Sam Bush
Circles Around Me
Sugar Hill Records
Sam Bush is a country and bluegrass legend. For over four decades, Bush and his mandolin and fiddle have redefined bluegrass by adding rock, jazz, and even a hint of reggae to the rigid confines of the bluegrass genre. On his latest album, Circles Around Me, Bush further entrenches himself as one of the greatest bluegrass singers and songwriters of all-time.
Bush’s voice sounds just as polished as it did when he first started, especially on the Bonnie and Clyde storytelling “The Ballad of Stringbean and Estelle” and the hidden track “Hot Tamales and Red Hots.”
He also has some classic instrumentals, including the down-home “Blue Mountain,” the flighty comforting “Apple Blossom,” and the gorgeous “The Old North Woods,” which sounds like it could be the background music for a reading of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
Bush even has a few legendary guests, including the incomparable Del McCoury who helps out on “Midnight on the Stormy Deep,” and takes the lead on the barn-burner “Roll on Buddy, Roll On.” Dobro maestro Jerry Douglas adds his talents to the new grass sound of “Junior Heywood,” and the country ballad “Gold Heart Locket.”
From the rock-infused bluegrass of New Grass Revival to the all-star band Strength in Numbers and on to Emmylou Harris’s Nash Ramblers, Sam Bush has done just about everything that a musician can do in forty years in the music business. Circles Around Me just further solidifies his name among the pantheon of bluegrass legends.
Sam Bush: http://www.sambush.com
