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Northern California Bluegrass Society provides this CD review. You can find our most current reviews on our Message Board, where you can comment or query the author directly. Our monthly magazine, Bluegrass By the Bay also publishes them. Return to CD Reviews. |
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| Auldridge, Bennett, and Gaudreau | This Old Town |
| Review by Keith Rollag | |
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REB-CD-1758 Personnel: |
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What do master bluegrass pickers and singers do in between stints with bluegrass supergroups? Form their own performing trios and make great records. If you like contemporary bluegrass sans banjo in the style of Tony Rice or Seldom Scene, you'll like this album. All three members of this law firm-sounding group have great pedigrees. Mike Auldridge is the master dobroist from the Seldom Scene, Richard Bennett sang and played with J.D. Crowe, and Jimmy Gaudreau played mandolin with both the Tony Rice Unit and the Country Gentlemen. Richard Bennett has a voice very similar to Tony Rice, and the effect is to give the entire recording similarities with either "Manzanita" or "Tony Rice Sings and Plays Bluegrass" - both intended as a compliment. They start with a Gordon Lightfoot-sounding tune called "This Old Town," and then hit the rocket boosters in the upbeat traditional "Silence or Tears." On track three they slide into a bluesy Gandreau original called "Old Columbus Blues" that once again shows their Seldom Scene/Tony Rice roots. After another medium-tempo, spanish-like pop song called "Love Remains", they get back to bluegrass with "We Live in Different Worlds," once again sounding exactly like Tony Rice. Given Tony's vocal ailment these days, it's great to hear a group carrying on in his vocal and arranging style. They slow things down with an instrumental version of "Just A Closer Walk With Thee," and then sing the classic ballad by Normal Blake called "Billy Gray" and the bouncy, bluegrassy tune "Come and Sit By the Fire". The next song is a cool Civil War inspired bluesy ballad called "Southern Son," followed by another Gandreau mandolin instrumental that is sort of "bluegrass pop." "Two Hearts" is another Jimmy Gandreau original that is more folky in the Seldom Scene tradition, and "You Didn't Say Goodbye" is classic Tony Rice bluegrass again. "Sally on the Treadmill" is like a traditional fiddle tune on steroids that showcases their impressive picking abilities. They end with the Kate Wolf song "Across the Great Divide." Once again, if you like Tony Rice and Seldom Scene albums, you'll love this one too. I hear the trio are continuing to perform live in festivals out East, and hopefully they'll end up on the West Coast sometime soon. It would make for a pretty nice evening… |
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