Guitarist
Tommy Shaw spent the first decade of the 21st century reuniting with his longtime outfit
Styx, making recording with
Damn Yankees, and as
Shaw Blades with
Yankees mate
Jack Blades. He begins the second decade making a very wide left turn, returning to the roots music he cut his guitar-playing teeth on in his native Alabama: bluegrass.
The Great Divide is not a novelty record, nor does it sound like
Shaw is merely flirting with the genre while biding his time until another
Styx reunion. He wrote or co-wrote every song on the record, and surrounded himself with some of the best players in the genre: superchoppers like fiddler
Stuart Duncan, mandolinist
Sam Bush, bassist Byron House, banjoist
Scott Vestal, dobro master
Rob Ickes, guitarist Brad Davis, and just to make things interesting, drummer Chris Brown. The progressive bluegrass set also features a pair of superstar guest vocalists --
Dwight Yoakam on album-opener "The Next Right Thing," and
Alison Krauss on the title track (that also features guest
Jerry Douglas on dobro) -- one of the real high points on this outing.
Shaw's flatpicking skills don't sound rusty at all, whether he's playing an acoustic six-string, a resonator guitar, or even a dobro. The other players push him to play at their level and he mostly does: check his dobro solo on "Back in Your Kitchen," the stomping on "Get on the One," where he works out with
Ickes and
Vestal, and the strolling closer "I'll Be Coming Home," where his flatpicking chops are in evidence
Shaw allows his all-star band to shine throughout this set, with
Duncan's fiddle parts on "Afraid to Love," and
Bush and
Ickes on "Cavalry," to mention just two. There are weaknesses, too, however. Despite some excellent harmonies from his guests and co-producer Will Evankovich,
Shaw has to push at his upper vocal register and has to strain to get there. The other snag is in his songwriting; in particular, when he writes on his own. He may be intimately familiar with the genre, but he's rough around the edges when it comes to crafting choruses, and a little wordy in his verses. That said, given that this is a first album, there's plenty to like, and evidence that should he continue pursuing bluegrass, he'll only get better. ~ Thom Jurek