Double Trouble

Byron Berline is a fiddler whose talents have been employed by artists as diverse as Bill Monroe and the Rolling Stones; John Hickman has stayed closer to the bluegrass mainstream, but his playing is melodically adventurous and highly inventive. "Double Trouble" is a reissue of a 1986 session that finds Berline and Hickman playing a stripped-down, but still innovative, style of bluegrass that may come as a surprise to fans of the influential Berline/Crary/Hickman ensemble and of California, the band they formed in 1990. There are several Berline originals here as well as standards like "Blackberry Blossom" and "Sugar in the Gourd." Everywhere Hickman's picking is supple, slippery, and crystalline, and Berline shows more humor and intelligence in his playing than just about any ten other fiddlers you could think of. These guys have been playing together so long that they almost share a brain, and this disc is a pleasure.