Holding the familiar woodcut artwork of this album in my hands immediately let me know I was listening to the follow up to their excellent 2012 release Our Lady Of The Tall Trees and the also familiar clawhammer banjo opening on Fiddlehead Fern again welcomed me into one of the classier releases of the year to date. Fourteen tracks that weave a musical journey through old time, bluegrass, mountain, and pure country are a joy to listen to and to regularly reach for on my radio shows.
The first five tracks are clawhammer driven and set the pace until Natural Thing to Do at number six drags you straight in to the honky-tonk with as good a country song as I’ve ever heard. After that the styles twist and turn including Lorene by The Louvin Brothers, a gospel Green Pastures and Voices of the Evening by Alice Gerrard before finishing with a fine fiddle reprise of Fiddlehead Fern.
Most of the rest of the songs are written by Morrison. Eli West and Cahalen Morrison are very accomplished musicians and singers capable of commanding the respect of the likes of Dirk Powell, Bruce Molsky and Tim O’Brien who produced this fine album, so who am I to argue. And I’ll keep this one close to the front of my record drawer for easy access.