Where the River Meets the Road

Classic country and bluegrass fans – folks who revere Bill Monroe, Porter Wagoner, Buck Owens, Flatt & Scruggs and the rest of the 1950s and 60s Grand Ole Opry pantheon – are going to love Where the River Meets the Road. Which is not to say this 12-track collection by Tim O'Brien, the 63-year-old Grammy-winning songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of both Hot Rize and Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers, is some kind of self-conscious throwback/tribute session. Accompanied by a stellar ensemble that includes Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Mike Bub (bass), Chris Scruggs (electric guitar, pedal steel), John Gardner (drums), Bryan Sutton (guitar) and a small posse of backing vocalists including Kathy Mattea, Tim O'Brien leads a fresh and varied set.

It begins with a bluegrass-ified rendering of Billy Edd Wheeler's ‘High Flying Bird’ (popularised half a century ago by Jefferson Airplane). A gutbucket take on Bill Withers’ ‘Grandma's Hands’ is followed by ‘Guardian Angel’, an enthralling ethereal waltz by O'Brien. Other standouts include the album's title-track, which is a rollicking Appalachian ballad, and a deeply swinging, soul-satisfying version of John Lilly's ‘Friday, Sunday's Coming’, an Easter carol that sounds like a cross between ‘John Henry’ and ‘Tobacco Road’.