Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver – Help Is On The Way

Though it’s been barely a year since Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver’s last release, there’s been a thorough change in personnel, with but one member remaining. Three departing musicians, including longtimer Jamie Dailey, have been replaced, and for the first time, a sixth player has been added (resonator guitarist Josh Swift).

In some spheres, such changes would guarantee a significant shift in sound and style, but not here. Lawson has recorded nearly a score of all-gospel projects since 1981’s Rock My Soul — not to mention an almost equal number of mostly secular bluegrass ones — and while the Quicksilver sound has gone through some mutations, Doyle keeps a firm hand on the reins. In that respect, then, while there are variations in vocal tones and arrangement approaches, the underlying foundation is unmistakable and instantly identifiable, with new members Alan Johnson (fiddle), Carl White (bass) and Joey Cox (banjo) easily finding (or being given) places therein.

This kind of top-down approach may be hard for some roots-music fans to swallow, and so too can be the Quicksilver sound itself, for its brilliance is the result of some mighty intensive polishing. Though they spring from the same sources and are in every meaningful respect equally authentic, there’s a big distance between the raw heterophony of a Ralph Stanley gospel quartet and the refinement of a Quicksilver number, and those seeking the former may well be disappointed by the latter.

At the end of the day, though, that’s their problem, not Lawson’s. Heading for his 30th anniversary as a bandleader, he’s an inescapably important figure in bluegrass, not least for the exemplary blend of precision and passion that’s to be found on Help Is On The Way.