Running Wild
Kicking Backmight be a more apt title for the low-key  collaboration of these fellow trailblazers in country rock and bluegrass. As on  their previous two CDs, Tony and Larry Rice, Chris Hillman, and Herb Pedersen  bask in classic song craft and sunny vocal harmonies, this time supplementing  traditional bluegrass instrumentation on some tracks with steel guitar and drums  for a bit of honky-tonk kick. Their repertoire travels from L.A.  (Stephen Stills's "4 +  20") to Bakersfield (Buck  Owens's "Take Me Back Again") to Tennessee (theLouvin Brothers' "You're  Running Wild") to Liverpool  (Lennon and McCartney's  "Things We Said Today"). This kind of mixed song bag has become commonplace in  bluegrass, especially in the wake ofAlison Krauss, but these  guys have been at this for four decades now, and it shows. Only one track, Larry  Rice's unfortunate ballad of JonBenet Ramsey ("The Mystery That Won't Go Away"),  falls flat. Otherwise, all is smooth picking and sweet singing from four  musicians with nothing to prove.--Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers