Our Top Six Albums August 2024
Top Six Album Releases
August 2024
Our Top Six Albums August 2024
By Rob Dickens
Dan Tyminski
Dan Tyminski: Live From The Ryman
8 Track Entertainment
16 August 2024
Fourteen-time Grammy winner and roots music legend Dan Tyminski provides a vivid audio depiction of him in concert with a wonderful band. Dan Tyminski: Live From The Ryman contains thirteen tracks that brilliantly showcase the songs and the group of young, fiery players he has assembled.
Classics like “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn”, “I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow”, “Silence In The Brandy”, “This Sad Song” and “Cumberland Gap” all shine.
It’s not all about his commanding voice as Tyminski lets his amazing band have plenty of the spotlight – mandolinist Harry Clark, fiddler Maddie Denton, dobro player Gaven Largent, banjoist Jason Davis and upright bassist Grace Davis.
Breathtaking.
Via IVPR Nashville
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Woodland
Acony Records
23 August 2024
The most admired musical pair in modern acoustic country folk and blues? This will be the tenth studio from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings (seven from Welch and three from Rawlings) and Woodland is named after their recording studio in downtown Nashville (Woodland Sound Studio) which they have rebuilt following a tornado in 2020. I suspect the studio is also a spiritual haven for them as the cityscape and vibe have changed dramatically around them in recent years.
Ten tracks here with the striking “Empty Trainload of Sky” released as the first single before the album is out. The material, in a way, follows a similar pattern to their previous releases but there’s more pushing boundaries here with a wider vocal register and some truly catchy embellishments.
I am not sure how long Woodland has been in development as it has been some time between releases from the pair, but new music from this couple will be hard to toss for roots musical event of the year.
Incandescent.
Via Thrillhill Music
The Infamous Stringdusters
Songs From The River
American Vibes
29 May 2024
“A Night On The River Is All I Need”.
Songs From The River is an epic, a compilation of The Infamous Stringdusters‘s work (live and in the studio) where you find twenty-four songs over 1 hour and forty-eight minutes with the common theme of rivers.
The band – Andy Falco (guitar), Chris Pandolfi (banjo), Andy Hall (dobro), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle) and Travis Book (double bass) – is one of the finest bluegrass plus bands that I have seen on stage. The plus stands for their preparedness to shake off the traditional bluegrass model, embracing ballads, and plenty of artistry jamming (is that drums?) that makes for an intoxicating blend.
Songs From The River is a vast and worthy testimony to this storied outfit.
Pat Reedy
Make It Back Home
Independent
21 March 2024
Pat Reedy is Nashville-based and has plenty of miles and more stories with twists and turns under his belt than others won’t get in their lifetimes. Make It Back Home is replete with tales of the blue collar worker, the drifter, the nomad, told through world-weary but intensively shrewd eyes and written with a poet’s pen.
The title track, “Long Drives and Lonesome Mornings”, “Do It Again”, “Hold On To You” and “Runnin’ Outta Reasons” capture the demands on a travelling musician. Then there’s the towering “Tallest Man In Tennessee” (clip below). His country honky tonk vibe is seductive.
Make It Back Home was recorded at Schematic Studios in Goodlettsville, Tennessee and was produced by John James Tourville of The Deslondes.
Shane Smith & The Saints
Norther
Geronimo West Records/Thirty Tigers
1 March 2024
I saw Shane Smith & The Saints at The High Watt (remember that space, folks?) in Nashville in 2017. The set was plagued with sound problems throughout (an unusual phenomenon in Music City) and it did not showcase the band well for this reviewer.
Frontman Shane Smith is a native of Terrell, Texas and committed to a music career after moving to Austin and meeting fiddler Bennett Brown. Other band members are Dustin Schaefer, Chase Satterwhite and Zach Stover on drums. I finally got to listen to Norther a few months after its release and, to be frank, I was not expecting to respond the way I have.
With three albums to their name between 2013 and 2019, Norther is a profound and emotional accomplishment. It is atmospheric, expansive with every track making the high bar set across the collection. And then there’s Smith’s voice, one that is raspy, plaintive and unique.
Shemekia Copeland
Blame It On Eve
Alligator Records
30 August 2024
Multi-Grammy nominee Shemekia Copeland was raised in Harlem and made her first stage appearance with her father (bluesman Johnny Copeland) at New York’s famed Cotton Club when she was eight. Since her debut record in 1998 (when she was only 18), Copeland has become a blues and rnb staple.
Blame It On Eve is a prodigious realization with Copeland’s vocals and attitude a shining standout. The album was recorded in Nashville and produced by instrumentalist/songwriter Will Kimbrough (who also produced her previous three albums), featuring twelve new songs that tackle weighty topics, but has some fun as well (“Wine O’Clock” is personally a guilty pleasure).
The guest list is stunning, include Alejandro Escovedo, Luther Dickinson, Jerry Douglas, DeShawn Hickman, Charlie Hunter and Pascal Denae.
Via Alligator Records
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Our Top Six Albums August 2024
Our Top Six Albums August 2024
Our Top Six Albums August 2024
