From the Pasture to the Future (CD - 2006)

The Waybacks: James Nash (vocals, baritone, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bottleneck guitar, resonator guitar, arch guitar, mandolin, background vocals); Stevie Coyle (vocals, acoustic guitar, background vocals); Evan Price (fiddle); Joe Kyle Jr. (double bass, arco bass, bass guitar, percussion, background vocals); Chuck Hamilton (drums, percussion); Christie Winn, Darol Anger, Gabe Witcher, Lloyd Maines, Mark Rubin , Riley Osbourne.

Personnel: James Nash (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bottleneck guitar, resonator guitar, arch guitar, mandolin, background vocals); Lloyd Maines (dobro); Darol Anger, Gabe Witcher (fiddle); Mark Rubin (tuba); Riley Osbourne (organ); Charles Hamilton (drums, percussion); Christie Winn (background vocals).

Recording information: Bismeaux Studio, Austin, TX; Studio 890, Oakland, CA.

All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

Photographer: Jay Blakesberg.

The Chicago Tribune says that the Waybacks offer "a near-ideal balance of irreverence, chops, discipline, and originality," and that actually sums it up quite well. This primarily acoustic folk-rock group is irreverent about genre boundaries, jumping gleefully back and forth between the lines that separate blues from bluegrass, rock from jazz, and Celtic music from pop, but they're never so irreverent that they just sound goofy. Their chops are considerable, but (in the studio anyway) they never lapse into wanky self-indulgence. Their discipline and originality are manifest in tightly written, hook-filled songs and unusual arrangements, and all of those qualities come together beautifully in this, the group's fourth album. From the Pasture to the Future offers brilliant instrumental hot jazz ("Monkey Pants," "Hot Kranski"), a sharply rocking kissoff song ("Helping Me," which features the timeless couplet "It's not that you're bad for me/It's just that you're bad"), and a very fine rhumba ("Armando's Rhumba"). It also features a funny folk-rock number titled "Petrified Man" and a beautiful Texas-style dance number called "Bluebird Waltz." The Waybacks are not terribly convincing as purveyors of straight-up traditional Irish music, as "The Blacksmith" demonstrates, but everything else works so well that you hardly even notice that one. Very highly recommended. ~ Rick Anderson minimize