Bluegrass-and-Irish (and much more) from the Crowe Brothers

The Crowe Brothers, (l-r) Josh and Wayne

BIB readers with long memories will certainly recall Josh Crowe at an Athy festival in the mid 1990s, where he and David McLaughlin played guitar and mandolin respectively in a band led by Lynn Morris and Marshall Wilborn. Josh and his brother Wayne, raised in Georgia and now based for many years in North Carolina, have been making traditional bluegrass music for over four decades, notably with the legendary banjo player Raymond Fairchild (see their bio details here).

Their latest album, Forty years old, is now out on Mountain Fever Records, with the brothers' duet singing and some very nice picking by Steve Sutton (banjo), Brian Blaylock (mandolin), and David Johnson (fiddle). One track, 'I’ve got the moon on my side', written by Dixie and Tom T. Hall with Troy Engle, was released as a single in June and can be heard via a link on the Crowe website, and a second, 'Forty years old', is being released today.

The twelve tracks include classic country numbers ('Lost highway', 'Excuse me, I think I've got a heartache', 'Send me the pillow'), and there's one song - 'Green fields of Erin' - that has nearly every allusion to Ireland one could think of, and would be very suitable for any band that's happy to play 'Forty shades of green'.