Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 13:52:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Timothy Lynch 
To: LoSers 
Subject: LoS, "The Nashville Sessions"

                        BREAKING THROUGH:
            LEFTOVER SALMON, "THE NASHVILLE SESSIONS"
                    (1999: Hollywood Records)
 
da Flower Punk - Sep. 14, 1999
 
 
Music fans love the festival for a number of reasons.  It's a
place to hear a wide variety of genres.  Where artists can sit in
with each other's bands.  Most of all, it's fun, a space to kick
back for a time with no worries and just groove. 
 
No band is more thoroughly associated with the idea of the
festival than Leftover Salmon.  The Colorado five piece plays a
several different genres of music: Poly-ethnic Cajun Slamgrass
includes bluegrass, rock, country-fried things, Bayou and
Caribbean sounds, and more.  The band delights in inviting guests
to sit in and pick with them, at festival time or during their
own shows.  And most of all, Leftover Salmon is fun.  More fun
then you're really allowed to have, in fact.  Leftover Salmon
makes every show a festival even when it's only them playing. 
 
Leftover Salmon has taken that festival ethic into the studio,
inviting a slew of different guests to make "The Nashville
Sessions."  In the process they created an honest-to-goodness pop
masterpiece. 
 
"The Nashville Sessions" opens with one of the band's strongest
roots, bluegrass.  After all, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and
song-writer Drew Emmitt and banjoist Marc Vann were playing
together in the progressive bluegrass band the Left Hand String
Band before Leftover Salmon was born, in a quartet strong enough
to have made it onto the stage at Telluride on its own.  On this
CD they invited bluegrass masters Del & Ronnie McCoury to sit for
"Midnight Blues," an acoustic workout that sets the tone for the
project.  This is world class music, in which Drew Emmitt proves
that he is musically and vocally a match with the masters.
Similarly, when Earl and Randy Scruggs sit in on the instrumental
"Five Alive" Marc Vann demonstrates the same thing, that he
belongs with these masters and they with him. 
 
But grass is not all there is to Leftover Salmon.  "Dance On Your
Head" is a fast-paced, samba inspired number, in which vocalist
Vince Herman urges listeners to blow up their TVs and join the
festival.  On John Hartford's "Up On The Hill Where We Do The
Boogie" offers more grooves to cut serious rug to.  On both
tracks Bela Fleck contributes some fine banjo, while Flecktones'
sax player Jeff Coffin offers up some fine soprano sax on
"Dance." 
 
But wait, there's more.  Leftover Salmon can be more than a tad
country at times, in the best ways.  The band offers alt.country,
honky-tonk pop on "It's Your World," which also features Randy
Scruggs and former Double Trouble keyboardist Reese Wynans.  But
even more than alt.country, Leftover Salmon is full-on outlaw
country.  Just check out "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,"
with none other than Waylon Jennings on the vocals for proof of
that score. 
 
There is also a bayou romp in the form of Lucinda Williams' "The
Lines Around Your Eyes," which she sings here, offering proof
that Leftover Salmon could also be considered a great studio
back-up band, and some Delta shuffle when Taj Mahal sings his
sexy "Lovin' In My Baby's Arms." 
 
Drummer Jeff Sipe, who comes to Leftover Salmon by way of the
Aquarium Rescue Unit and Jazz Is Dead is like several drummers
rolled into one.  He can play quietly with brushes on the
acoustic numbers, which frees the mandolins from keeping time, or
can lay it down thick for the rockers.  The fact that he does
everything in between as well, placing wonderful fills into the
sounds but never overplaying, marks him off as one of the best
drummers on the so- called jamband circuit. 
 
And wait, there's still more.  Before you get the idea that
Leftover Salmon is just a good studio band, check out their
originals.  "On The Other Side" featuring John Popper on
harmonica would be the sure bet for rock radio single if it
didn't face such strong competition from "Another Way To Turn,"
featuring Big Head Todd Park Mohr.  Bassist Tye North offers some
subtle but powerful playing on this track.  "Breakin' Thru" seems
to tell the story of this CD, as Emmitt sings of watching "these
circles start to come around...."  That's what's happening here,
as generations of musicians, friends and heros of LoS get
together with them on their best record to date.  This is a great
song with a lot of radio potential itself.  Jerry Douglas offers
some dobro leads here that are stellar.  And "Troubled Times,"
while too long for commercial radio at over eight minutes, is
classic Leftover Salmon, uniting elements revealing the blues in
grass, Southern rock, and even some reggae flavorings.  Sam Bush
and John Cowan, both of the seminal Newgrass Revival, add a lot
to this track, as they do to several others as well. 
 
And then we leave the festival.  There are musicians on an old
wooden front porch.  The humidity borders on oppressive, but
whatever was in the ancient, two-tone, earthenware jug labeled
only "XXX" has taken the sting out of things.  The jug is almost
empty;  sinnin' has redemption on their minds.  They begin to
play strictly acoustic instruments at an almost mournful pace. 
"It's nobody's fault but mine,"  Widespread Panic's John Bell
sings.  "If I don't read and sing my soul will get lost...." 
We've been through a lot by the time we arrived at this point. 
We've been through an excellent CD.  A masterwork.  This is a
festival town.  Kick back and enjoy.
 
           _____________flowerpunkprods______________
 
 Leftover Salmon is on the www at http://www.leftoversalmon.com
 
         This review will run at http://pauserecord.com