"This recording opens with a rousing and joyful Hank Bradley tune called "Them Beautiful Bottles." This number features Watson on vocal, guitar, bass and mandolin, Bill Hicks on fiddle, and Joe Newberry on clawhammer banjo—a high-energy, good-time. Jim’s singing is high, quirky, and thoroughly engaging, and the song whets the appetite for the material that follows.

"While there are no weak spots on this one, there are a few cuts in particular that kept me coming back. "I’m Going to the West," so well done recently by Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, here features the wonderful harmonies of the Fine Group, with Linda and Robin Williams. Both versions are what the "repeat-play" button was meant for! "Leaving Home," a Frankie and Johnny variant, is a ripping duet vocal with Alice Gerrard. "Elzic’s Farewell" is an ancient-sounding modal fiddle tune that features Bill Hicks’ fine bowing with Jim’s mandolin. There’s a funny and wonderful version of Jimmie Rodgers’ "My Carolina Sunshine Girl." (There’s just something magic about the lilting rhythm of that one.)  We also get a taste of The Green Level Entertainers ("Walls of Time" and "Sugar Coated Love"), Mike Craver (harmony vocal on "Faded Coat of Blue"), and Tony and Gary Williamson (Flatt & Scruggs’ "Reunion in Heaven"). And scattered about in there, we get fine piano from Chris Frank and more of that great Newberry banjo."

Our thoughts: "With Jim, Mike, Bill, and old-time music, Jim's new CD is like listening to the Original Red Clay Ramblers.  What more could possibly need to be said?" ...RCR_fan

Be sure to check out the article Perry Deane Young wrote about Jim and all the original Blurs