Special Consensus - Chicago Barn Dance (2020) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Chicago Barn Dance
02. Lake Shore Drive
03. East Chicago Blues
04. My Kind of Town
05. Looking Out My Back Door
06. I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music
07. City of New Orleans
08. I Am the City
09. Won't That Be a Happy Time
10. Sweet Home Chicago
11. Chicago Barn Dance-Reprise


On the heels of their IBMA Album of the Year winner 'Rivers and Roads', Special Consensus celebrates their 45th anniversary with the release of 'Chicago Barn Dance'. The new project is a love note of sorts to Chicago, hometown of the band's founder and banjo player Greg Cahill. The album's title track, written by Becky Buller, Missy Raines and the album's producer Alison Brown, tells the story of WLS Barn Dance and features the exquisite twin fiddling of Grammy winning fiddler Michael Cleveland alongside Becky Buller. Former band member Robbie Fulks wrote "East Chicago Blues" especially for the project and contributes lead vocals. The song tells Bill Monroe's personal journey of trading a farmer's life in Kentucky for the oil refineries in Chicago. "My Kind of Town" is a re imagining of the Sinatra classic into a bluegrass instrumental featuring the twin banjos of Greg Cahill and Alison Brown alongside the twin fiddles of Mike Barnett and Patrick McAvinue. Guitarist and lead vocalist Rick Faris shines on "Lake Shore Drive" and "Looking out my Back Door", features a Dobro performance from Compass label mate Rob Ickes. 'Chicago Barn Dance' not only establishes Special Consensus as one of Chicago's most prized music treasures but also draws the connection between the Chicago and the evolution of early country and bluegrass music. Artists that regularly appeared on Chicago's WLS National Barn Dance from the 1920s through the 1940s, including Hank Williams, Bill and Charlie Monroe, Pasty Montana and Lulu Belle and Scotty, provided a sense of connection and comfort to the many Southerners who migrated from the Appalachian states in search of work, including the father of bluegrass music Bill Monroe. And 45 years into their journey, Special Consensus continues to epitomize nexus between the Windy City and bluegrass music.

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