Laurie Lewis & Her Bluegrass Pals was released by Rounder (0461) on 4 May 1999. It was recorded at the Music Annex in Menlo Park, California, and Neil Rosenberg wrote the liner notes. By then Lewis had twice been named Female Vocalist of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association, in 1992 and 1994.
The band is Lewis on fiddle and lead vocals, Tom Rozum on mandolin, Mary Gibbons on guitar, Craig Smith on banjo and Todd Phillips on bass. Rozum and Gibbons sing the harmony parts, Rozum takes the lead on “Wind at Play” and shares it with Lewis on Jean Ritchie’s “Black Waters,” and Phillips sings bass on “When I Get Home.” “The Wood Thrush’s Song,” one of three songs Lewis wrote for the record, is sung a cappella, and “Big Eddy,” by Lewis and Rozum, is an instrumental. “Weevily Wheat” is Lewis’s fiddle with Smith’s banjo.
Among the thirteen tracks are Damon Black’s “Tall Pines,” “Stepping Stones” by Paul Williams and Jimmy Martin, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’s “Acony Bell,” Hazel Dickens’s “Beyond the River Bend,” and Jeff Smith’s “Hard Luck and Trouble,” with added lyrics by Lewis. Country Standard Time’s review singled out Smith’s banjo on “Stepping Stones” and the drive of “Blow, Big Wind” and “Hard Luck and Trouble.”
Tracklist
- 1 Tall Pines Source Recording 3:17
- 2 Steppin’ Stones alt version 4:18
- 3 Blow, Big Wind 2:54
- 4 Going To The West 4:21
- 5 When I Get Home 2:37
- 6 Black Waters 5:09
- 7 Big Eddy 3:19
- 8 Acony Bell 3:06
- 9 Wind At Play 3:34
- 10 Weevily Wheat 3:05
- 11 Hard Luck And Trouble 3:06
- 12 The Wood Thrush's Song 3:11
- 13 Beyond The River Bend 4:34
