POTHOLES ON HIGH CONCEPT ROAD

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Flatpicking Grass
FGM Records 128
What a concept! Collect a dozen tracks from some of the finest guitar flatpickers and vocalists in contemporary bluegrass music, slap them on a CD and let the fun begin. What could go wrong on an album featuring luminaries such as Brad Davis, Tim May, Jim Nunally, Tim Stafford, and Jeff White—artists who have been hailed as the heirs of Norman Blake, Tony Rice and Doc Watson? Especially when the tracks were chosen by Flatpicking Guitar Magazine? Somewhere along High Concept Road somebody forgot to consider something every performer considers basic: the set list. The result is a dozen high-quality tracks that are, for the most part, so interchangeable that it’s often hard to differentiate one performer from another. Bright splashy performances are wasted on a musical canvas that’s analogous to what would have happened if Monet had decided to paint the gardens of Giverny entirely in yellow