At the age of 66, bluegrass legend Del McCoury has certainly been there and done that. As a true ambassador for bridging bluegrass to a younger and wider audience, the genre owes the man some due respect. But rather than lay back and bask in the fame and glory, McCoury is still making the best music of his life, while remaining a hardworking road horse.
With The Company We Keep, McCoury is back “to tell it like it is” in his high lonesome voice. For the past twelve years, McCoury and his two sons, Ronnie (mandolin) and Rob (banjo), as well as Jason Carter on fiddle and Mike Bub on upright bass, have been the bread and butter of The Del McCoury Band. The Company We Keep sounds like family, evokes a familiar scent and plays full of heart.
McCoury offers his first attempt at co-writing on the release, getting a bit of help from some of Nashville’s most assured songwriters. The opening track, a version of Mark Walton’s “Nothing Special,” like many of the album’s 14 tracks, allows each band member to poke their instrument into the circle to ache its pain or exalt it’s glory.
Claiming to be the most personal album he’s done, songs like “Never Grow Up Boy” is an acoustic, autobiographical look at McCoury’s guitar-picking, bluegrass singing life. And he gets more sentimental on a stirring version of “Fathers and Sons,” where Carter’s moaning fiddle and Rob’s banjo hold together against Del’s fatherly voice. Behind him, the band’s picking prowess hollers at the moon in “Mountain Song” and the instrumental “Seventh Heaven.” And what would a bluegrass album be without the love sick blues and tales of jaded love offered in “When It Stops Hurtin'” and “She Can’t Burn Me Now.” The Del McCoury Band is masterful this time around and The Company We Keep serves as a hardy bluegrass companion.
