Silver Bullet Bluegrass

Bob Seger cut a wide swath across the rock ’n’ roll landscape for decades, giving us classic hits like “Night Moves,” “Turn the Page,” “Main Street,” “Like a Rock” and “Old Time Rock ’n’ Roll,” among others. These songs have endured because they often captured the uneasy spirit of their times. This fine collection reminds us not only what a gifted, versatile and timeless songwriter Seger was during his long career, but also how easily his tunes lend themselves to a bluegrass setting. These various artists indeed almost seem to be channelingSeger.

Special credit for this project goes to producer Randall Deaton of Lonesome Day Records, who, with encouragement from engineer Jimmy Nutt (who’s engineered for Jason Isbell, among many others), developed this project.

The thirteen selections include: “Long Twin Silver Line” (covered by Carson Peters), “Turn The Page” (Gary Nichols), “Hollywood Nights” (Shonna Tucker, formerly of the Drive By Truckers), “Against The Wind” (Tim Shelton), “You’ll Accompany Me” (Keith Garrett), “We’ve Got Tonight” (Jeff Parker), “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” (Bo Bice), “Betty Lou’s Gettin’ Out Tonight” (Ward Hayden), “Main Street” (Josh Shilling), “Even Now” (Tim Stafford), “Feel Like A Number” (Robert Hale), “Roll Me Away” (Bill Taylor) and “Night Moves” (Larry Cordle).

These performances are so uniformly satisfying that it’s hard to single out just a few, but I will anyway. Josh Shilling hits it out of the park with his version of “Main Street” and Ward Hayden and the accompanying musicians serve up a free-wheeling bluegrass-rockabilly revival of “Betty Lou’s Gettin’ Out Tonight.” Larry Cordle, likewise, really tears into his super-countrified interpretation of “Night Moves.”

What’s fascinating is how these singers, with such distinctive individual styles, meld their voices so convincingly into the Seger template and capture the magic, melodrama, pathos, irony and celebration of Seger’s originals. These thirteen tracks certainly do justice to Seger’s artistry, as well as to that of the contributors.