CD Review: Tim Hensley "Long Monday" (Rural Rhythm / Blue Chair)
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Tim Hensley's the sort of sideman whose move into the spotlight
doesn't so much mark him as an unrecognized superstar as it does a man
of musical depth. His seven years with Kenny Chesney have taken him
into arenas, but it's the after-show bluegrass and mountain music
picking sessions that are nearer his musical heart, and show off what
he learned from Ricky Skaggs and Patty Loveless. His singing voice may
not be as singular as those he's backed, but it's packed with emotion,
knowledge and deep reverence for hill sounds and songs, whether old
favorites or more recently penned tunes.
The album's lead single covers Rodney Crowell's devastating "Ridin'
Out the Storm." This true story leaves the writer rethinking his
preconceptions as a homeless man rebukes an offer of help with a stand
upon his strained dignity. Hensley selects thoughtfully from the
catalogs of several other modern Americana and bluegrass songwriters,
including the warm longing of John Prine and Keith Syke's "Long
Monday", the forsaken love of Carl Jackson and Larry Cordle's
"Lonesome Dove," the defensive personal revival of Ronnie Bowman and
Tim Stafford's "Hard Rains Lately," and three songs from John Scott
Sherrill that include the fiddle, banjo and mandolin told-you-so "Fox
Run the Henhouse," the lonesome blue "Dear Departed," and the
vanquished roots of "Five Generations of Rock County Wilsons."
Hensley adds one original in the faith-based, "What a Sight to
Behold," and three bluegrass/gospel staples, "Two Coats," "Shady
Grove," and "Working on a Building." The latter reappears for an
unlisted a cappella coda at the end of the CD. The lack of commercial
goals for this album allowed Hensley to avoid both Nashville's
commercialism and bluegrass' often suffocating adherence to Tradition.
All eleven tracks display a familiarity with music and an ease with
music-making that transcends the artifice of a recording studio. In
the same way that top-notch dancers seem to float through their steps,
Hensley and his mates perform these songs as though they were
extemporaneous, innate extensions of their experiences and. [(c)2008
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