Reviews

KENNY SMITH RETURN Gat 3 Records No Number Master musicians can do as they please. Consider playing well-known tunes. Where an average musician can include no more than one or two before attracting a jaundiced eye, masters can include as many as they want. On his latest recording Kenny Smith, a master guitarist by any…

LONESOME HIGHWAY GOT AWAY WITH MURDER No Label No Number Seven years have passed since I last reviewed Lonesome Highway. In that time, they have released a second recording, shifted from essentially being a cover band and made several personnel changes. On this their third release, only banjoist John Arnold and mandolinist Jimmy Kountz remain…

MICHELLE NIXON AND DRIVE A PLACE I BELONG Mountain Fever Records MFR 110701 Michelle Nixon returns to the bluegrass road with this album. She wasn’t completely off the road, of course having played on several Daughters of Bluegrass projects, but this is her first recording with Drive since 2005. Nick Nixon is still on guitar…

PAUL WILLIAMS & THE VICTORY TRIO SATISFIED Rebel Records REB-CD-1844 It’s worth remembering that Paul Williams is a genuinely important figure in bluegrass. This East Tennessee native was an early member of the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, one of the first groups to successfully perform and record the music inspired by Bill Monroe. Later, Williams was…

RIDGELINE YOU LEFT ME BEHIND No Label No Number For many bands, a long history of comings and goings, false starts, and restarts precedes their debut recording. For Kingsport, Tenn.-based Ridgeline, that odyssey began in 2003, but their first CD is here now and shows the positive results that come from staying with it. The…

SARAH JAROSZ FOLLOW ME DOWN Sugar Hill SUG-CD-4062 Follow Me Down shares many of the virtues of singer/mandolinist/multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz’s breathtaking debut, Song Up In Her Head, most notably the wise-beyond-her-years voice, crack instrumental support, and introspective, at times haunting songwriting. Having Béla Fleck and Casey Driessen solo on her “Come Around” is something most…