Nashville Bluegrass Band – Twenty Year Blues
It’s been an unconscionably long time between Nashville Bluegrass Band releases. Their previous effort, American Beauty, came out in 1998; since then, bassist Gene Libbea and mandolin player Roland White have departed, replaced by original member Mike Compton (mandolin) and Dennis Crouch (bass). The change in personnel is reflected in the new album’s music.
Crouch’s playing — showy where it needs to be, while always energetic and precise — gives the sound a new muscularity, but the effect of Compton’s return is the most immediately apparent. He sings three and a half leads (a single verse toward the end of his nifty tune “Pretty Red Lips” accounts for the fraction), and his Bill Monroe-flavored mandolin chop and solos — not to mention his reading of “Sitting On Top Of The World” — underline the role that the blues have always played in the band’s music.
Still, Twenty Year Blues is hardly a one-man show. Fiddler Stuart Duncan is impeccable as always, taking the lead on the opening fiddle tune, “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom”, and contributing mightily with his usual tasteful solos and unobtrusive fills. Singer Pat Enright crawls even deeper into the blues, while Alan O’Bryant takes over for the thoughtful melancholy of “Old Riverman” (written and recorded years ago by Monroe and John Hartford) and “There’s A Better Way”, a song for which the word “gospel” conceals more than it reveals. And with “Hush (Somebody’s Callin’ My Name”), the group demonstrates that its grasp of African-American gospel is as firm as ever.
It’s not really a complaint to say that most of the groups on today’s bluegrass scene tend to cling to a signature sound and repertoire, but it’s nevertheless true that the Nashville Bluegrass Band stands out for its ability to cover a lot of stylistic ground infrequently traversed by others. It’s a pleasure to have them back.