Duets

With the smile-inducing Duets, the husband-and-wife duo of Tim Bluhm (frontman for The Mother Hips) and Nicki Bluhm (lead singer of The Gramblers) share their intimate fireplace jams. Duets overflows with heavenly honky-tonk harmonies steeped deep in California country rock but performed with a West Coast folk style. The waltzing “Think About the Two of Us” opens with Tim’s breathy baritone cooing over an acoustic guitar before Nicki’s summery singing comes in to effortlessly braid their voices. It sounds like they’ve been doing this for a lifetime. The more playful “Unforgetaboutable” blends in a Woody Guthrie–inspired whimsy that would also make for a perfect children’s song. They give Ray Edenton and Donny Winters’ “Running Wild” the kind of flawless vocal congruence heard on old recordings by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. “Stick with Me” sounds like a Later Days–era Mother Hips tune, while their hip cover of Richard Fariña’s “Reno Nevada” suggests that the duo first heard The Fairport Convention’s version on the BBC recordings of Heyday.