Jam-grass pioneers Leftover Salmon returned to their roots this spring with the release of their latest studio album, Grass Roots. An homage to some of their greatest influences over the band’s decades-long career, the album is a grass-y rendition of some of their favorite songs and lyrics. Grass Roots has been self-defined as a reflection on the band’s “bluegrass and festival campground origins that draws from the repertoires that The Salmon Heads and The Left Hand String Band played.” Looking back on a 30-year career, Leftover Salmon uses the new album to give credit to and share gratitude for some of their earliest musical influences with ten tracks of spectacular covers.
Certainly a bigger name in both our local music scene and the greater bluegrass scene, Leftover Salmon is no stranger to creating music, playing shows and having a real good time. It’s no surprise that after an extensive career making a name for themselves across the country and beyond — carrying the torch passed down by progressive bluegrass pioneers like The Seldom Scene and Newgrass Revival, and inspiring generations of bluegrass musicians that have followed — it was only natural for them to take a moment, or in this case an album, to wax nostalgic. Featuring very special guests and hugely talented musical peers Billy Strings, Oliver Wood and Darol Anger, Grass Roots is the collaborative culmination of what happens when you mix contemporary bluegrass with the classics.
The album kicks off with Dock Boggs’ “Country Blues,” featuring Darol Anger on the violin and Leftover Salmon’s co-founding father and mandolinist Drew Emmitt on lead vocals. Anger’s singular strumming is again heard later on the album while leading the band on “The New Lee Highway Blues.” The tune, originally sung by David Bromberg, is brought to justice with another co-founding father on lead vocals, guitarist and animated frontman Vince Herman.
With the album starting out with a sit-in from a bluegrass legend, it seems fitting that the next sit-in would be from a bluegrass prodigy. Quite possibly the biggest name on the bluegrass circuit these days, Billy Strings blends into the ensemble on The Delmore Brothers’ “Blue Railroad Train,” and takes the reins for some serious picking on Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline Rag.” Strings’ back-and-forth on the latter with banjoist Andy Thorn is clean, clear and simply beautiful.
Despite their bluegrass roots, Leftover Salmon has a reputation for being one of the more groovy, funky, get-out-of-your-seat-and-dance bands, which lends a hand to the album’s third collaboration. The crooning vocals and incendiary guitar-playing of Oliver Wood are heard on Link Wray’s “Fire and Brimstone,” a complementary parallel to Emmitt’s twang. The soulful influences that Wood brings into the mix lend a roundness to the album that takes it to another level of versatility.
For the other half of the album, Leftover Salmon keeps it to just the band themselves, which is especially appreciated on Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate.” Slowing and stripping it down, the song showcases newest member Jay Starling’s skills on the keys. Herman switches it up with some hootin’ and hollerin’ on W.S. Bryson’s “Riding On The L&N,” and the band turns the nob up on country with Dallas Frazier and Earl Montgomery’s “California Cottonfields.” Thorn’s banjo leads the way on the Grateful Dead’s “Black Peter,” with Alywn Robinson keeping the pace on the rhythm section. Finally, the album closes with a stellar version of John H. Doan’s “Fireline” that sees an all-encompassing, full-band sound as its grand finale.
Listen to Grass Roots by Leftover Salmon here.