专辑简介

This album is a mixture of various Americana forms and genres. As you go from one cut to another, you will go from one genre to another. The first cut is Country Rock. The second is reggae. The third is bluegrass, featuring major player from the bluegrass industry, as you will read below. The fourth is Jug Band, and humorous. The fifth is a traditional Americana Train song, that mixes a reflections on a lost love with the disappearance of trains in American life. The sixth is one of the best songs I have ever written, and a favorite of many who have so far listened to it. It’s called: If I Only Knew. If I only knew it would be so popular, I would have opened the CD with it, though it is probably too sweet and laid back of a song to open a CD with energy. It is what it is because of the amazingly gentle fiddle of Stuart Duncan. The seventh song is the obligatory minor-key Americana addition, a favorite song of my kids from years ago. Also, completing the CD are a talking blues about a truck stop mama affectionately referred to by her customers as Briar Patch Rose. There follows a traditional country-hook song, Out of Your Mind, with some fine steel guitar from the great Randy Kohrs. Ending the CD is my attempt to merge Dylan-style talking blues with reggae. An interesting experiment, but one that has the song closing the CD rather than opening it. Anyway, if you are looking for great variety, and good songs, and great players, give this CD a listen. About the players: I use top of the line Nashville musicians on many of the songs on this CD. Adam Steffey, on mandolin, eleven-time instrumentalist of the year at the International Bluegrass Music Awards, and long time player with Allison Kauss and Union Station, and now with The Boxcars. Ron Stewart, also an instrumentalist of the year winner at the IBMA awards, plays banjo on two songs. He is also with The Boxcars and plays fiddle as well as banjo, though not on this CD. Stuart Duncan, who tours with Lyle Lovett and Diana Krall, and who has recorded with Yo Yo May, and is as fine a fiddle player as you will find anywhere, plays fiddle on a number of tunes. Stuart is also in The Nashville Bluegrass Band. On dobro, lap steel, and steel guitar is Randy Kohrs, formerly in the Dolly Parton band, previously touring with John Fogerty, and head of his own bluegrass band. Randy also runs Slack Key Studios in Nashville, and has one of the most amazing collection of microphones you will ever see. On electric guitar is Mark Hill, a picker from Princeton, New Jersey, who fronts his own gypsy jazz band in north Jersey. On bass, rhythm, washboard, and just about everything else, is the multi-talented John McClure, my recording engineer, who runs JonyMac Studios in Nashville, and author of a dozen books on preaching. John holds a Chair in homiletics at Vanderbilt University. I think giving this Cd a listen is going to be very much worth your while. Enjoy.