Borrowed Time

Appalachian banjo and fiddle player, bilingual singer-songwriter and activist à la Pete Seeger, Joe Troop calls this his ‘dream album.’ It’s certainly a worthy successor to Rearrange My Heart, the album he recorded with his pan-American quartet Che Apalache (a Top of the World review in the April 2020 issue, #156). Each track features a different ensemble, though the robust double bass of Trey Boudreaux is (almost) ever-present and a particular strength. Special guests of the calibre of Béla Fleck, Abigail Washburn and, intriguingly, jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter lend helping hands. Variety is certainly the spice of these collaborations. ‘Django’s Palace’, for example, is just banjo with bowed bass, while the album closer, ‘Heaven on Earth’, enlists all and sundry in a jaunty singalong that segues into a kind of Mexican carnival song. Another upright bass and banjo duo on the splendid ‘Sevilla’ is enhanced by Brevan Hampden’s cajón, and Sam Fribush’s electric organ makes a nice addition to the longest track, ‘The Rise of Dreama Caldwell’, a tale of injustice. Weightier socially conscious songs like ‘Horizon’, ‘Mercy for Migrants’ and the Spanish-language ‘Hermano Migrante’ and ‘Prisionero’ are leavened by numbers like ‘Purdy Little Rainbows’ and ‘Red, White & Blues’, where Troop’s tongue is firmly in his cheek. Never a dull moment.