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 | Lamb is the fiddler for the all-female country-swing band Ranch Romance, but her debut solo album was produced by Tim O'Brien, who invited his bluegrass pals like Sam Bush, Tony Trischka, Scott Nygaard and Jerry Douglas to play along. The music itself is all over the map, from traditional bluegrass items like "Sally Goodin" and "Katy Hill" to Western Swing, Celtic music, Cajun and new-acoustic numbers, but the connecting thread is Lamb's assertive fiddle lines, full of feeling and melody. She's not much of a singer, but she only takes one lead vocal and two harmonies behind O'Brien; she wisely lets her violin do the singing on the remaining 10 instrumentals. --Geoffrey Himes (less) Sugarhill [Country] | $5  amazon.com |
|  | The music of Tim O'Brien's Rock in My Shoe neatly defines the artist's considerable range as singer, songwriter, and picker. The album offers soul-flavored bluegrass (a duet with Glenn Zankey on the spirited "Climbin' Up a Mountain"), honky-tonk humor (a rowdy, sing-along string-band version of the Neal McCoy hit, "Small Up and Simple Down"), and pretty ballads (an evocative story about a girl escaping a small town to find the "Edge of the Storm"). Best of all is the catchy Cajun tune about a romantic memory that irritates like a "Rock in My Shoe." All in all, Tim O'Brien straddles the boundary between bluegrass and country better than anyone since the days before Ricky Skaggs got too preachy. --Geoffrey Himes (less)Sugarhill | $5  amazon.com |
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