The Game (Rounder 11661 9170 2) was released on 21 January 2014, in the band’s twentieth year. Blue Highway recorded it with the lineup that had formed in 1994: Tim Stafford on guitar, Shawn Lane on mandolin, fiddle and guitar, Jason Burleson on banjo, Rob Ickes on resonator guitar and Wayne Taylor on bass. Stafford, Lane and Taylor share the lead singing, and the sessions were made at Bobby Starnes’s Hat Creek Recording Company in Tennessee with Jim Price as engineer.
All but one of the twelve songs were written by the band or its co-writers; each member has at least one credit. Lane wrote the title song with Barry Bales and sings it. Taylor wrote and sings “Talk Is Cheap.” Stafford’s co-writers include Jon Weisberger, on “Church Bell Wedding Blues,” and Steve Gulley. Burleson wrote the instrumental “Dogtown” and Ickes the instrumental “Funny Farm.” Two guests appear: Trey Hensley sings lead on “My Last Day in the Mine,” and Beth Snapp sings harmony on “A Change of Faith in Tennessee.” The one song not written by the band is the Appalachian sacred song “Hicks’s Farewell,” one of the first songs the band had considered back in 1994.
At the 2014 IBMA Awards The Game was a nominee for Album of the Year, and its title song was a nominee for Song of the Year. Stafford was named Songwriter of the Year at the same ceremony. The album was Ickes’s last with Blue Highway: he announced his departure in November 2015, after twenty-one years, and Gaven Largent plays resonator guitar on the band’s next record, Original Traditional (2016).
Tracklist
- 1 The Game (I Can’t Win) alt version 2:55
- 2 Remind Me Of You 3:09
- 3 Dogtown 4:14
- 4 All The Things You Do 3:13
- 5 A Change Of Faith In Tennessee 4:16
- 6 Talk is Cheap Source Recording 2:36
- 7 Church Bell Wedding Blues 2:40
- 8 Where Jasmine Grows 2:30
- 9 My Last Day In The Mine 3:01
- 10 Just To Have A Job 3:39
- 11 Funny Farm 2:59
- 12 Hicks's Farewell 3:31
