Picks & Pans
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Stacy's Ratings
*****Outstanding
**** Good
*** Promising
** Fair
*Makes A Good Coaster
Various Artists
Silver Bullet Bluegrass
Rating
****
Silver Bullet
Bluegrass? Think Bob Seger’s best-known
band (successors to Bob Seger and the Last Heard and The Bob Seger System),
add a 13-song bluegrass tribute and- voila!
A
compilation album 12
years in the making, due to various reasons for the delay in its
release, has emerged with 13 artists’ interpretations of 13 different
Seger hits or lesser-known recordings set to a bluegrass beat.
It’s a formula that
works- or otherwise- depending upon a listener’s preference:
How close to the original recording is the expectation? Some of the performers take a little more
license than others.
My favorite performances? Turn the Page (Gary Nichols), Against the
Wind (Tim Shelton), We’ve Got Tonight (Jeff Parker), Feel Like a Number
(Robert Hale) and Night Moves (Larry Cordle).
John McEuen
Rating
Grammy winner John Euen, having delighted
audiences for over a half century, has pulled out all the stops with 10 of 11
tracks of an album best described as spoken word renditions of personal, national and international
historical events.
The title song, a paean to John’s “60’s L.A.
haze days,” that pays tribute to “Steve,” McEuen’s “respected” but, unfortunately, forever unknowing, late mentor.
Other highlights include Fly Trouble, not about a zipper problem, but it's rather a whimsical cover of a Fred Rose-penned
1947 Hank Williams recording about perennially pesky two-winged insects.
The Cremation of Sam McGee renews interest in
the Robert W. Service poem listeners may have first encountered as a high
school curriculum staple (as opposed to a requiem for the Grand Ole Opry star
of the same name).
Old Rivers, the Cliff Crofford classic, is John’s
respectful cover of Walter Brennan’s hit (even without the Johnny Mann Singers
as backup vocalists) while The Guitar of Pineapple John is a collaboration
between lyricist McEuen and musician/the song’s executive producer John Carter
Cash. (Captured in one take at the Cash
Cabin Studio, the latter was produced by Trey Call with the assistance of John
Carter’s son, Joseph Cash.)
Killed at the Ford reprises America’s first
presidential assassination through the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and
the vocals of Jennifer Warnes, Matt Cartsonis and David Bourne while Nui Ba Den
is the true story of a Viet Nam veteran of the mountainous “hot zone” who
became a casualty of Agent Orange.
I’ll Be Glad (When They Run Out of Gas) adds Hans
Olson’s light touch to an album that is otherwise notable for musicians including
Mark O’Connor, Spencer Quinn, Chris Caswell and David Hoffner while Jules’ Theme
(as in Jules Verne), the album’s only instrumental, features oboist Ellen
Hindson and multi-talented McEuen on piano, guitar and bass.
The Stetson Family
Rating
Alex Miller
Rating
The comfort level between young artist and industry veteran as a sometimes songwriting team does not preclude a bit of experimentation in the form of the opening track, a (pardon the pun) virtual laundry list of attributes possessed by the object of the humbled singer's affection, titled "She Makes Dirt Look Good," from the pens of Kerry Kurt Phillips, Dusty Drake and Phil O'Donnell.
"Oh, Odessa" and "The Last House in God's Country" are changes of pace from the upbeat opener, the latter inspired by Alex's visits to his grandparents' farm, but "Ain't Ever Saying Never" strikes an honest note about commitment as a reasonable expectation from someone who has found permanency a struggle.
Closing with the title song, Alex Miller (courtesy of Salley, the song's cowriter) memorializes his paternal granddad/manager, G.B. Miller, credited with the example set for Alex and Alex's father, Roger Miller. (No, not that Roger Miller, but perhaps Jerry and Alex have a future dad-centered tribute in their sights... )