Because havin' a good ol' hoedown with some fun versions of some fine songs from the pat, who'd deny such a thing? I mean, probably a number of y'all, but that's your personal problem, eh!? Because again, we have some good stuff loaded up in this slick, black-and-white packaging. It's never too late to jump on the Bluegrass Chartbuster Train, 'cause that train is gonna drive 'round these parts for a good long time, bubba. Volume 15 is one of the all-new created volumes done after, uh, expansion wave three or four, I lost count here, folks. Seeing how it was created quite a bit later than the backbones of a ton of other volumes, we have a ton of newcomers or recent additions on here.
Considering the age of him and his co-horts, we have veteran newcomer Daniel Upstaff, together with the Uptown Troubadour doing another very nice Tom Petty cover, the underrated "Angel Dream" from the She's The One soundtrack. Jill Tonic, who are just enough Bluegrass to be featured (they're basically a banjo-enhanced guitar band) cover Jimmy Eat World's modern classic "The Middle". Mark "Huggy Bear" Lavengood - friend to Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, and a number of other artists featured here, it really is a pretty tight-knit community, where most young 'uns know each other - covers Bruce's "Hungy Heart. JD Casper - getting national attention on The Voice, or so I heard - covers Post Malone's "Chemical" from the very latest Pickin' On album project. And finally Americana cult hero Chuck Prophet is joined by an All-Star Bluegrass Band to cover "Sweet Jane". Yay!
As for other unusual covers, well, did you think that you'd get a Bluegrass version of a Devo song in this series? If you did, I salute you, you might be Nostradamus! Love Canon go quite a bit outside of the usual cover material for "Whip It". The Brothers Comatose turn to Huey Lewis & The News for "I Want A New Drug". And Molly Tuttle, backed by Golden Highway, really respects the original's psychedelic bent on her cover of Jefferson Airplan's "White Rabbit". Far out! Plus, you know, the standard excellent work of series stalwarts Cornbread Red, Iron Horse, or The Infamous Stringdusters.
On the 'we're doing this with a big-ass smirk on our face' front, we got Finland's own Steve'n'Seagulls opening things with a fun version of Iron Maiden's "The Trooper", while we also have another band that's walking on the very thin line between fun cover and send up. A couple of volumes ago, I asked for suggestions from the small commenting readership group, and Berni - some people, notably me, call her Bluegrass Bernie - suggested Hayseed Dixie, a band that I had previously banned from the series for being too jokey and tongue in cheek. She also sent around a collection of the more serious-minded cover versions of the band, and well, I can be swayed by well done counterarguments. So, starting fropm this volume, the jokesters from Hayseed Dixie will occasionally bring their own brand of Bluegrass fun to proceedings, starting on here with "Mrs. Robinson".
So, another batch of twenty solid to great Bluegrass covers of songs from - and here it's pretty much true - the last sixty years. That should be enough to conjoure a good time over the weekend. Listen To the pickin' and grinnin', and hum, hop or grin along.
