PET

Colorado-based Big Richard blasted their way into the bluegrass-Americana-roots Music scene four years ago and in that time have built an enthusiastic and dedicated fan base. If you’ve seen them in person, you know why. This is not polite and pretty music; it’s deeper than that, filled with passion, sometimes angry and righteous, sometimes touching and intimate.

This is a band that can render the sweetest, heartache-filled version of “Make the World Go Away” you’ve ever heard, then turn around and burn down the house with Bill Monroe’s “The One I Love is Gone,” played harder and with more grit than you’re likely to hear anywhere. That song was originally recorded by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, which makes it a perfect choice for Big Richard, as Hazel Dickens is the best reference point I can think of to describe the fierce passion that emanates from this new album. 

The opening track, “It’s Gonna Fall,” written by mandolin player Bonnie Sims, is another song that Hazel would have loved to sing.  They join that with Bill Monroe’s tune “Old Dangerfield,” featuring Eve Panning on fiddle, Joy Adams ripping up the cello, Hazel Royer on bass, and Sims on mandolin. While they add guitar, and or banjo on some tracks, most of the sound comes from that fiddle-cell0-bass and mandolin format that accentuates the push and pull, the snap, crackle, and groove of this genre. 

The first single, “Millionaire,” could have been written by Woody Guthrie, and it’s another passionate performance. Tunes like “K’s March” and “Red Fox Run” remind the listener that they can play straight-up old-time as well as what might be called “progressive bluegrass.” Trying to label the music, however, misses the point. Big Richard is a modern-sounding band that has tapped into the deep tradition of The Carters, Guthrie, Dickens, and others singing about the real issues of the day, and in that way, they are as traditional as they are progressive, a remarkable feat indeed.