Reviews

SHANNON AND HEATHER SLAUGHTER NEVER JUST A SONG No Label No Number You’ll find quality tracks all through this encore recording from Shannon and Heather Slaughter. If you heard their debut and their two solo efforts, that should come as no surprise. That doesn’t mean all 14 tracks are equally impressive. It does mean that…

NIALL TONER WORKING ON LOVE Avalon Records AVCD 0071    Toner is an Irish native who already has four projects under his belt. For this new CD, Toner traveled to Nashville to record this all-original project of love songs and songs of relationships. Toner sings lead and plays mandolin, banjo, and guitar, and is joined…

CODY SHULER Rural Rhythm RUR-1131 Cody Shuler, longtime front man and mandolinist for Pine Mountain Railroad, offers up his debut solo recording, and the results are quite good. Shuler has always had a strong presence with PMRR, writing songs for them and handling his share of the vocals. Here, he’s written all twelve tunes, ten…

NORMAN BLAKE WOOD, WIRE & WORDS  Plectrafone Records 824761-144762    This album is truly an event. Norman Blake established himself in the late 1960s as a impeccably talented Nashville guitarist/mandolinist session player, recording or touring with performers as varied as June Carter, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Hylo Brown. Blake further emerged in the…

THE FARM HANDS BETTER THAN I DESERVE Pinecastle Records PRC1195 This is a fun recording with lots of good songs. Tim Graves’ hubcap guitar predominates, as does Bennie Boling’s banjo. The songs tend to have a patriotic and sacred point of view. They sing of old values and old times and intertwine the sacred with…

RUSS CARSON AVENUE OF THE GIANTS Patuxent Music CD-256 One thing is for sure, Russ Carson and his guests—bassist Jason Moore, guitarist Kenny Smith, and his former Redline bandmates Audie Blaylock, Jesse Brock, and Patrick McAvinue—really have that chugging, popping, uptempo groove down cold. They let you know it by using it, essentially, on the…