Little Grasscals – Bluegrass

The performers on this collection of mostly public domain tunes are in or around the Sidemen, an aptly named, loosely constituted ensemble that has held forth at Nashville’s Station Inn each Tuesday for the past decade. Some are probably familiar, like the Del McCoury Band’s Jason Carter (fiddle) and Soggy Bottom Boy Mike Compton (mandolin), while the rest, including singers Terry Eldredge and Jamie Johnson, banjo player Dave Talbot and fiddler Shad Cobb, ought to be; in every respect, they’re the peers of their better-known colleagues.

Bluegrass offers a pleasing assortment of canonic essentials, from the opening “Nine Pound Hammer” to the final “Sweet Sunny South”, with a couple of old-time ringers such as Mike Armistead’s energetic “Whoa Mule Whoa” thrown in for good measure. Such a chestnut-laden program poses some danger, of course, but it’s offset by the relaxed familiarity the performers have with one another and the material.

The results are at once spontaneous and precise, revealed in highlights including Cobb and Talbot’s fiddle-and-banjo duets or the Johnson-led trio on “Never Grow Old”. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s mighty good.