Superb collaboration from an americana legend and bluegrass torchbearers.
Well, where to start with Jim Lauderdale? The man is so prolific that the virtual ink on the review of his last album, Country Super Hits Volume 2, has barely dried, and along comes The Birds Know. Rather than a companion piece to that album, The Birds Know is more of a follow-up to what is, in Lauderdale years, the positively ancient 2023 album The Long and Lonesome Letting Go. That album featured the International Bluegrass Music Association award-winning torchbearers, The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys and that collaboration is resurrected here.
Lauderdale was so knocked out with that first partnership and so desperate to rekindle that association that all the tracks on this new album were written with the band and this bluegrass album in mind. When an esteemed and legendary artist releases album number 39 in conjunction with musicians steeped in traditional music, a review of the merits of that album almost seems superfluous. If bluegrass is your thing, then The Birds Know is going to wrap its loving arms around you and keep you there.
Lauderdale describes The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys as keeping the tradition of bluegrass music alive whilst making it relevant to the world we live in today. Already featured on these pages, the single release We Look At Things In Different Ways is a perfect example of what Lauderdale was alluding to. It is as traditional-sounding as it gets, yet its message is aimed squarely at those who would sow divisiveness in the world of polarised opinions that we currently inhabit. “It was an important message I wanted to get out – that you can still love somebody even though your views might differ.”
Anybody new to Lauderdale and listening to that Country Super Hits album as their introduction to the man would instantly tag that voice as one born to sing country. The addition of The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys to these songs allows that narrative to be applied just as aptly to his bluegrass leanings. Read those stats again: THIRTY NINE albums. Those numbers alone do not, of course, guarantee every album a classic, every song a memorable one. But that established reputation should count for something, and here, it means that a track-by-track dissection really isn’t called for. It is enough to say that The Birds Know contains eleven beautifully crafted songs where Lauderdale’s classic vocals are superbly complemented by both the playing, but also, in the harmonies provided by The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys. It is a highly and, happily, a quite predictable triumph of an album.
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