Paper Flowers

 Tim O’Brien has been a fixture in contemporary bluegrass ever since fronting the band Hot Rize starting back in the late 1970s. Along the way, he’s collaborated with everyone from fellow West Virginian Kath Mattea to Steve Martin and Alison Brown. He’s also penned songs for a number of Nashville’s leading lights.

For the last decade or so, his wife Jan Fabricius has been his principal musical partner. In preparation for this album, the two of them co-wrote most of the songs with folk veteran Tom Paxton. O’Brien notes in the accompanying press material that the songs are more or less “a narrative of Jan’s and my life together.”

The writing is imaginative, indeed. “(I’ve Never Been to) Atchison” is a playful yet exquisitely crafted train song with a fitting tribute to the great Jimmie Rogers in the final verse. “Lonesome Armadillo” is a similarly tongue-in-cheek outing, about a Texas-born varmint who finds himself down on his luck in Music City.

More strictly on the autobiographical side are songs like the sentimental “Yellow Hat” and the bitter-sweet “Father of the Bride.” “Always the Sunrise” is a sweet love song, while “Back to Eden” is a gospel-tinged longing for renewal.  The brisk “Blacktop Rag Mop” is a delightful acoustic rockabilly excursion.

O’Brien possesses a warm, reassuring baritone and his and Fabricius’s voices fit together hand-in-glove when they duet. Even on a somber song like “Covenant,” about a school shooting, they leave listeners with a measured feeling of optimism and hopefulness.