The Wayfaring Strangers - Shifting Sands Of Time

(Rounder 11661-0484-2) 2001

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Jon Weisberger's rear sleeve comment "Not for those who demand that their music be comfortably predictable", should be fair warning that this album won't appeal to a large proportion of the bluegrass audience...

Featuring a number of old-time / bluegrass / songs given a free-form jazz make-over, the album features guest vocals from Ralph Stanley, Rhonda Vincent, Laurie Lewis, Tim O'Brien and others.

Ralph's contribution is on a strange free-form jazz version of Man Of Constant Sorrow to which he provides a stunning, but straight-forward vocal. The song starts of as you might expect with Tony Trischka on banjo and Ralph singing, but then starts going off on a piano-led tangent before returning for a vocal chorus, and jazzy coda. Fortunately you don't have to buy the CD to check it out as the track can be heard on youtube...

From Matt Glaser's liner notes: "The Music of both Bill Monroe and The Stanley Brothers has long been a source of spiritual sustenance for me. It's an honor beyond words to have Ralph Stanley sing on this album. His voice is real - a voice filled with the remembrance of death. It's a timeless, placeless expression of humanity - bringing us back to an era before 'the music business', hype, marketing, and all the horrible illusory crap we're immersed in every day."

The rest of the CD is just as eccentric, with Rhonda Vincent's jazz-vocal on Rank Stranger being one of the more palatable tracks.

• Matt Glaser: musical director, violin, viola
• Jennifer Kimball: vocals
• Andy Statman: clarinet, mandolin
• Tony Trischka: banjo
• Josh McGann: guitar, mandolin
• Bruce Barth: piano
• Jim Whitney: bass

Other artwork / related images: