Bridging the Gap is the Crowe Brothers’ second album for Rural Rhythm, released on 11 October 2011 (RHY-1087) and dedicated to the memory of their mother, Margie Crowe. Josh Crowe plays guitar and Wayne Crowe bass, and they produced the record with banjo player Steve Sutton and Steve Thomas, who plays fiddle and mandolin. The rest of the studio band is Randy Kohrs on resophonic guitar, Ashby Frank on mandolin, and Brian Blaylock on mandolin and lead guitar.
The brothers are originally from Clayton, Georgia, and learned from their father, Charles “Junior” Crowe, a banjo player whose Sunshine Melody Boys reached the Grand Ole Opry in 1960 after winning a talent contest. In 1975, with Josh on guitar and Wayne on bass, they joined the North Carolina banjo player Raymond Fairchild, and they worked with him until 1991. Wayne retired from music in 1993, the year Josh recorded Going Back for Rounder with David McLaughlin. The brothers began performing together again in the mid-2000s, and in 2008 made Brothers-N-Harmony, their first album for Rural Rhythm.
The thirteen songs mix remakes with new material. Josh Crowe wrote “Grandma’s Little Boardside Cabin,” “I Knew It Wasn’t You (The Telephone Song)” and “The Winds Are Blowing in Maggie Valley.” The last is a new version of a song that had been a number-one single on the Bluegrass Unlimited Top 30. David McLaughlin’s “I’m Going Back to Old Virginia” returns from Going Back. The other songs include Steve Watts’s “He Could Pick the Hound,” about a banjo player’s skill, Tucker Smith’s “Eighteen Wheels,” Art Priebe’s “Trusting in My Lord” and the public-domain “If I Had My Life to Live Over.” “He Could Pick the Hound” opens the album and became another number one for the brothers. The closing song is the gospel number “God Has Been So Good to Me.”
Tracklist
- 1 He Could Pick The Hound 2:44
- 2 Snow Woman 2:36
- 3 Eighteen Wheels 2:52
- 4 If I Had My Life To Live Over 3:09
- 5 Wayward Heart 3:41
- 6 Southern Moon 2:04
- 7 I Knew It Wasn't You (The Telephone Song) 2:57
- 8 Trusting In My Lord 3:03
- 9 Grandma's Little Boardside Cabin 3:15
- 10 If It Takes More Than Love To Hold You 3:00
- 11 The Winds Are Blowing In Maggie Valley 3:18
- 12 Going Back to Old Virginia alt version 2:34
- 13 God Has Been So Good To Me 3:39
