Got Myself Together (Ten Years Later)

An interesting concept is this latest album by singer-songwriter and banjo-picker extraordinaire Edward D (for Danny) Barnes. A Texas native, Seattle resident and recent recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, Barnes has essentially recreated his 2005 album, Get Myself Together, here. Same 12 tracks, same order, same sharp-eyed, sometimes hilariously insightful lyrics, but very different sounding music. He has distilled the original dozen down to their raw elements, relying on just his three-finger picking on an open-back banjo, his slightly craggy, dulcet-toned voice and a mic. This actually achieves the ‘sounds like he's playing in your living room’ vibe, which is so often touted but rarely delivered – thanks to Barnes having recorded it in his living room. ‘Cumberland Gap’ starts out with him thumping on the banjo's head, sounding ever so clear and close you sense the taut skin's vibration, before breaking into a walking melody so deftly played you can easily miss its complex, crystalline structure. Barnes shows off his rippling finger-plucking chops on ‘Corn Kingdom Come’, an uproarious country-funk tale of backwoods moonshining (‘I’ll be the king of corn liquor and you can be the king of fools’). The album is topped off by a bonus track, ‘I’m Convicted’, an electrified foot-stomper recalling Barnes’ tenure in the early 1990s with the Austin-based Bad Livers.