Dear Friends & Gentle Hearts
Suzanne Thomas's voice is remarkable within bluegrass, where for 30 years she's been central to bands like the Dry Branch Fire Squad and the Hotmud Family. She possesses no crystalline soprano or pretty soaring tone nor belting power exactly. Thomas has something else: an ache all around the edges, a tactile sense of emotion, the warmth and tremble marking depth of human feeling. Backing by contemporary bluegrassers IIIrd Tyme Out, the Lonesome River Band, the Seldom Scene, and the Dry Branch Fire Squad never overwhelms Thomas's delivery, which is most moving on the melancholy title track--an ode to Stephen Foster--and Robin and Linda Williams's "Leaving This Land." Her torchy take on "Miss the Mississippi and You" closes Thomas's solo debut, easily one of the year's best bluegrass offerings.--Roy Francis Kasten