Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute To The Moody Blues is far from a typical tribute. Involving the members of The Moody Blues, a British rock band whose innovative production and songwriting styles fused diverse elements such as classical and folk, rock and country to create their signature rock sound, made perfect sense.
The two CD collection — available October 29 from Red River Entertainment — features not only The Moody Blues, but some of the finest talent in Nashville and the world of bluegrass, like Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Sam Bush, John Cowan, Ricky Skaggs, Tim O’Brien, Harley Allen, Alison Brown, Larry Cordle, Lionel Cartwright, Jon Randall, Stuart Duncan and more.
“The notion of creating bluegrass flavored settings for rock and roll songs is hardly new,” wrote noted writer Jon Weisberger. “One might argue that the precedent was set by Bill Monroe himself almost 50 years ago when he encouraged the Stanley Brothers to record a version of ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ that owed more to Elvis Presley’s then-current cover than to the decade old original. Since then, the stream of such projects has waxed and waned, but never disappeared and the flood that has emerged in the past few years offers a powerful testimony to its continued appeal.”
Amazingly, the songs that have become part of the fabric of classic rock format translate easily to bluegrass and country. Among the highlights are Gill’s “I Know You’re Out There”, Cowan’s “Tuesday Afternoon”, Allen’s “Lovely To See You” Skaggs’ “You and Me” and Cordle’s “Have You Heard.”
The Moody Blues’ Edge is joined by Carl Jackson, Jill Crabtree and Jan Harvey for “Higher and Higher” while bandmate Hayward sings on “It’s Cold Outside Your Heart” and Lodge takes the lead on “Send Me No Wine.”
Other Moody Blues classics include acoustic takes on “The Voice”, “Nights In White Satin,” “Nice To Be Here”, “Highway” and the utterly charming “Voices in the Sky” featuring eight year old Emma Harvey singing lead. And would have have ever thought “I’m Just A Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)” could have ever translated so effortlessly to a bluegrass project.
So many similar projects are strictly tongue in cheek, but Moody Bluegrass: A Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues is clearly a gathering of admirers of great songs that know no musical limitations.
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