Following a year that saw both a collaborative album with mandolinist
David Grisman and a live album from the Ryman Auditorium, Australian acoustic guitar hero
Tommy Emmanuel returns to his Music City muse with
Accomplice One, a duets album with a strong Nashvillian flavor. Coming in at a rather lengthy 16 tracks, one gets the feeling that many of these sessions yielded more fruit than could fit on one disc, leaving the door open for future explorations and inspired pairings.
Emmanuel's sparring partners here range from similarly virtuosic instrumentalists like nimble blues-rock guitarist J.D. Simo and ukulele master
Jake Shimabukuro to country singer/songwriters like
Suzy Bogguss and
Rodney Crowell. Warmly captured in various studios in and around Nashville,
Accomplice One offers a fairly wide swath of what
Emmanuel and his friends have to offer, from the tasteful-but-sprightly Celtic airs and reels of the
Clive Carroll collaboration "Keepin' It Real" to a surprisingly tender take on
Madonna's "Borderline" with singer
Amanda Shires. A mostly acoustic rootsy feel ties the whole affair together as
Emmanuel offers himself up as co-vocalist to
Mark Knopfler on the backporch blues of "You Don't Want to Get You One of Those" and to
Jason Isbell on
Doc Watson's "Deep River Blues." As relaxed and affable as these vocal duets are, it's still the fireworks that get the biggest response and
Emmanuel is smart enough to toss a pair of red-hot instrumentals near the front in the J.D. Simo and Charlie Cushman standout "Wheelin' and Dealin'" and the
David Grisman and
Bryan Sutton bluegrass blazer "C-jam Blues." ~ Timothy Monger