The Bluegrass Sessions  (Audio CD) 
by Merle Haggard

The Hag's "first ever foray into bluegrass," as his publicist tags it, isn't really so much traditional bluegrass, even though it's produced by Ronnie Reno and released on 'grass giant Del McCoury's McCoury Music label. Instead, it's a gathering of refurbished Haggard tunes ("Big City"), several new songs from the Country Music Hall of Famer ("Pray," "What Happened?"), and a couple of nods toward the blues (a medley of Jimmie Rodgers songs, as well as the Delmore Brothers' "Blues Stay Away from Me") that helped form Haggard's country-blues-and-Western-swing core. He makes no attempt to try for a high tenor head voice, throw in a few bluegrass yips, adapt to bluegrass phrasing, or go for a lightning-fast, hard-charging bluegrass sound. But he's got the right pickers to transform his country material into something resembling the bluegrass idiom, calling on Marty Stuart to play mournful mandolin like an ensemble musician and not a star, as well as famed sidemen Carl Jackson, Rob Ickes, and Aubrey Haynie. (Alison Krauss also offers a vocal duet on "Mama's Hungry Eyes.") There are no big surprises here--"What Happened" recalls his familiar theme of America going to hell in a handbasket, and throughout he sings of a woman who left him in the lurch ("Runaway Momma," "I Wonder Where to Find You"). But the great country icon sounds inspired and almost rejuvenated here, giving his all, and taking pains to do some of the most disciplined singing of his career. --Alanna Nash