ADAM STEFFEY
New Primitive
Organic 14692

www.Organic-Records.com
 

Adam Steffey spent much of the 1990s holding down the mandolin slot in Alison Krauss’ band, Union Station. Since leaving Krauss he has been involved in a wide variety of musical endeavors including tours with Dolly Parton, Vince Gill and other Nashville A-Listers. Currently he is part of The Boxcars, a band that has created more than a little buzz on the bluegrass circuit the past couple of years. As we learn from the liner notes of this solo, mostly instrumental album, he is a cousin of A. P. Carter and was raised in the same remote borderlands of Virginia and Tennessee. The tunes on his solo release New Primitive are the same fiddle tunes that he – and generations of mountain youngsters before him – heard at square dances, fiddle contests, county fairs and family picnics throughout his growing-up years: “Raleigh And Spencer,” “Chinquapin Hunting,” “Big Eyed Rabbit,” “Rock The Cradle Joe” – a baker’s dozen in all, featuring Steffey’s mandolin in the fiddle’s place (though a number of tracks do feature Eddie Bond or Samantha Snyder on fiddle).

One of the tunes that’s less known among the modern old-time enthusiasts is “Goodbye Girls I’m Going To Boston.” The late fiddler Art Stamper laid down one of the few previously recorded versions on the County label some thirty years ago, but Steffey’s mandolin version nicely captures the tune’s spirited, playful nature. “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom” is a prime example of the sort of “crooked” tunes that musicians of Steffey’s caliber seek out and excel at, but perhaps the best track on the disc is the closer, “Ways Of The World”, a lilting, ethereal tune that Steffey performs without backup. The backup cast on the rest of the album is well-chosen, though. In addition to the aforementioned Bond and Samantha Snyder, Steffey’s wife Tina plays clawhammer banjo, former Krauss bandmate Barry Bales sits in on bass, and Zeb Snyder (relation to Samantha, if any, is not specified) plays a lively guitar counterpoint to Steffey’s mandolin throughout. All in all, it’s down-home music in the most literal and evocative sense.

— John Lupton