Don Rigsby – Empty Old Mailbox

Don Rigsby made his solo recording debut with an all-gospel album. He sings and plays with traditional bluegrass “supergroup” Longview, and has been widely seen as the traditional anchor of the modern bluegrass pace-setting Lonesome River Band. But if you think you’ve got him pegged, think again; on Empty Old Mailbox, his second solo CD for Sugar Hill, the East Kentucky mandolin player stretches out to include some surprisingly contemporary stuff alongside the hard-core, and does so with unalloyed success.

Rigsby is a go-getter who’s made a point of “networking” with a broad range of musicians, and there are too many guests on Empty Old Mailbox to list, though even an ID of only the most frequently-included pickers is enough to make the point. They include Jerry Douglas, bassist Ben Isaacs of all-gospel family act the Isaacs, young California fiddler Gabe Witcher, Blue Highway guitarist Tim Stafford, and the seemingly ubiquitous Ron Stewart on banjo.

At the same time, he pays his respects to his musical and regional roots, covering songs by writers originating from or based in Kentucky (Tom T. Hall, who wrote the title track with his wife, Dixie), Indiana (Marvin Davis, writer of Rigsby’s 1996 hit “Bootleg John”, and Larry Sparks), and also Ohio and southern Michigan, giving the collection an extra measure of coherence.

Those things, along with Rigsby’s passionate singing, would be enough to make a plenty good album all by themselves, but like the TV ads say, wait — there’s more. On a couple tunes, Rigsby takes a honky-tonk and rockabilly turn, using tasteful but energetic drums to pump up the feeling, while the album’s centerpiece, “Dust To Dust”, combines dobro, strings, percussion, a sophisticated harmonic structure, Sonya Isaacs’ heartbreaking soprano, and Rigsby’s own plaintive voice to create a compelling hybrid of mountain gospel and contemporary Christian music. It’s hard to imagine who else could pull it off.

Empty Old Mailbox closes with a number that perfectly captures the breadth of the project. “Precious Love” brings together hard-core bluegrassers such as Lonesome River Band banjoist Sammy Shelor and Unlimited Tradition guitarist Ray Craft with the album’s producer, Jimmy Lee Sloas, on electric bass and the song’s writer, Gordon Kennedy (baritone vocal). The result is a driving bluegrass song that shares personnel (Sloas, Kennedy) with the widely reviled Chris Gaines album Garth Brooks released last year.

Rigsby probably wasn’t intent on making a point with that, but it probably wasn’t an unconscious move, either; he can be a sly dog at times, and it’s exactly that kind of wit, together with his pure Kentucky soulfulness, that puts Empty Old Mailbox among the year’s best releases.