BLUE HIGHWAY + Some Day: The Fifteenth Anniversary Collection

BLUE HIGHWAY + Some Day: The Fifteenth Anniversary Collection

Formed in the mid-1990s, Blue Highway was a relative latecomer to progressive bluegrass. Although it missed its chance to help define the genre, the group’s consistency over the years has resulted in some of its finest recordings. This collection actually doesn’t pick up till midway through Blue Highway’s career, with its arrival at Rounder Records in 2001. By that time the quintet had already developed a sophisticated songwriting style, exemplified here by the likes of the down-but-not-out “Still Climbing Mountains” and the churning, self-explanatory “Wild Urge to Ramble.” Exemplary vocalists and instrumentalists all, Blue Highway’s members are equally at home with a spare ballad such as “The Seventh Angel” (with cameo guest vocal by Alison Krauss) and more raucous numbers like Mark Knopfler’s “Marbletown” or the opening “Cold and Lowdown Lonesome Blues,” one of two new tracks included on this expertly curated retrospective.
–Jeff Tamarkin

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