Michael Cleveland's fiddle work has garnered lots of accolades from his musical peers and he has three IBMA awards to prove he's got the goods.
Let 'er Go, Boys isn't so much a proving ground, then, as a way to spread his hot fiddle work further afield. To help him out, he's joined by a who's who of hot players, including dobro player
Rob Ickes, banjoist
Charlie Cushman, and mandolinist
Jesse Brock. The real bluegrass star power comes into play on the vocal numbers, featuring
Larry Sparks,
Del McCoury, Dan Tyminski, and others. While the arrangements and players change from song to song, from instrumental to instrumental, the overall feel is traditional, or tradition derived with a rich acoustic sound. For the cynical, collections like
Let 'er Go, Boys have fallen into a particular pattern. A happening picker surrounds him or herself with a bunch of other happening pickers and a few star vocalists (to help with radio play), and covers the CD with lots of quotes from famous pickers who couldn't make the session. Meanwhile, the happening picker has been lost in the mix, just one more player in a crowd and a real accessory on vocal numbers. You may find yourself wishing that there were more fiddle-banjo duos between
Cushman and
Cleveland, a format that really allows a player's style to stand out. Despite a somewhat predictable approach, though,
Let 'er Go, Boys is a solid album that will be warmly embraced by bluegrass fans and pickers alike. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.