Laurie Lewis- Trees review

Laurie Lewis Trees Spruce and Maple Music LaurieLewis.com

Laurie Lewis is a legend.

She should long ago have been inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. In its earliest days, Lewis was twice IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year, has been party to additional awards including Song of the Year (for “Who Will Watch the Home Place”), and has influenced generations of talented instrumentalists and singers including Molly Tuttle.

By my count, which could be inaccurate, Trees is Lewis’ twenty-fifth recording (including live sets) across forty-plus years of recording. A substantial catalogue to be certain, whether my count is off or not. While Lewis chooses to roam freely within the bluegrass genre, more often than not her love and appreciation for the music is evident.

Such is the case with Trees. Not every song is going to immediately register as bluegrass, with several solidly within broader folk and Americana realms. Lewis’ long-time partner Tom Rozum appears on select songs as a vocalist, but is no longer able to play accompanying mandolin; Rozum’s artwork is utilized on the album cover.

Trees has a melancholy mood. Songs including “Texas Wind,” “Rock the Pain Away,” and “Enough” are lovely, emotion-laden slices of reality. “Quaking Aspen” (a Mark Simos song), “Trees,” “The Day is Mine” (a Kate MacLeod song), and especially “Just a Little Ways Down the Road” (which borrows from “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and elsewhere) temper their musical enthusiasm with bluegrass music’s subtle humanistic realism—even at its best, things are seldom ideal. As she has in the past, Lewis focuses on the natural world to provide illustration for her messages.

Lewis repurposes a line John Prine shared with her after a performance to serve as the spine of her song written in tribute to the popular, departed troubadour. “Why’d You Have to Break My Heart?” is possibly the finest song written to honour Prine (and there have been several) and Lewis does it within three straightforward, personal verses which include a kicker couplet,

“But damn, man, you had an art—
you could make me laugh and then tear out my heart.”

Accompanied only by George Guthrie’s guitar, this may be Lewis’s finest vocal performance included on Trees.

Hasee Ciaccio’s walking bass sets the tone for “Hound Dog Blues,” a Miss Dixie and Tom T. Hall song Lewis has previously recorded but has revised for inclusion here. Ciaccio’s accompanying vocals are significant to several songs.

Other covers include John Hartford’s “Down on the Levee” and an excellent rendering of Billy Morrissey’s timeless “Long Gone.” A co-write with Brandon Godman (featured on fiddle throughout Trees) “The Banks are Covered in Blue” is a minor key standout. Patrick Sauber’s banjo playing is welcome, with Lewis handling much of the guitar playing; friend Nina Gerber handles lead guitar on the album’s final song, “Rock the Pain Away.”

I love the song “Enough”:

…Everything I love is disappearing from the land,
So I squeeze my eyes shut, for I’ve seen more than I can stand.
        But then I see the way we used to dance,
        The fields of flowers, the nights of romance,
And I open my eyes again and reach for your hand.

In the most challenging of times, we should all be so fortunate.

Trees is another outstanding album from California’s Laurie Lewis.