Burden Bearer is a gospel album by Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, released by Mountain Home Music Company (MH 16692) on 8 July 2016. Its twenty tracks divide evenly: ten with instruments and ten sung a cappella. Lawson said the balance answered fans who kept asking for more unaccompanied singing, a style he had grown up with; his father sang in an a cappella quintet. Lawson produced the album and played mandolin and guitar. The rest of the group were Dustin Pyrtle on guitar and lead and tenor vocals, Josh Swift on resonator guitar, lead and rhythm guitar, piano, percussion and bass vocals, Joe Dean on banjo, Stephen Burwell on fiddle and harmony vocals, and Eli Johnston on bass guitar and lead and baritone vocals. The album was recorded at Cowbell Fever Studios with Swift engineering, and Swift and Lawson mixed and mastered it.
The program mixes new songs with gospel standards. Tammy Jones Robinette wrote the title song and “Best Friends,” and Steve Watts contributed four songs, among them “Another Day” and “By the Marks in His Hands.” Older material includes Albert E. Brumley’s “The Touch of His Gentle Hand,” A. P. Carter’s “God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign,” “Sailing on the Waves of Glory” by Luther G. Presley and H. R. Sharpe, and Stuart K. Hine’s “How Great Thou Art,” which closes the album. Lawson supplied the arrangements of “Rejoicing All the Way,” “Get Right with God” and “Wrastlin’ Jacob.”
Burden Bearer was nominated for Best Bluegrass Album at the 59th Grammy Awards, a year after the group’s In Session was nominated in the same category.
Tracklist
- 1 Burden Bearer 2:31
- 2 Best Friends 3:59
- 3 Brother Have You Heard 2:13
- 4 He'll Care For You 3:18
- 5 No Storms That We Must Fear 3:40
- 6 You Were Right 3:46
- 7 Rejoicing All The Way 1:59
- 8 The Touch Of His Gentle Hand 4:23
- 9 Another Day 2:28
- 10 He's Everywhere 3:32
- 11 Get Right With God 2:41
- 12 Passed All Sorrow 2:38
- 13 God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign alt version 3:20
- 14 By The Marks In His Hands 2:56
- 15 The Cross In The Garden 3:53
- 16 Sailing On The Waves Of Glory 2:12
- 17 Wonderful Day 3:17
- 18 Wrastlin' Jacob 2:04
- 19 Songs I Heard My Mama Sing 3:36
- 20 How Great Thou Art alt version 3:12
