Ten-time IBMA Guitar Player of the Year Bryan Sutton’s From Roots to Branches, Vol. 1 (out now on Mountain Home Music), is a collection of intimate, improvised guitar duets. The project pairs Bryan with heroes (the late Tony Rice and Doc Watson), peers (Kenny Smith, Tommy Emmanuel), and a younger generation of players who revere him as a mentor (Billy Strings, Sierra Hull). It’s a great demonstration of Bryan’s range as a player, from rapid-fire and flashy to mellow and sweet.
Bryan calls them “musical conversations” that he has recorded over time. Many have been released as singles during the past year, and are now collected along with two brand new tracks, including a previously unheard duet with the legendary Tony Rice. The album celebrates the 20th anniversary of Bryan’s 2006 all-duets recording, Not Too Far From The Tree.
If you are allergic to heavy metal, you might want to skip the first track, a parody of Charlie Daniels’ The Devil Went Down to Georgia (changed here to “Deep Gap”) with an all-star cast including Sam Bush, T. Michael Coleman, and Del McCoury (cast against type as the Devil). Even though the acoustic wizardry of Doc Watson (voiced by Billy Strings) triumphs in the end, there is quite a great deal of distorted electric guitar shredding as Bryan and Billy clearly have a blast rocking out in the Devil’s section.
They bring it back down to earth as Bryan and Billy trade off portraying Doc’s contest-winning licks. It’s worth mentioning that over the years a multitude of guitarists have tried to emulate Tony Rice as best they can (and rightfully so), but it’s refreshing to see a new generation now carrying on Doc’s style, with Billy foremost among them.
Electric guitar also makes an appearance on the Joe Bonamassa track, a chord-substituted take on Blue Night (recorded by everyone from Bill Monroe to Hot Rize to Ashby Frank), but aside from that, no more listener advisory warnings will be needed.
After the opening novelty number, the album settles down as Kenny Smith joins Bryan on Three Star Hornpipe, a fiddle tune Bryan heard at a jam session in western North Carolina. The two virtuosos take turns interpreting the catchy tune at a nicely relaxed pace. “Kenny always puts tone and melody first, and when I hear qualities like that in players, I think, ‘I want more of that—I want to hear that in me,'” says Bryan.
Merle Haggard’s Working Man Blues, recorded completely off-the-cuff with the incomparable Doc Watson twenty years ago, was pulled from Bryan’s archive. “I just had to pick that one time and hear what you did to it,” we hear Doc say at the end. We’re glad he did, and glad so much of Doc’s charming commentary was included on the recording.
Trey Hensley and Bryan joke their way through a silly Roger Miller song, It Takes All Kinds to Make a World, followed by a tender duet with Sierra Hull on Grandfather’s Clock. If you only know Sierra as a mandolin player and singer, you are going to be knocked out by her sensitive and skillful guitar work.
Crazy Creek, with Jake Stargel, lives up to its title, while Chris Eldridge and Bryan team up in a live stage performance of Tony Rice’s Port Tobacco. The meandering intro takes its time, but resolves into a breezy version of the newgrass tune. In an entirely different vein, Bryan pairs with Tommy Emmanuel to deliver a spirited Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down.
For many, the highlight of the album will be the beautiful Carter Family song, The Storms Are on the Ocean, recorded as an instrumental with Tony Rice in the early 2000s. Bryan recalls hanging out as a young man at Mickey Gamble’s studio when Tony Rice was producing records there, and this track is a way for him to honor the memory of both Tony and Mickey, the co-founder of Crossroads/Mountain Home who passed away this year.
The album closes with Bryan and Cody Kilby romping through Bill Monroe’s Road to Columbus.
From Roots to Branches, Vol. 1 was nicely recorded and produced by Bryan, and if you have a listening device that can handle Dolby Atmos or Apple Spatial Audio, you will especially enjoy the depth and clarity of engineer Scott Barnett’s mastering and immersive mixes.
It’s a treat to get to hang out with Bryan and his very talented friends, listening in on their musical conversations. We’re fortunate he preserved these moments and has shared them with us, and look forward to the implied “Volume 2.”
