Always Take Me Back [Audio CD] John Cowan

What do you get when you cross country music with prog rock? Something not unlike this recording by former New Grass Revival singer John Cowan. Cowan's formidable voice has always been bigger than bluegrass, and on Always Take Me Back he leaves no doubt that his roots are as firmly planted in rock dramatics as in the string music of his Kentucky upraising. If you are among the select few who have always yearned to hear Yes's "Long Distance Runaround" done without irony and with a drum program, banjo, and fiddle backing (it works better than you would think), or the recitation from King Crimson's "In Discipline" pasted over a banjo instrumental, you've come to the right place. Cowan's own tunes are well-crafted tales of his family relationships and upbringing, sung with a power that occasionally dwarfs his semi-acoustic backing. Bluegrass, like prog rock, has always been the province of virtuoso instrumentalists, so perhaps the combo should not be so surprising. It is not meant as a value judgment to say that if Journey had a banjo they might sound like this. --Michael Ross