“One More For The Road” – Adam Steffey – a Review
Adam Steffey is a powerhouse mandolin player who has been around for quite awhile, playing lots of sessions and currently in Dan Tyminski’s band. He was in Alison Krauss’s Union Station for a number of years. In fact, this CD is as close as you will get to an Alison Krauss CD this year, as the rest of Union Station , except for Jerry Douglas are on this CD. It is a very well done and thought out Album. This CD has the solid sound of a modern bluegrass CD like AKUS. It is produced by Gary Paczosa (my favorite acoustic music recording engineer. He is now doing A and R work for Sugar Hill Records. So Sugar Hill Records is releasing this for Adam. This is Adam’s second CD, his first, “Grateful” was in 2002, I have not heard that one. Adam sings five songs on this disc. Then there are four instrumentals and 3 guests ,Dan Tyminski, Ronnie Bowman and Alison Krauss.
This was recorded in Gary Paczosa’s studio. The band is for the most part, Randy Kohrs on dobro, Ron Block on guitar and banjo , Dan Tyminski on guitar and vocals, Barry Bales on bass, Stuart Duncan on fiddle,Bryan Sutton on guitar, his wife Tina on some clawhammer banjo. If you are a bluegrass lover, this will be familiar to you and a delight.
“Deep Rough” is a fast paced instrumental track which opens up the CD, a great bluegrass jam with the best players. This is very melodic and not repetitive.
The title track is a great song by Josh Shilling and Craig Market. “One More For The Road” is one I really like, a haunting melody with some good harmony and Dobro.
“Warm Kentucky Sunshine” with Alison Krauss singing is a beautiful bluegrass ballad that sounds like the Alison we all know. Makes you wonder, will we ever hear Alison and Union Station again? There is plenty of great bluegrass today, I’m not saying she won’t be missed, she has been singing with Union Station for so long. They are the best bluegrass group in my opinion and you can hear that here on this album, a great mix of talent.
A song that I really like and a lot of the reason I like it is the groove that it is in. Ronnie Bowman sings “Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends” (Kris Kristofferson) This is as good as any thing I have heard in bluegrass this year, so you need to get ,if you love the Akus style of Bluegrass.