Redbird

Album Review

Put three very diverse singer/songwriters together and try to make them into a group, and you could be looking at a recipe for disaster. Egos, ideas, and experiences all enter the mix. It's remarkable, then, that Redbird sound so cohesive, given that Kris Delmhorst, Jeffrey Foucault, and Peter Mulvey all have established individual careers. It helps, perhaps, that they've worked out most of the problems touring together before venturing in the studio, and that they keep the focus on songs by others rather than their own material. And quite a range it is, opening with Greg Brown's evocative "Ships" before slipping into a gentle take on the standard "Moonglow." Almost inevitably, there's a Dylan cover ("Buckets of Rain"), but a few choices surprise, like R.E.M.'s "You Are the Everything" and the traditional "Down By the Sally Garden." It's very acoustic record, as befits its participants. They trade off vocals, and pick sweetly on Mulvey's "Ithaca," where Delmhorst offers some lovely mournful slide (and fiddle on Willie Nelson's rolling "I Gotta Get Drunk"). It's a record made by people who sound like they genuinely enjoy playing together (which can't be said for many groups), and who've found strong common ground. And finishing with Tom Waits' plaintive "Hold On" is a masterstroke.