Love Has Come for You

It’s interesting to ponder what the reception to this album would have been had it been released by a pair of unknown musicians from Poughkeepsie or Tucson. Speculation aside, the collaboration between comedian Steve Martin and singer-songwriter Edie Brickell as writing partners and performers has produced an accessible, albeit unexceptional, collection of material. It will certainly satisfy casual bluegrass fans, and possibly attract the attention of folks who otherwise associate banjos with corn liquor and coon hounds. The production is superb and the supporting cast – Esperanza Spalding, Sara Watkins, Sean Watkins, and Steve Martin’s former backing band the Steep Canyon Rangers – is swinging in all the right directions. Martin’s three-finger and clawhammer banjo chops are, as ever, worthy of praise, and Brickell’s distinctive, Texas-tinged voice lends an appropriately melancholic twang to the proceedings, especially on folk ballads such as the title-track and ‘Remember Me This.’ All in all, this succeeds as a well-crafted effort by a couple of seasoned professionals with a shared affinity for mainstream bluegrass.