Well I hate to make this a meeting of Lane, Fielding, Patterson, and Swan, but I have to chime in here too. I didn't get yesterday's mail til this morning and here it was. I read the liner notes and flipped the disc on........and everything Mick said is true. On about the third or fourth track, Karen arrived home and asked, "Who is THAT?" We both listened through breakfast and although I generally prefer to have nothing else going on, we both listened well and talked little while we cooked. This is one helluva' disc folks.
I need to add a note on the multi style fiddlin' goin' on here which is the mark of someone exceptional. But even more, the voice blend here is just about perfect. The voices aren't at all the same and yet the blend is fabulous.
One other note that I guess could be easy to miss. Pam is a superb pianist with a great touch on an instrument where "touch" is often overlooked by most. Those of you who watched the Civil War series loved Jay and Molly, but did you notice the pianist? I bet you didn't. Her name is Jackie Schwab(sp) and if you listen closely you'll find that her touch is so perfect and so matched to the tunes that you are unaware of a piano actually being there. Pam Swan has this same kind of touch with the instrument. It doesn't get much better than this anywhere. If you're not a pianist or don't have a good knowledge of the instrument, it is very hard to explain the difficulty and dexterity involved in adding a crescendo or decrescendo in a 2 bar, 16/th note run. Listen to Pam.....Sometimes it's hard because like Jackie Schwab, the perfection lies in the not noticing.