Never Slow Down

In the fall of 2019, when The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys made their Grand Ole Opry debut, their third album, Toil, Tears & Trouble, was recently Grammy-nominated for Best Bluegrass Album. The year before, they were named Emerging Artist of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA). They were on a serious roll when the COVID-19 pandemic upended the planet. Two years later, Never Slow Down marks the return of The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys to the fray, now officially accompanied by fiddler and vocalist Laura Orshaw.

Fans of traditional bluegrass will rejoice at the song selection and performances on the album, which shines, swings and bristles with classic ensemble harmony. Orshaw puts her stamp on the proceedings with a marvellous rendition of Hazel Dickens’ ‘Ramblin’ Woman’. Likewise, the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys’ renditions of Ralph Stanley’s ‘Lonesome’, Carter Stanley’s ‘Little Glass of Wine’ and George Jones’ ‘Where Grass Don’t Grow’, serve as pitch-perfect evocations of a few of the genres finest songwriters. ‘Old Time Angels’, penned by Jim Lauderdale, offers what might be the best platform for the entire band to strut their best stuff with Orshaw colouring a murder ballad in which the woman does not play the unwitting victim with just the right shade of vengeance.