Sentenced to Life With the Blues

FGM Records, the recording arm of Flatpicking Guitar magazine, is devoted to giving showcases to pickers who are normally heard only as members of groups, and so it is with Andy Falco, who steps up on Sentenced to Life with the Blues. Falco has spent a career adding his guitar work and occasionally baritone vocals to such bands as Water Street Blues Band, Buddy Merriam & Backroads, and the Infamous Stringdusters. A number of his bandmates join him here on a picking session in which he assembles talented bluegrass ensembles to play the songs. He does not sing lead very much, taking front place before the microphone only for "Ain't My Baby Anymore," "Poor Man Rich," and the title song. But he writes or co-writes nine of the 13 tracks, and his fluid, rhythmic guitar playing dominates the arrangements.