Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands / Laurie Lewis - Golden West CD

 Music Second to None
Laurie Lewis is one of the very best in the field of Bluegrass and this CD testifies to that fact. This selection of songs fits her abilities to the max. Her first hand song "A Hand To Hold" is one the finest songs ever written and the music is just as outstanding. Her musical ability with the fiddle is shown throughout the work. You will not regret owning this wonderful CD.
Submitted by rjchand (Garland, Texas)
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 They embraced the power and intensity of bluegrass
Playing Time – 52:53 -- Laurie Lewis’ bandmates call themselves “The Right Hands,” but they sure sound ambidextrous to me. For three days in July 2005, the quintet of Laurie Lewis, Tom Rozum, Scott Huffman, Craig Smith, and Todd Phillips hung out at Sage Arts Studio outside Arlington, Wa. A self-proclaimed “river rat,” Laurie gained energy from the fast-moving current of the Stillaguamish just outside their guest house door. Lewis admits that they’d planned to be more prepared for the session, but that might’ve actually detracted from some of the spontaneous energy that the currents of this album exude. Her own observation was, “Everything seemed so fresh and enticing to us, hearing and playing the majority of these tunes for the first time as a group.” Not just a fantastic fiddler and singer, Lewis does some exceptional songwriting for this CD that also includes covers from Jimmy Martin, John Hartford, Albert Brumley, Bill Monroe, Jimmie Rodgers, and even other more contemporary writers like Billy Joe Shaver and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Laurie contributes two compositions. “Your Eyes” opens the set with the kind of unique and expressive sound that gives Laurie a creative signature sound. You can’t help but smile at the catchy melodic progression and hook “I was in the lead, but I stumbled at the rail. I was flying high, but I’m a kite with no tail. I’m gonna fall, and I was doing so well, until I looked into your eyes.” Laurie’s much slower reflective acoustic country number, “A Hand To Hold,” features a duet with Linda Ronstadt as they sing this tribute in song for guitarist Charles Sawtelle with passionate lines like “My mind has been full, but my voice has been still, in all this time since you’ve been gone.” A minor point, but the song could’ve been even more effective as a male/female duet. While all lyrics for the album can be found at her website, I sure wish that her short insightful notes about each song had been included in the CD’s digipak. How cool is it to know that “Burley Coulter’s Song For Kate Helen Branch,” for example, was one of Wendell Berry’s poems that he asked Laurie to put it to music? And that Linda Rondstadt suggested “Rank Stranger” for this album, based on their experience first singing with The Bluebirds (Laurie and Linda with Maria Muldaur) at Wintergrass in 2005. Their high, soaring soprano notes together (along with Tom’s harmony) are amazing. A jilted woman gets her revenge in Karah Stokes’ poetic “The Mourning Cloak,” a species of butterfly that becomes a “messenger of sorrow deep.” An interesting perspective on leaving home or selling the farm is “Bury Me In Bluegrass,” that is a lyrical statement consistent with the bumper sticker on Laurie’s guitar case that proclaims, “Growth Destroys Bluegrass Forever.” With that sentiment also in mind, Laurie and the Right Hands walk a fine line with their thoughtful music. Their approach manages to bridge the music perfectly with ones who have gone on before them. We don’t exactly know the inspiration behind Father of Bluegrass Bill Monroe’s instrumental “The Golden West,” but we do know that those in California, as well as throughout the world, have embraced the power and intensity that the genre has to offer. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)
Submitted by Joe Ross (Roseburg, OR.)
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