The Company We Keep

Del & his band have been putting our strong Bluegrass albums since 1990, picking up more than 40 Bluegrass Music Association awards along the way, including eight entertainer trophies and eight mandolin trophies for son Ronnie. Mike Bub has won four IBMA awards for bass player, and Jason Carter has won three for fiddle player. In addition, the band's version of Richard Thompson's '1952 Vincent Black Lightning' won their first IBMA song of the year award in 2002. McCoury joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry in 2003. This album is packed with tightly-written songs from some of Nashville's most trusted songwriters, and offers McCoury's first attempt at co-writing. McCoury Music. 2005.

Though the Del McCoury Band has earned renown for its wide-ranging repertoire--drawing from the rock, blues, and folk songbooks for its bluegrass adaptations--The Company We Keep finds the revered vocalist sticking close to his musical roots. McCoury's songwriting collaborations provide autobiographical highlights, from the eternal innocence of "Never Grow Up Boy" to the age-old wisdom of "If Here's Where You Are" ("then here's where you're supposed to be"). Del and his band, including sons Ronnie (mandolin, co-producer) and Rob (banjo), survey a bluegrass range that extends from the Appalachian strains of "Mountain Song" to the instrumental romp through Ronnie's "Seventh Heaven" to the deeply spiritual gospel of "I Never Knew Life." Best of all is the album's centerpiece, "Fathers and Sons," which finds the family band harmonizing on the bonds of blood. While the shifting time signatures of the opening "Nothing Special" serve notice that the music won't be bound by tradition, the album serves to celebrate that tradition and extend it. --Don McLeese