ANDERSON FAMILY BLUEGRASS
Live From Grass Valley
Anderson Family Bluegrass 002

www.andersonfamilybluegrass.com
 

The family band has always been one of the most treasured aspects in the world of bluegrass and the Anderson Family band of Grass Valley, California is a wonderful illustration of that fact. Banjo plucking Mike and stand-up bass playing Christy along with their four harmonizing offspring – guitarist Paige (18), fiddler Aimee (15), mandolinist Ethan (13) and resonator guitarist Daisy (11) – have been entertaining audiences from San Francisco to Nashville. Their sound is immediately engaging, eyebrow-raising traditional bluegrass that is stunningly noteworthy from pickers so youthful. The family’s third project was recorded live, by Nevada City’s KVMR radio station, at a recent California Bluegrass Association Father’s Day Festival in the Anderson’s hometown. Particularly impressive numbers abound – check out Paige and Aimee’s soulfully powerful “sister duets” on both Hazel Dickens’ reflective classic “My Better Years” and Gillian Welch’s gospel hymn “By The Mark,” the marvelous quartet vocalizing on “Going Up Home To Live In Green Pastures” (with Daisy’s first recorded Dobro solo) and Ethan’s red-hot mandolin work on Bill Monroe’s up-tempo instrumental “Jerusalem Ridge” for starters. Other favorites are a rousing revival of the traditional tale of the ill-fated banjo-playing “Darling Corey,” Aimee, Ethan and Paige’s peerless vocalizing on Darrell Scott’s downbeat “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive,” a decidedly resolute recall of another Bill Monroe sacred gem “Get Up John” and a riveting rendition of the Flatt/Scruggs ballad “Your Love Is Like A Flower.” Music of the true vine.

— Gary von Tersch