Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers - Rare Bird Alert

When he released The Crow, many people were skeptical of a musical album from Steve Martin.  Now with Grammy and other awards on his mantle, he returns with The Steep Canyon Rangers for CD #2. Is this album any good?

If you only buy the digital version of Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers’ new album Rare Bird Alert you’re going to miss a treat, a treat that is Steve Martin’s humor in written form as he describes every track on this, his second full-lenghth bluegrass album.  The album follows-up his stellar Grammy-winning The Crow: New Songs for the Five String Banjo and this time it doesn’t feature any bleeding cowboys.  Instead what we get is an album that features the fantastic IBMA-winning Steep Canyon Rangers and a couple high-wattage special guests – who we’ll get to later.

The album starts out with the title track and it was inspired by Steve’s stay in British Columbia, Canada as he filmed a movie about, well, rare bird experts, with Jack Black and Owen Wilson.  It showcases Steve and the Rangers musicality which rivals just about anybody.  “Yellow-Backed Fly” finds vocalist Woody Platt singing a fun lyric about a guy who is trying to catch ‘ol jim,’ the large fish that nobody can seem to catch.  “Best Love” finds Sir Paul McCartney joining Steve and the Rangers on an elegant and melodic tune that Steve says he wrote for his wife and that he showed her how much he loved her based on all the little things that makes him love her.  There’s some cello added to the mix and the song is a wee bit more ‘lush’ than your traditional bluegrass song thanks to Nicky Sanders fantastic orchestral arrangement but with Steve’s banjo leading the way, it’s hard to not know that this tune is still a bluegrass tune. 

“Go Away, Stop, Turn Around, Come Back” has a little humor in that title but when listening to the lilting ballad Steve and the Rangers show how messy matters of the heart can get, all the while delivering a rustic, elegant arrangement which allows virtually every musician to showcase their instrumental prowess.  “Women Like To Slow Dance” is lyrically fun while musically interesting.  The Dixie Chicks perform on record for the first time as a Trio on “You,” a song that Steve describes as “a sad song about a break-up that’s not sad’ and man, is it ever a great description of the song and of course the Chicks performance on the tune is just fantastic (and without a doubt will garner this song a best collaboration with vocals Grammy, if the song with Sir Paul doesn’t get the award instead in 2012). 

There are a couple of live performances on this disc that close out the album and they instantly brought me back to the live show I witnessed in 2009 at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall.  “Athiests Don’t Have No Songs” is a downright hilarious ‘spiritual’ song written for atheists, although much of the lyrics of the song deals with how they really have more than enough songs while the Rangers and Steve rework the classic comedy bit “King Tut” for an even more grassy arrangement. 

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers have made one of the finest albums I’ve yet to hear in 2011 and with the charm of the Rangers harmony and instrumental prowess being a perfect match for Martin’s humorous wit and banjo skill.   If you enjoy great music you’re sure to enjoy Rare Bird Alert.



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Review: Steep Canyon Rangers - Deep In The Shade

 

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