Song List: Righteous Path, Make It Up, Fourteen Days, Sinners and Saints, Breakin’ Down, Nomad Blues, Two Roads, Self-Imposed Hights and Lows, Lonesome Evening Blues, More White House Blues, Won’t Bring You Down, Squirrels in My Car, This Old House.
Mohavisoul is proud of its Southern California roots and was a showcase band at last year’s IBMA convention. The five member band formed in 2012 so is celebration its first decade this year Songwriters Randy Hanson and Mark Miller write most of the group’s songs and provide a unique perspective on life, love, and our current times. Band members are Randy on mandolin and vocals, Mark on guitar and vocals, Jason Weiss on banjo and vocals, Daniel Sankey on fiddle and vocals, and Ben Bostwick on bass. The instrumental blend is coordinated and exciting rhythmically with banjo and fiddle laying a strong undercurrent to the lyrics.
Mark wrote five of the songs, and Randy wrote seven. Mark focuses on the possible benefits and pitfalls of love relationships, and one can hope that his own personal life is not as complicated. “Fourteen Days” anticipates a reunion at home, “Lonesome Evening Blues” recalls a lost love and hopes of a renewed relationship, while “Won’t Bring You Down” brings hope for true love. Randy’s songs cover a wider range, and even have some adaptations of other songs. “More White House Blues” uses the old song about McKinley with asides to Nixon and “you know who” and not being the “sharpest tool in the shed.” It’s an interesting commentary on the current state of the state. His “Squirrels in the Car” features a flying squirrel named Rocky (now does that sound familiar?) who drives the singer’s car down sidewalks and across lanes. “Make It Up” may have started as a song about Mark Twain’s time as a newspaper reporter but morphs into “fake news” – “when I was younger, could remember anything, whether it happened or not.” The album’s closing song, “This Old House,” rediscovers the history of a house with “families grow and then they go,” with the comment that the old houses don’t “survive, easy to tear down than revive.” Mohavisoul has blended old memories and decisions that changed lives into a moving blend of old memories and modern stories.