No matter who is playing around Sammy Shelor, Lonesome Riverband has been a prominent bluegrass band because of their stellar harmonies, quirky arrangements and instrumental clarity and maturity. In those regards, this album is no different. But this album also remains consistent in what I believe to be the weakness of the Lonesome River band: the Ronnie Bowman effect. On each project they make, they are unable to get out of their own way when it comes to material selection. What’s more confusing and infuriating is that they seem to realize this. The structure of this album seems to be one pristine bluegrass standard followed by a couple sprawling tracks with piano and or drum back up. This decision stops what could have been a great album into being an inconsistent project that is not going to bring any more fans to the Lonesome River Band base.
This pattern of seemingly throwing their traditionalist audience a bone begins with the first three tracks. The first, “Anything to Make Her Mine”, is everything listeners desire and expect from this band. Jesse Smathers, mandolin player and lead vocalist, kicks off this album with a high lonesome tone that perfectly complements Brandon Rickman’s modern country twang. This song consists of the new standard 1-4-2-5-1-3(7)-4-1-6-2-5-1 verse progression that came into fashion with songs like Doyle Lawson’s “Heartbreak Number Nine”. This progression is a perfect jumping off point for Smathers’ and Shelor’s solos which show both of their respective styles: Smathers, as the bright underrated lick master, and Shelor as THE lick master and syncopation god. The enjoyment brought on by the textbook LRB song is short lived. It is followed with a high piano arpeggio. To add to the torture, the chorus brings in the worst high hats ever recorded to go along with a stereotypical hoedown fiddle which only undermines whatever “Rocking of the Cradle” was trying to prove. After this we get a modal sounding tune called “Boats Up the River” with an overdone/phoned-in fiddle banjo part. What this song does exemplify is just how good Rickman’s and Smather’s voices are together. While neither of them are my favorite singers alone, there are very few vocal combinations that can get that buzz like these two can on almost every note. On this specific track, Smathers takes high tenor duties and his phrasing and note length works so well that I listened to this song numerous times after the first listen, even though the whole song is again tainted with the clomping of some drum player whom I want to remain nameless.
To have been in the business this long and consistently have that unwanted Ronnie Bowman influence, LRB has to be good at anticipating when the traditionalist have had enough. To qualm some of the frustration, they decide to play a solid version of “Rock Bottom”. These transparent attempts to satisfy traditional bluegrass fans are frustrating, but necessary to get through this album. Rickman kills this song because of his ability to bend notes, especially at the end of the phrase when the melody drops from the 1 to the 5. The second verse has a great part where he is able to jump up for the four chord and then still resolves down all the way to five in what seems like two notes but is more like 6 or 12 depending on your definition of a note. Another unsung hero of this song is the mando chop; you know the thing that differentiates bluegrass from other country genres that use drums! Smathers is destroying the chop so well, that it took me a while to realize that they moved away from the drums on this track.
The outlier drum song that actually has merit is “Rose in Paradise”. While I don’t usually like this style of tune, I feel the lyrics are very clever and the drums are actually used to create tension and release instead of just keep time. I also enjoy Shelor’s fills on this track. It’s a good mix of rolls and walk downs which keeps the listener interested in where the song is heading. This song is followed by the worst song on the album, “Showing my age”. This has the same issues as the second track, “Rocking the Cradle”, but worse lyrics that I cannot relate to as somebody who doesn’t have to worry about showing his age for another 10 years at least.
Again after these conscious decisions to abandon the bluegrass commandments, the listeners get an ol’ war horse: “Old Swinging Bridge”. Again, they kill it. The first verse fills done by Smathers does everything that Danny Roberts dreams of. His break isn’t too shabby either. Perfect mix of slides, double stops, melodic and bluesy licks. He is my favorite person on this album, which is pretty controversial for a band that includes a banjo player with a Life Time Achievement Award.
“Mirrors Never Lie” is seemingly a mix of “Boats up the River” and “Rose in Paradise.” It has the modal melody similar to the former, but uses the drums to its advantage like “Rose in Paradise”. Just like the third track, the harmonies between Rickman and Smathers are incredible and carry the track just like many other LRB vocal combos before them. “Thunder and Lightning” is a good enough song to ignore the drums chugging their way in the background. With lyrics like “You could sell dry corn and starve to death or you could cook it in a liquor still”, this song harks back to other modal moonshine songs like “Tear My Stillhouse Down”. Rickman’s tenor kinda removes the modal persona, but it is still effective with Smathers’ voice.
After a few more misses, the last song is a nice conclusion to the album. “Real People” is a cheery 1-5 tune talking about the good ol’ folks and their lives. If they actually wanted to follow this standard, I would have suggested not having drums on most songs. This has always been a weakness of LRB and although they have one of the best banjo players and melody tenor combinations, this band needs to qualm the Ronnie Bowman effect and make an album that sticks to their guns with their current lineup and not the bands alumni.
