Lovin’ Of The Game
The bluegrass arena has no shortage of brilliant fiddlers and Michael Cleveland is front and center among them. This fiddling phenomenon has won no fewer than 12 IBMA “Fiddle Player of the Year” Awards as well as six annual IBMA “Instrumental Performer of the Year” Awards. Along the way, he’s also picked up a Grammy and landed a berth in the National Fiddler Hall of Fame. Cleveland’s inspirational against-the-odds rise to virtuosity is depicted in “Flamekeeper,” a moving documentary film that can be viewed on Youtube.
It’s no surprise that Cleveland’s sixth album dazzles and sizzles with instrumental finesse, musical inventiveness and stylistic diversity. There’s likewise no shortage of down-home soulfulness as Cleveland and his star-studded collaborators bring the absolute best out in each other.
Cleveland’s illustrious musical dance card includes Vince Gill, Billy Strings, Jeff White, The Travelin’ McCourys, Bela Fleck, Dan Tyminski, Tim O’Brien, Bryan Sutton and Jerry Douglas, among others. Cleveland teams up with Gill on a stunning honky-tonk waltz called “I Wish I Knew Now What I Knew Then,” which could be right at home atop the country charts.
On “One Horse Town,” first released by the country-rock band Blackberry Smoke a couple of decades back, Cleveland’s melancholy fiddle fills capture the soul-crushing sadness of a mis-lived life in a dead-end town. Blackberry Smoke’s lead vocalist Charlie Starr and Cleveland’s fine road band, Flamekeeper, all shine on this cut.
Cleveland and Flamekeeper also hit a high-water mark on the title track, which is an up-tempo reprise of a laid-back folk ballad popularized by Judy Collins back in the 1970s. “Contact” is a fiery, pull-out-the-stops instrumental collaboration that bristles with improvisational immediacy. Yet that “live” feel turns out to be a sort a savvy slate-of-hand. As the accompanying promotional material explains, the track sprang from the magic of Cleveland’s mastery of the popular digital recording platform Pro Tools. None of the four participating musicians—Cleveland, Bela Fleck, Cody Kilby and Barry Bales—were ever in the same physical place at the same time while laying down their respective contributions.
Listeners certainly wouldn’t have caught on to this if Cleveland hadn’t tipped us off. And that’s pretty amazing, in and of itself when you stop and think about it.
