Distant Brothers
Gary Ferguson is a well-known and popular guitarist and songwriter based in the Pennsylvania-Maryland area. Colin Henry is a well-known and popular resonator-guitar player based in Ireland. Ferguson met Henry on one of Ferguson’s many Irish tours and the pair hit it off immediately, with Henry eventually joining Ferguson on some of the tours. As such, Henry was able to introduce Ferguson to many of the local and talented Irish musicians, which led to Ferguson’s 2021 CD project Ferguson’s Farewell, enabled by new communication technologies.
All this led Ferguson and Henry to become truly “distant brothers” in music, hence the name of this new project. By trading music files back and forth, the pair was able to gain support of musicians from both sides of the ocean to round out this new production. Gary Ferguson sings lead vocal and plays guitar while Colin Henry handles both resonator and Weissenborn guitars. The other players and singers on the project are too many to mention here but include artists from both sides of the Atlantic, as detailed in the CD’s liner notes.
The project consists of six originals written or co-written by Ferguson and four tunes from Henry, and there is a neat version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Mansion On The Hill.” Ferguson’s tunes include “More To The Story,” “An Angel’s Breath,” “A Little Rain,” “Chasing A Dream,” “Just a Lucky Man,” and “Mud Flows Down The River.” Henry’s contributions are the title track “Distant Brothers,” a variation “Distant Brothers (The Beginning),” “Gone To The Dogs,” and “Imperfection.”
This a very nice project featuring Ferguson’s mellow vocals and Henry’s skilled guitar work, all backed by a superb cadre of players. A good run for these “distant brothers.”
