Hotdang, Them Bluegrass Chartbusters Are Back In Town Once More...

...and after visiting our All Pearls, No Swine last week, here's the other long running series at One Buck Records, for your fill of fiddles, banjo, guitar, mandolin and dobro, should the sudden need arise. And arise it should, because once more we have a vey fine collection of very fine bluegrass music assembled here, all in between the sweet spot of humming along as if it was the original on the radio, while admiring (hopefully) how the song has been transformed into a bluegrass tune. I don't know who said it, but it's been said that to check out if a song is any good, pay it as a bluegrass tune, and if it works, then that's a good tune. And this test is passed by all twenty tracks on here, as well as the army of bluegrass bands doing them. 

The same beloved series stalwarts are all here, along with another batch of newcomers: AJ Lee with Blue Summitt (pictured below) for example, who will show up again, here taking on Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up The Sun". Roots music vet Tony Trishka shows up with Billy Strings in tow, as they do a mammoth version of "Gentle On My Mind". Both will show up in this series again. There's also a one-off in the bunch: TGO with "Livin' On A Prayer" that handily beats the Pickin On... version. 

Favorite cuts on this volume include the Gras Cats' take on Steve Earle's outlaw classic "Copperhead Road", Love Canon's "Solsbury Hill" and Iron Horse's version of Guns'n'Roses' "Patience". There is also another bluegrass version of an Imagine Dragons song ("Demons") which is pretty great, which means I now know and like more bluegrass covers of that band than songs that they did. 

Artists covered on this volume that i haven't mentioned yet: Lucinda Williams! Cyndi Lauper! Def Leppard! Kiss! Dire Straits! Barenaked Ldie! Hell, even dumb-ass Kid Rock (thankfully, that track is instrumental...)! Double hell, even freakin' Nickelback! These songs might be terrible in their original version for all that I know, but as bluegrass cuts they are very good. 

So, all of this is to say: Throw on that straw hat and them overalls, and throw them feet in the air while y'all get to dance'n'holler to them Buegrass Chartbusters once more...