Chatham County Line (from left): John Teer, Dave Wilson and Greg Readling. ‘This album shows we aren’t afraid of trying new things,’ says John Teer.
By David McGee
HIYO
Chatham County Line
Yep Rock Records
When Chatham County Line lost its stalwart banjo player Chandler Holt to retirement, the remaining band members did the right thing: they reinvented themselves, adopted new ideas about soundscapes, found fresh sonics in traditional instruments and adopted other ideas from a wide palette of sounds they heard around them. Now the trio of Dave Wilson, John Teer and Greg Readling, supplemented by synths, optigan, mellotron, octave mandolin, and clavinet fashioning often otherworldly, ambient settings, rises strikingly altered from the band that claims four #1 bluegrass albums among its achievements. Hats off to producer Rachael Moore (whose resume includes work with Kasey Musgraves and Allison Krause, among other A-listers) for recognizing a band “ready to be pushed out of their comfort zone,” as she told WALTER Magazine’s Addie Ladner, to which John Teer added: “This album shows we aren’t afraid of trying new things. We are proud of every single song.” Indeed, in Hiyo’s roiling backdrops you can hear the fatalism of the Earl Brothers, the multicultural bravado of the Duhks, a James Justin-like poetic evocation of place, nature and time, and of God’s moving hand directing life’s journey, and most profoundly, the musicians’ courage in embracing the new.
‘Way Down Yonder,’ Chatham County Line, from Hiyo
‘Summerline,’ Chatham County Line, from Hiyo
‘Right on Time,’ Chatham County Line, from Hiyo
Hiyo recounts a mess o’ bloodletting (a seeming murder ballad, “Way Down Yonder,” cleverly disguising a message about the lethal harm words, especially racially charged words, can inflict), alcohol- and blues-fueled trysts (the eerie “Heaven”), dead-end jobs and dead-end lives (the roiling “BSR,” a song inspired, appropriately enough, by the Mississippi River), depthless loneliness and longing (“Summerline,” part avant-saloon song, part hymn, with its eerie piano sound courtesy of a Leslie amp and Wilson’s vocal filtered through a guitar amp to complete the unsettling ambiance). The vocals, plaintive and ethereal, often sound chillingly disembodied, as if the singer were a spirit reporting from the other side, with all manner of ghostly blips and bleeps swirling ominously around the tracks amidst the guitars, pedal steel, fiddle and percussion. Hiyo breaks into the light with “Right on Time,” a galloping country outpouring with soaring, triumphant vocal harmonies celebrating a life renewed by love. Change can be a risky maneuver, and the gents in this well-established band are certainly asking their long-time fans to approach Hiyo with open minds and open hearts, embracing a daring new style in which the strength of the songwriting remains undiminished. In this case, change is beneficial to listeners and the dramatis personae alike. Witness, then, Chatham County Line, renewed its ownself.
