Across the Bridge

As lead singer and mandolinist for the acclaimed jam band Leftover Salmon, Drew Emmitt is at least partially responsible for putting Colorado on the acoustic music map. His second solo album finds him teamed up with an interesting array of bluegrass and newgrass luminaries, including Del McCoury (harmony vocals) and Ronnie McCoury (mandolin), Jim Lauderdale (with whom Emmitt wrote several of the songs on this program), fiddler Stuart Duncan, and fiddler/mandolinist Sam Bush. Singer John Cowan is here as well, but luckily he leaves most of his customary faux-soul-man histrionics at the door, contributing harmony vocals only. The material is a combination of fairly traditional bluegrass (Emmitt and Lauderdale's very fine "This House"), newgrass-style instrumental originals ("Big Ice," "Silvanite"), and border-transgressing fusion numbers (like an acoustic funk arrangement of Bob Dylan's blues-based "Meet Me in the Morning" and a laid-back arrangement of Little Feat's "All That You Dream"). This album would be rated more highly if Emmitt were a stronger singer, but as it is it's sure to appeal to fans of his band and of adventurous acoustic music in general.