Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 13:52:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Timothy LynchTo: 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