In Good Company

Within the first couple of minutes of listening to the first track on In Good Company, bluegrass aficionados and banjo nuts (you know who you are) are going to be smiling and nodding, knowing they’ve come to the right place. Everyone else is likely to be enthralled by the razor-sharp ensemble execution, the pitch-perfect harmonies, and the playfully engaging mix of songs.

The supporting cast is top of the heap: Tim O’Brien, Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, Joy Kills Sorrow, The Infamous Stringdusters, Stuart Duncan and Laurie Lewis – among others. Collectively, the 12 tracks include flat-picking and fiddling showcases, such as ‘The Distance Between Two Points’, ‘Big Chief Sonny’ and ‘Dakota,’ and an updated traditional folk ballad, ‘Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd’ with O’Brien and Lewis singing a beautiful duet. A trippy alt-folk rocker (‘On and On’) features Joy Kills Sorrow’s superlative songstress Emma Beaton. A four-track sequence of classic Beatles songs manages to avoid being just another medley of mop-top makeovers (the bluegrass version of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ is especially cool in a nerdy way). In Good Company is capped off by a newgrass jazz number featuring the deeply satisfying acoustic bass of Cindy Browne Rosefield. The album’s production and engineering deserves special mention owing to the presence of a warm, spacious and well-defined soundstage, so often lacking in today’s acoustic bluegrass recordings.