On their second album, the appropriately titled
Fired Up,
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper continue to come off as a traditional bluegrass super group. Fiddler
Cleveland may be the nominal frontman, but this is an ensemble of five veterans, with guitarist Tom Adams, banjo player
Jessie Baker, mandolinist Jessie Brock, and bassist
Marshall Wilborn each contributing original compositions and taking the lead role over the course of the disc. Their songs sound traditional, and the rest of the songs really are traditional, dating back to
the Delmore Brothers' 1937 number "I've Got the Railroad Blues" and including the '60s tune "Goin' Up Dry Branch" and
Tom T. Hall's story song "I'm Gonna Ride That Steamboat."
Wilborn gives the disc a fittingly reverent send-off with the closer, "Bigger Hands Than Mine," on which
Vince Gill makes a modest appearance singing tenor vocals to
Wilborn's lead. This is a band full of bluegrass prize winners, and they play like it. ~ William Ruhlmann