Man Must Carry on
This young fiddler's heart may be in bluegrass, but his talents know few bounds. At 26, Aubrey Haynie is equally gifted on the mandolin, and he's already chalked up one strong solo album (1997'sDoin' My Time) and enough session work to make him a cagey veteran. For his second Sugar Hill release, Haynie calls in favors from heavy hitters such asTim O'Brien,Béla Fleck,Bobby Hicks, andJerry Douglas, and skips nimbly from sunny bluegrass instrumentals to gospel vignettes to old-time revisions of "Butcher Boy" (with a deep, haunting vocal from O'Brien) and even "Buffalo Gals." His originals tend toward experimental nouveaux grass: the percussive funk of "Thonotosassa" suggests both the Flecktones andPhish, while opener "Creek's a Risin'" converts "Shady Grove" into an epic minor-key Dobro and fiddle duel. Haynie wisely hands off the few vocal chores to those better suited, and the result is one of the more animated, lyrical, and daring contemporary bluegrass records in recent memory.--Roy Kasten