Various Artists
Cool Blue and Lonesome: Bluegrass for the Broken-hearted
Sugar Hill Records

by William Michael Smith

A loose historical rendering of the development of bluegrass says Bill Monroe took the blues he learned from Arnold Schultz and combined that African-American musical tradition with the Anglo ballad and old-time string music traditions of Appalachia. On Cool, Blue, and Lonesome, producers Ericka Hoffmann and Stephen Brower have pulled 18 tracks from the extensive Sugar Hill Records archives to create a compilation that celebrates the blue end of the bluegrass sound. Even though performed by ensembles three and four generations removed from Monroe and the other founding innovators, the selections are a reverent celebration of the mournfulness that has informed bluegrass since Mr. Monroe's time.

While the tracks are intended to illustrate the blue side of bluegrass, a look at the titles indicates lonesome and blue are essentially codependent conditions always at hand in the bluegrass world. "Another Lonesome Day," "Tuck Away My Lonesome Blues," "I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome," and "Flat Broke and Lonesome" say all we need to know about the singers and their mental states. And one of the best-known tracks on the album, Larry Cordle's "Lonesome Standard Time," is so pithy and direct it seems to beg the question, "What else is there to say?"

While there are no performances by Monroe, his shadow is everywhere. Five of the tracks, including the classic "Sittin' Alone in the Moonlight" performed here by Tim O'Brien, were written by Monroe and many of the ensembles owe much of their sound to him. "Sitting Alone" and "Used to Be" were taken from Sugar Hill's Monroe tribute album True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe. Alan Bibey performs Monroe's "Close By," and Ricky Skaggs' Boone Creek ensemble gives an entirely Monroe-esque rendering of his "Can't You Hear Me Callin'." But perhaps the bluest, lonesome-est track on the entire compilation is Seldom Scene's version of "I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome," written by Monroe and Hank Williams. In this age of sophistication and complexity, these simple, direct lyrics seem entirely elementary and plain, yet they embody everything that gives bluegrass (and for that matter, country music) its instant emotional appeal.

The lonesome sigh of a train goin' by
Makes me wanna stop and cry
I recall the day it took you away
Now I'm blue and I'm lonesome too

Pete Gobel and Leroy Drumm's "Bad Day In Akron," played here by Don Rigsby, is another example of how the "blue lonesome" concept continues to be an important compositional element in modern bluegrass songwriting and how the simple, direct lyrical approach is still what the best of bluegrass is all about.

Had a Clark bar for my breakfast
Swallowed down by a cup of coffee from an old machine
Spent the last cent I had on me
Now I'm down to just my jacket and my jeans
What a man won't do for a woman
On a slim chance she might've changed her mind
Hitch-hiked all the way to Akron
Now I'm stuck beside the city limits sign

This compilation also illustrates the breadth of Sugar Hill's talent roster, featuring outstanding tracks from such stellar outfits as the Nashville Bluegrass Band ("All Alone"), Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver ("Mis'ry River"), Hot Rize ("Walk the Way the Wind Blows"), Lonesome River Band ("Flat Broke and Lonesome"), the Osborne Brothers (Listenin' to the Rain"), and from noted individual talents like Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, Peter Rowan, Don Rigsby, Dudley Connell, Dan Tyminski, Jim Mills, Mike Auldridge, and Tony Rice. The musicians on Cool, Blue, and Lonesome literally form an all-star dream team of our third and fourth generation of bluegrass performers.

Describing bluegrass as "that high lonesome sound" is one of the most widely used and accepted clichés in music writing is. Sugar Hill Records' Cool, Blue, and Lonesome: Bluegrass for the Broken Hearted suggests that perhaps music writers have been too stingy with their adjectives.

* Check out Cool, Blue, and Lonesome and other recent Sugar Hill compilations at www.sugarhillrecords.com These overstuffed 16- and 18-track compilation discs are bargain priced at around $12, and they include extensive liner notes as well as details of all the performers in the ensembles.


Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

 
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