An accomplished and big-hearted artist, sideman and musicians’ musician, Danny Barnes<\/a> (formerly of the proto-Americana band Bad Livers<\/a>) has more credits than you’d want to read. But you don’t need to know that he tours with bluegrass master Tim O’Brien<\/a> and taught avant-jazz guitar great Bill Frisell<\/a> how to play old-time music. Barnes’s new solo album of homespun bluegrass and traditional-style country is a thing of beauty, humor, and deep but simple pleasures. As facile with flatpicking, slide and bluegrass guitar as he is on banjo and vocals, he delivers a set of originals and cover tunes that climbs all over the landscape of Americana music<\/a> like a truck rumbling from state to state, climate to climate, all inside one big country.<\/p>\n From his bluegrass version of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” (featuring fiddle wunderkind Brittany Haas<\/a>) to the four-part gospel harmonies (all Barnes) on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Let Your Light Shine on Me” and the gorgeous banjo-and-fiddle treatment of the traditional “Cumberland Gap,” Barnes fuses reverence for classic old songs with his own full-blooded yet somehow self-effacing string virtuosity.<\/p>\n Barnes’s original songs aren’t amazing, but his flair for amusing turns of phrase and flawless feel for the old song forms make them interesting and enjoyable, and his tongue-in-cheek hillbilly vocals are a perfect vehicle for the clever, sometimes darkly funny lyrics. His attitude is summed up in “Get It On Down the Line,” a hilarious pastiche of cornball growin’-up-poor country cliches which Barnes himself can’t manage to sing without laughing:<\/p>\n \nWhen I got old enough to realize the life we had was tough Danny Barnes’s quintessentially American music is quirky, sincere, modern and rooted all at the same time. I recommend it highly to fans of all kinds of rootsy music.<\/p>\n [Cross-posted at Blogcritics<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An accomplished and big-hearted artist, sideman and musicians’ musician, Danny Barnes (formerly of the proto-Americana band Bad Livers) has more credits than you’d want to read. But you don’t need to know that he tours with bluegrass master Tim O’Brien and taught avant-jazz guitar great Bill Frisell how to play old-time music. Barnes’s new solo … Continue reading “CD REVIEW: Danny Barnes, Get Myself Together<\/i>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonsobel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI asked my Daddy why he thought that shack would be enough
\nThree consumptive children and a life that ain’t never fun
\nHere is what my Daddy told me, Son,
\nYou can work in a coalmine
\nYou can make a little moonshine
\nOr you can get it on down the line\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n