Zak McLamb, bass player with Kenny & Amanda Smith, and his wife Karen are celebrating the birth of their first child.

Luke McLamb was born last night (7/27) at 8:50 p.m. (EDT). Zak reports that he weighed in at 7 lbs., 10 oz. and “stands” 21 1/2” tall.

Needless to say, Zak is awfully excited about the whole thing.

Congratulations to all the McLambs!

This column, containing brief reviews of recent CD releases by Richard Thompson, is published in the current (Spring 2009) edition of British Bluegrass News. As it is a lengthy piece, we will break it into two parts, and run the rest next Sunday.

A series of rambles about CDs by bluegrassmercury…

A big bundle of CDs has landed on my desk in the recent past. They include those by Danny Paisley, the Infamous Stringdusters, Williams & Clark Expedition, Kenny & Amanda Smith Band, Daughters Of Bluegrass, High Windy, Gold Heart, Cherryholmes, Earl Scruggs, The Mashville Brigade, Crowe Brothers, Ralph Stanley II, Longview, Big Country Bluegrass.

The Infamous Stringdusters - Travis Book (bass, vocals), Jesse Cobb (mandolin), Andy Falco (guitar), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle, vocals), Andy Hall (dobro, vocals) and Chris Pandolphi (banjo) – are a bunch of young honchos who have just released their second album. This self-titled collection (Sugar Hill 4043) is growing on me. Book’s soulful vocals shine on Won‚Äòt Be Coming Back, the melodic Bound For Tennessee and the bluesy Get It While You Can. Garrett is a fine vocalist as well, as demonstrated on Three Days In July (historians, think Gettysburg, 1863), I Wonder and You Can‚Äòt Handle The Truth. There’s three enjoyable instrumentals in Glass Elevator by Pandolphi, Golden Ticket by Cobb and Black Rock by Hall, keeping interest going until the end. Overall the sextet produces a warm, full sound with fiddle and Dobro ¬Æ prominent, rather than just having one or other, as a lot of groups do.

There aren’t any surprises on Danny Paisley’s The Room Over Mine (Rounder 0589); he continues where he and his father left off. The 13-tack collection epitomizes the hard-driving Galax area mountain-style of bluegrass, with fiddle kick-offs and driving banjo ringing loud and clear. There‚Äòs a couple of outstanding new ‚Äòold’ songs in Chris Stuart’s opener, Don’t Throw Mamma’s Flowers Away and Drowning Sailor, both of which suit Paisley to a ‚ÄòT’. Most of the rest are bluegrass versions of songs from the classic country catalogue, with a couple from his dad’s repertoire, now re-done. In the former category are The Convict And The Rose, written by Betty Chapin and Robert A. King and recorded by Marty Robbins and Charlie Moore among others, I Thought I Heard You Calling My Name, done in a honk-tonk style with walking bass and I’m Coming Back But I Don’t Know When, a song Danny first heard done by Charlie Monroe.

In the second group are At the End of a Long Lonely Day, now done in different way and with different lyrics and A Memory of You, previously recorded by Jim and Jesse. Donnie Eldreth Jr does a great job having learned how to follow Danny’s lead singing and does likewise when he is singing lead as on Another Bridge to Burn, a song from Ray Price’s repertoire. Those Paisleys and the Lundy brothers know how to do it and they do it exceptionally well. (more…)

The next recording project by Kenny & Amanda Smith, Live And Learn, is due from Rebel Records on September 9. This will be their fourth CD with Rebel, the fifth since Kenny left Lonesome River Band in 2001 to launch this new venture with his wife, Amanda.

Students and fans of flatpicking guitar have followed Kenny from the time he first placed in the National Guitar Flat Pick Championship at Winfield in 1992, and followed him through stints with Claire Lynch and his two Guitar Player of the Year Awards from IBMA while working with LRB.

For most bluegrass fans, their first taste of Amanda’s singing was a single track she sang on Kenny’s Studebaker CD, released in 1997, or her debut release with Kenny, Slowly But Surely.

I had a chance to sit down with both of them recently to listen through the entire CD, after which they answered a few questions about the music and the songs included on Live And Learn, which also features regular band members Zach McLamb on bass and Aaron Williams on mandolin.

Kenny was especially enthusiastic about this project…

“I couldn’t ask for a better CD. This one just captured the sound we were after, and I’m delighted with the result.

At the beginning of this project, we had still not hired a full time banjo player. This had gone on for a year with different players filling in. Terry Baucom and Ron Stewart had filled in with us during the summer, and we just didn’t get in a hurry finding someone with these guys filling in. Plus, we were having a blast with them picking with us.

We were going to cut the project regardless and leave the banjo spot open and deal with it later when we called Ron about overdubbing fiddle later on. He told us he was available the week were laying down the rhythm tracks. So Ron showed up with banjo and fiddle in hand and we cut some of the best music the band has recorded to date.”

The first single from the album, Randall Collins, has been released to radio and is starting to get airplay. It’s a re-cut of a great Norman Blake song from the 1970s, one of Kenny’s favorite guitarists while he was learning to play.

“When I was growing up in Nine Mile, Indiana I used to mow yards in the summer for $3.50 a yard. I did that all summer and it was my first real job. It was enough to keep gas in my minibike and buy records. (more…)

Kenny Smith just called with some news. They have hired Trent Callicutt to play banjo with The Kenny & Amanda Smith Band.

Trent is an 18 year old picker from Asheboro, NC. He has been doing shows with the band this past two weeks.

Kenny said that when Joey Cox left them to go to work with Doyle Lawson, he didn’t really look very hard for a replacement.

“Baucom was filling in with us, and we were liking that so much that it didn’t seem like we were in a hurry to find someone. We ended up just using Terry all of last year, with Ron Stewart doing a few shows when Bauc couldn’t be there.

Trent had actually given us a cassette tape some time ago, and I had literally forgotten about it. Aaron – our mandolin player – asked me one day if I had ever listened to it, and I had to dig around for both that tape and something to listen to it on!

When I called to see if he wanted to try out, I think we really shocked him since he never heard anything when he gave us the tape.”

In addition to the new banjo player, Kenny and Amanda will also have a new CD shortly. Their latest project, the fourth for Rebel, is completed with art design just underway.

Kenny told me that they felt like the pressure was on after the success of their Tell Someone CD, which has received both Grammy and Dove award nominations, but said that this was the most painless album they have recorded to date.

“I think this new one has a little more fire in it. We do have three Gospel numbers, and we hope they will get the same sort of attention as the all-Gospel CD did.”

He and Amanda are very excited about the material as well. He said that he co-wrote one with Wayne Winkle, and also included a classic country song, I Jumped The Mississippi. They also have one written by Artie Hill, Drive That Fast, which he wrote especially for them.

The one he spoke about most pointedly is a new song from Brandi Hart of The Dixie Bee-Liners.

“Brandi sent us this song, Changing, which is a really different song. It’s a mining song that we really like and hope will end up as the title track.”

Rebel has just received the finished master and a release date has not yet been set. We’ll be sure to update everyone when more details emerge.