material is equally dazzling, including classic bluegrass like the title cut (beautifully rendered by Clinch Mtn. Boy, James Allen Shelton on guitar with Shawn Lane, Dan Moneyhun, and Tim Stafford acing the vocals).

There's also the purely mountainous version of "Dream of a Miner's Child" by the teenaged Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley; the original Seldom Scene's propulsive rendition of John Prine's "Paradise"; The Country Gentlemen's haunting "A Miner's Life", and Larry Sparks' soulful "Digging In the Ground".

New artists and songs are equally well represented. New traditionalist, David Davis weighs in with the tragic yet nostalgic lament, "The River Ran Black". Songwriter Becky Buller further cements her reputation with "In Those Mines", which benefits from a raw, emotional vocal by Valerie Smith.

That's only the beginning of the wonderful songs, differing viewpoints, and deep, conflicting emotions that make "Dark as a Dungeon" one of the most affecting albums of 2010.

With Paul Williams, The Best Keeps Getting Better

Bluegrass gospel stalwart, Paul Williams, is a national treasure. Ever since his days with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys, Williams has been renowned as a soulful tenor singer, a tasteful mandolinist, and a brilliant songwriter who's contributed several standards to the bluegrass songbook.

Every one of those talents is in evidence on "Just a Little Closer Home". Ten or twenty years from now, bands will be covering the exuberant, spine-tingling "He Answered My Plea" -- easily one of the strongest gospel songs Williams has ever written. His "The Best Time of My Life" is equally touching, and theologically sound, too.

Williams is, as always, a generous collaborator, and his band, The Victory Trio, gets several turns in the spotlight, both with tasteful, joyful picking and with new songs that some of them have written especially for this record.

If you're looking for traditional, high lonesome bluegrass gospel from one of the greats of the genre, do yourself a favor and pick up "Just a Little Closer Home".

Polished, Soulful, and Still Influential

The Nashville Bluegrass Band initially made a name for themselves by teasing out the black gospel strain of bluegrass, and emphasizing it in their repertoire.

Additionally, they were (and are) virtuoso players squarely in in the Monroe tradition while adding their own innovations. What's more, they synthesized technical brilliance with soulful harmonies and bluesy leads in their vocal style.

With To Be His Child, all this combined for a brilliant record that's still influential in bluegrass circles today. The songs come from sources as diverse as black gospel quartets (The Golden Gate Quartet, The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Pilgrim Jubilee Singers), Jim Eanes, and Ralph Stanley.

The singing is passionate, blues-drenched, and full-throttle -- even rarer in bluegrass today than in 1987, when this album was released. The a capella harmonies are brother-close. And the instrumental work is superb.

To Be His Child is a bluegrass gospel classic that will appeal to fans of all different strains of gospel, as well as fans of the blues.

Bluegrass Like They Used To Make

The disappearance of vocalists who sing bluegrass in the traditional style is a common lament among fans of the genre's pioneers. Nobody sounds like Bill Monroe anymore, or Ralph Stanley, or Jimmy Martin. They just don't make singers like they used to.

Nobody except Kris Hixson and Paul Coleman, collectively known as Coal Country. Their debut CD, Lay My Crown, with its strong echoes of The Stanley Brothers, is a predominantly bluegrass gospel outing that, without fusing the two genres, includes alt-rock songs as well.

Hixson and Coleman are a force of nature on The Stanley Brothers' "Scarlet Purple Robe", telling the story of Jesus' show trial and crucifixion with unmistakable passion and drive.

"Show Me the Way," will remind listeners of the mountain soul made famous by vocalists like Dave Evans, Wes Miller, and Jimmy Martin. The title track anticipates the mercy and grace extended by Jesus when we've endured to the end, driving home the point that good deeds are meaningless without hope, faith, and Jesus' love.

Bluegrass gospel fans may know "Look What I'm Trading For a Mansion" from Paul Williams' version. It tells the story of a woman on her deathbed surrounded by friends and family, who nonetheless is overjoyed to leave earthly sorrows behind for a heavenly home with Jesus.

In every case, the vocals have such drive and intensity that it's only after awhile one notices the near absence -- in the mix, at least -- of banjo. It's an unfortunate lack; bluegrass-style banjo would have made the perfect, muscular foil to this brother-style duo.

The alt-rock tunes don't stand up to the bluegrass gospel numbers. If you're looking for under-the-radar bluegrass gospel the way it used to be, Coal Country is an unexpected but absolutely essential find.

Rock-Solid Bluegrass Gospel From Jimmy Martin Vets

J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, and Paul Williams had all worked for bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin. That shared history gave them a great idea for a bluegrass gospel CD: Why not get together to record a CD of gospel tunes that each had performed with Martin?

Old Friends Get Together, released in June of 2010, is the happy result, and even with all that star power, everyone has some great moments in the spotlight.

"This World is Not My Home" is a tasty duet between Doyle Lawson on lead and Paul Williams on tenor, while Williams turns in a soulful lead vocal on "When the Savior Reached Down for Me."

Two of the CD's best tracks are "Lord, I'm Coming Home" and "Shake Hands With Mother Again". "Shake Hands" is especially tight with gutsy, high lonesome harmonies, and a lead vocal by Doyle Lawson that's pure soul.

Jimmy Martin fans will love the vocal arrangements, which stick closely to those of the original recordings, which often featured women on tenor vocals (Both Penny Jay and Gloria Belle, who also played bass for Martin, filled this vocal spot). Sonya Isaacs and Cia Cherryholmes contribute distinctive high harmonies.

Although the emphasis is on the vocals, J.D. Crowe's picking shines, especially on "Voice of My Savior" and "The Little White Church".

The combination of mountain soul with high lonesome vocals and polished Nashville-style arrangements is pure Jimmy Martin, but the record never sounds like a museum piece. Clearly, this CD was made by a top-notch group of musicians who gave their all and had a great time doing it.

First off, I cannot recommend this box set enough. If you are fanatical about bluegrass and old-time music, you must have this in your library. It includes sets by The Stanley Brothers, The New Lost City Ramblers, Cousin Emmy, and Roscoe Holcomb, among others, from a package tour they did in Germany.

That said, let me focus on one song in particular.

They didn’t have the language for it back then, but this is as clear an example of sex addiction or love addiction as you could hope to find. “I’m a three-time loser,” Carter Stanley sings, so you know he’s been here before, for the exact same reason: “All for the love of another man’s wife”, regardless of the consequences.

Carter Stanley knew a little something about addiction; he was an alcoholic for most of his touring life. This show was recorded in the spring of 1966; Carter Stanley would die on December 1 of that year.

At this point, he just sounds plumb wore out, and his profound weariness suits the song to sad perfection.

This is The Stanley Brothers with “Stone Walls and Steel Bars”.

“Teardrops In My Eyes” was a fixture in Red Allen’s repertoire, but I’m blogging this video with one message — a message that goes beyond Allen’s solid performance here — buy this CD!!!

In his way, David Grisman has functioned as the Mike Seeger of late 20th century bluegrass, recording, performing with, and promoting the work of brilliant musicians that the casual bluegrass fan may have missed.

This CD, “Home Is Where the Heart Is”, is no exception. For it, Grisman assembled three or four band’s worth of top-flight pickers, from The Nashville Bluegrass Band (the top-ranked band of the time) and Ricky Skaggs, to relatively-obscure, ace sidemen like Porter Church, who played banjo on some of Red Allen’s — and Bill Monroe’s  — best sides.

All in all, this is a worthy, 2-CD compilation that makes an excellent addition to the collection of any bluegrass fan.