Long Monday

Troubadour Well into his third decade at the top, album # 37 for George Strait maintains the consistency and high quality that's marked the vast majority of his work from the start. Like Alan Jackson, he's has always been more comfortable in conventional country fiddle and steel guitar set...	All I Intended to Be Emmylou Harris has always had a way with woe. On All I Intended To Be, she seems more maudlin than ever as she sings her way through songs about loss, heartbreak, even the odd funeral. Of course, this is the kind of material Harris has always been comfortable with, but as her car...	Moment Of Forever Countless Westerns have centered around the theme of a young turk coming into town to try to take down a legendary gunslinger. Well, for the past couple of decades, Willie Nelson has turned that imagery on its head, attracting countless younger artists eager to soak up some of hi...	Lady Antebellum There has been a buzz in Music City since mid-2006 when Lady Antebellum performed together for the very first time. The trio- comprised of Hillary Scott (vocals), Charles Kelley (vocals), and Dave Haywood (vocals, acoustic guitar, keys)- says their name, "Lady Antebellum," repre...	Good Time Within his 2008 release, Good Time, a generous selection of 17 tracks, Alan Jackson sings of all sorts of times. Not only the "Good Time" of the title track--a dance floor, barroom anthem with a hint of Chuck Berry--but tender times ("Right Where I Want You"), mournful times ("S...
Dailey and Vincent The most eagerly-anticipated bluegrass debut in recent memory, Dailey & Vincent introduces a powerful new ensemble steeped in bluegrass and country music traditions, but blessed with the drive, talent, and charisma to assert those timeless values proudly onto today's stage. Co-le...	Through the Window of a Train Though bluegrass tradition remains the bedrock of Blue Highway, inspired songwriting and adventurous musicianship keep the quintet's music fresh and contemporary. It may be unfair to spotlight individual musicians in a group as cohesive as this, but the interplay of Rob Ickes on...	Iron and Diamonds With Iron & Diamonds, Eric and Leigh have taken their rightful place on the American jukebox. The Gibsons have made a conscious effort to co-write most of the songs on this album. By using their own band and a single microphone for their duet vocals, you hear exactly what you hea...	How Great Thou Art: Gospel Favorites Live from the Grand Ole Opry	The Steeldrivers With one foot in the field and the other in the factory, The SteelDrivers are a beacon beaming their own version of rhythm'n'bluegrass far across the musical landscape. Highly regarded behind the scenes as songsmiths and session men - with innumerable hits, cuts, and licks to the...

An album that shines on the grass
Tim Hensley started out doing extended tenures with Ricky Skaggs, Patty Loveless, and Kenny Chesney. But for the first time ever, he gets to bring his own music to us, the fans, in his first album "Long Monday". Whether it's the serious sentiment of "Ridin' out the Storm" or the playful moralizing in "Fox Run the Henhouse", there's a song in the album for everyone to relate to. Tim Hensley's singing on this album brings a refreshing sound so good that you want to listen to the album again and again. This first album is one big hit. It's one that will always shine on the grass.

+1/2 -- Easy-going, yet moving bluegrass and Americana
Tim Hensley's the sort of sideman whose move into the spotlight doesn't so much mark him as an unrecognized superstar as it does a man of musical depth. His seven years with Kenny Chesney have taken him into arenas, but it's the after-show bluegrass and mountain music picking sessions that are nearer his musical heart, and show off what he learned from Ricky Skaggs and Patty Loveless. His singing voice may not be as singular as those he's backed, but it's packed with emotion, knowledge and deep reverence for hill sounds and songs, whether old favorites or more recently penned tunes. The album's lead single covers Rodney Crowell's devastating "Ridin' Out the Storm." This true story leaves the writer rethinking his preconceptions as a homeless man rebukes an offer of help with a stand upon his strained dignity. Hensley selects thoughtfully from the catalogs of several other modern Americana and bluegrass songwriters, including the warm longing of John Prine and Keith Syke's "Long Monday", the forsaken love of Carl Jackson and Larry Cordle's "Lonesome Dove," the defensive personal revival of Ronnie Bowman and Tim Stafford's "Hard Rains Lately," and three songs from John Scott Sherrill that include the fiddle, banjo and mandolin told-you-so "Fox Run the Henhouse," the lonesome blue "Dear Departed," and the vanquished roots of "Five Generations of Rock County Wilsons." Hensley adds one original in the faith-based, "What a Sight to Behold," and three bluegrass/gospel staples, "Two Coats," "Shady Grove," and "Working on a Building." The latter reappears for an unlisted a cappella coda at the end of the CD. The lack of commercial goals for this album allowed Hensley to avoid both Nashville's commercialism and bluegrass' often suffocating adherence to Tradition. All eleven tracks display a familiarity with music and an ease with music-making that transcends the artifice of a recording studio. In the same way that top-notch dancers seem to float through their steps, Hensley and his mates perform these songs as though they were extemporaneous, innate extensions of their experiences. 4-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]