Banjoists Steve Martin and Alison Brown have called up a boatload of friends to guest on their album. The list includes Jackson Browne, Vince Gill, the Indigo Girls, Tim O’Brien, Jason Mraz, and Della Mae. They open with a banjo duet, ‘Friend of Mine,’ which has a timeless quality to it. The instruments sparkle, and they mesh together so that in places it sounds like a single player.
From there, the album quickly goes off piste with songs like the Bossa Nova-influenced ‘Michael’, which features Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz. ‘Dear Time’ with Jackson Browne and Jeff Hanna highlights Martin’s comment that “with the banjo, there are so many styles you can work with, but Alison and I both have an ear for its more melodic, melancholy aspect.”
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