Album Notes

Separately, Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott have made some of the most creative bluegrass albums of the past five years. Together, these two top practitioners of bluegrass and mountain music, display all the camaraderie and empathy you'd expectfrom old friends and bandmates. Cut in Scott's Nashville living room, this acoustic collaboration mixes sharp-witted originals with two Hank Williams numbers (one a cappella) and a couple of traditional tunes (including a stunning gospel performance on Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burnin'). Scott's "Long Time Gone", a playful slap at contemporary country, eventually was reworked by the Dixie Chicks. The instrumental "The Second Mouse" was nominated for a Grammy. Real Time explores the strongest human emotions - a father's crazed grief, a teen's sexual initiation, a lover caught between heaven and hell - in a pastiche of powerful writing, passionate vocals, and masterful picking. Goose-bumpy good.