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 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.