Rick Faris - Life’s Parade (2025) Hi-Res

USA:Kentucky (KY). This collection gets off to a light, relaxing bluegrass touch decorated with banjo, & fiddle surrounding Rick Faris’ expressive vocals. This is Rick’s fourth solo album & the lead-off song “Bend, Don’t Break” could be considered not only bluegrass but simply mountain music with an arrangement.

There are 12 lives to Life’s Parade produced by Stephen Mougin (baritone vocal). It represents, to a certain small degree, a Hee-Haw flavor but on a far more serious plane. The picking is often stellar. Rick Faris has a distinguished, naturally excised bluegrass tone.

There’s nothing here novelty-oriented, silly, or campy. The music has fuel, but no showboating sugar-coated color-treated hair with imitation leather. Rick Faris has a talent for playing ‘60s perceptive country music with its persistent catchiness (“You Don’t Know What You’re Missing”) spiced up in a traditional-type open pasture recipe & slathered on a vinyl platter with hot buttered notes & picking syrup. How attractive is that?

The playing is exquisite throughout, airy, breezy & tastefully projected. It’s Honeysuckle scented music if played in a cow pasture, would draw the entire herd to stand & listen.

Even a tune like “Lonesome Is Your Name” could be slowed down into a ballad & sung by a mainstream troubadour at a piano bar. The songs have value beyond their country fertilization. “Storm Clouds” has the added value of a female vocal that complements the country-accented voice of Mr. Faris. A careful listen to Rick’s lyrics & one would hear that these songs are not the standard straw hat & hay dispensation of a dirt-road life. Rick has applied some coherent words to his repertoire.

The band plays confidently & most songs are good cocktails without alcohol. There’s no aggression except for enthusiasm, no deep messages, just a fusion of countrified elements that would get dancers to forget the corn & bunions on their feet. On “The Rabbit Hole,” it sounds like Flatt & Scruggs recruited a vocalist in Rick Faris. Yeah, the pickers sound that good & Rick — in a flesh-colored hat & paisley shirt. The guy has style.