Family, Friends & Heroes

This 14-track extended family reunion kicks off with Frank Solivan and Del McCoury harmonising on a twanged-up version of Roy Orbison's ‘Pretty Woman’, which also features fine banjo-picking by Mike Mumford. The next track, ‘Mask, Snorkel & Fins’, could easily pass for a Jimmy Buffet song; it features two Solivan cousins, John and Ernie Cruz, on harmony vocals. The ‘Fishing Song’ was written by another cousin of theirs, Ty Smith. Solivan's father, Frank Sr, plays guitar on two songs. Aunt Norma and her husband, Charles Bell, wrote ‘Are You Missing Me’, sung here by Megan McCormick (Frank's cousin and Norma's granddaughter). And so it goes on, up to and including the album's most poignantly beautiful performance, which features Frank's mother, the late Lorene Solivan, singing the immortal folk ballad, ‘The Wayfaring Stranger’ — an impromptu session that was luckily captured during a party hosted by the studio.

John Cowan (of New Grass Revival and Doobie Brothers fame) lends high harmony vocalising to Solivan's rendition of John Denver's ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’. For fans of refined, traditional bluegrass and a certain swath of the American pop songbook, Frank Solivan's heartfelt tribute to kin, friends and influences is a keeper.