Hit List

 

Rust Farm, Snows of March.

Tim O’Brien produced this rootsy release from Chris Moore and John McGann with a gentle touch and an obvious respect for this duo’s striking chemistry. Moore’s got a forward-tilting Yankee bluegrass baritone and a mandolin style to match; McGann contributes effortless tenor harmonies and lucid flatpicking (especially on "Monkey Puzzle," a wondrous tangle of mandolin, guitar, and fiddle). Rust Farm is steeped in bluegrass, swing, and country, but Moore and McGann are definitely working "out of the box." Moore’s poetic verse, in particular, is strange and arresting (his spiritual ballad "Closer" is a gem). Progressive bluegrassers looking for new material and inspiration should take heed. (Luminous Bloom)

––Rani Arbo

 

Laurence Juber, LJ Plays the Beatles.

Fingerstyle master Laurence Juber manages to transpose to guitar an astonishing amount of the music originally present on these 14 Fab Four faves. The harmonies, bass lines, chords, and fills are virtually intact on his reading of "Strawberry Fields" and many other arrangements. But what’s more impressive is that Juber, while maintaining the musical substance of the originals, manages to give most of these pieces an intriguing new life by imbuing them with his own potent musical ideas. Highlights include his swingy jazz/blues take on "Can’t Buy Me Love" and an impassioned improvisation on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." (Solid Air).

––Ron Forbes-Roberts

 

Márcio Faraco, Ciranda.

Fans of Brazilian singer-composers like Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, and João Gilberto will delight in Márcio Faraco’s sweet, evocative, 11-song CD. Some of these beautifully crafted originals are destined to become samba classics. The opening title track, a vocal duet with Buarque, stretches its chord progression just enough to wring poignant joy from the melody. Faraco’s guitar and mandolin work is clear and clean, his voice is dreamy and utterly believable, and the French production is restrained and transparent, letting the songs speak for themselves. (Blue Thumb/Verve)

––Danny Carnahan

 

Mike Dowling, String Crazy.

Mike Dowling is a fine singer as well as a first-class songwriter, although he doesn’t demonstrate the latter skill on String Crazy. He is also an excellent instrumentalist who’s comfortable with a wide range of musical styles. On this record he overdubs various guitar parts, as well as bass and mandolin, without making things sound cluttered or unnatural. His strongest suit, however, in a hand that includes versatility, musical intelligence, and a good ear for material, is his ability to communicate. Whether he’s playing bottleneck, fingerpicking the blues, strumming a swing chord solo, or singing a country classic, he injects feeling into every word and note. (Wind River Guitar)

––Duck Baker

 

John McCusker, Yella Hoose.

Scottish fiddler John McCusker has one of the sweetest tones in the entire violin world, and he writes tunes to match—mournful airs ("Carrickmacross"), slashing jigs and reels ("The Boys of the Puddle" and "Pur the Orangutan"), wistful waltzes ("The Guid Man"), and melodious marches ("Wee Michael’s March"). McCusker, whose regular gig is with the Battlefield Band, also plays cittern, piano, and whistle, all the while producing and arranging the whole glorious feast. He also has great taste in guitarists and singers--the ever-inventive guitarist Ian Carr graces most cuts and English folk chanteuse Kate Rusby drops by to lend her voice and lyrics to McCusker’s "Night Visiting Song." Rusby’s voice and McCusker’s fiddle are a perfect match. Their sense of lyricism and quiet emotion is unparalleled in the traditional folk world, and Yella Hoose (yellow house) is one sweet home. (Temple/Rounder)

––Scott Nygaard

 

Laura Love, Fourteen Days.

The world’s leading Afro-Celtic old-timey funkadelic party band (hey, there’s nothing like owning a category) is in fine form on their latest CD. Fourteen Days features fewer songs about bountiful butts compared to 1998’s Shum Ticky, but there is still plenty to recommend it: a more fully developed soft side--with some lovely vocal harmonies and sparkling acoustic arrangements; the always tasty guitar work of Rod Cook (now supported by Jennifer Todd on flattop guitar and mandolin); and, of course, plenty of bodacious grooves. This band truly comes into its own in front of a boogying festival audience, but there is still plenty of fun and frolic to be found here for these chilly winter months. (Zoë/Rounder)

––Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

 

Axiom of Choice, Niya Yesh.

The two core members of Axiom of Choice are guitarist Loga Ramin Torkian and vocalist Mamak Khadem, but other assorted musicians accompany them on this disk. Torkian’s unique seven-string quarter-tone guitar, which also contains movable frets and 12 sympathetic strings, is an essential element in his compositions based on Persian melodies and modes. Khadem’s smooth vocal techniques are the result of her classical Persian training, and there is an overriding mystical element to her work. The mixture of Persian, Indian, and Western instruments combined with excellent production quality result in music that sounds traditional and modern at once, meditative with strong percussive textures. This is "next world" music. (Narada World)

––Gary Joyner

 

Gene Bertoncini, Body and Soul.

"The Shadow of Your Smile," "I Remember You," and the title song might seem like banal choices for a solo fingerstyle jazz outing, but Gene Bertoncini reinvents each tune with amazing results, using bold and often dissonant reharmonizations and other modern devices. Only "Snowfall" is played at a regular tempo--the rest float freely in a pensive rubato where familiar melodies are juxtaposed against unfamiliar chords. "Edelweiss," that staple of schmaltz, almost sounds like an Ellington ballad, and the meditative intro to "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" might have been borrowed from a raga. (Ambient)

––Jim Ohlschmidt

Dwight Yoakam, dwightyoakamacoustic.net.

There’s always been more than meets the eye in the work of Dwight Yoakam. The mannered country classicism of his songwriting doesn’t quite square with his erudite mind. Hey, the guy writes and directs movies. Then again, no glib Hollywood hillbilly in skintight jeans could pull off a spare guitar-and-voice gem like dwightyoakamacoustic.net. Rollicking solo versions of "Little Ways," "Fast As You," and the Pomus/Shuman nugget "Little Sister" stand out among 25 tracks that span Yoakam’s 15-year recording career. (Reprise)

––Mike Thomas

Takashi Hirayasu and Bob Brozman, Jin Jin/Firefly.

Bob Brozman’s latest experiment in musical gene-splicing pairs him with Okinawan sanshin player Takashi Hirayasu. The duo uses simple Okinawan folk songs to explore genre-jumping flights of fancy, combining Hirayasu’s guitar and sanshin, a fretless three-string banjo-like plectrum instrument, with Brozman’s Hawaiian-guitar pyrotechnics. While there is an immense respect shown here between the musicians, the gulf between their worlds is not bridged as successfully as Brozman’s recent collaboration with Debashish Bhattacharya. But there are real gems here, like "Chon Chon Kijimuna," an amusingly menacing bit of cartoon music. (Riverboat/World Music Network)

––Danny Carnahan

Visit the reviews archives to read dozens of reviews of great acoustic-guitar oriented CDs.

 

Ambient, PO Box 242, Old Greenwich, CT 06870; www.ambientrecords.com.

Luminous Bloom, PO Box 24, Peaks Island, ME 04108; www.rustfarm.com.

Riverboat/World Music Network, www.worldmusic.net.

Solid Air, PO Box 3518, Seal Beach, CA 90740; (800) 649-4745; www.acousticmusicresource.com.

Wind River Guitar, PO Box 1593, Dubois, WY 82513; www.mikedowling.com.

 

 

Excerpted from Acoustic Guitar magazine, January 2001, No. 97.

 

Want to chime in with a review of your own? Post it in the Players forum in Guitar Talk at www.acousticguitar.com.