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 Rating ****

Mark Wayne Glasmire's first release of 2012 is a seven-song EP that features Glasmire's  recent singles I Like You and Going Home, as well as some new favorites with which to kick off the New Year.

Last of a Dying Breed, a paean to living one's life with integrity, leads the "seven-pack."  The song sets the bar high for the songs that follow and certainly got my attention.

Other highlights: Now I Believe (billed as a "bonus track," it's an impressive showcase for Mark's arresting voice) and The Moment (a song that can't help but appeal to the romantics among us).

 Rating *****

Leanne Pooley’s 2009 award-winning documentary about New Zealand’s Jools and Lynda Topp, billed as the world’s only yodeling, country-singing, twin lesbian comediennes (though they prefer to be known as singers who are funny), has just been released on DVD.

The documentary profiles the Taurean twin sisters (born May 14, 1958 in Huntly, located in the Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand); real cowgirls, who grew up singing to the cows on the family’s dairy farm near Huntly.

Patriots with a particular political passion for social justice and nuclear disarmament, Lynda and Jools left home at 17 to join New Zealand’s rough equivalent of the United States’ erstwhile Women’s Army Corp.  Reflecting on their New Zealand military service “before it was integrated,” Lynda describes the three-month training experience as “sort of like a pajama party with guns.”

Natural-born entertainers, the twins' harmony singing and comedic bent resulted in their developing a cast of characters including Camp Mother & Camp Leader, Raylene & Brenda, and the cross-dressing Ken and Ken.  But the sisters don't flaunt their sexuality so much as embrace it and, as a result, they have a worldwide, mainstream appeal.

As Comedy Writer Paul Horan says of the Topp Twins, "On paper they should not work.  On paper they should be commercial death.  But they totally deliver to the audience time and time again.”

In their native country, the Topps have used humor to both make a point and defuse controversy when they assert their penchant for activism.  Such was the case when the twins dealt with their government's position on gay rights: "The law had said it was illegal for consenting adult males to engage in sex.  But it was an injustice.  We felt like it was an injustice.  We said one day they’ll make a law that includes the lesbians.  We need to step up to the plate and we need to make sure we’re part of this homosexual law reform bill.”

Needless to say, they were.  As New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark recalls, debate on the bill "polarized the Parliament… I think the Topps being so proudly who they were helped make the issue seem a more mainstream one…  It had real people associated with it.  Good people- like the Topps.  And that helped carry the day.”

When cameras are not capturing the Topp Twins singing, as they are positioned on the front lines of numerous political demonstrations for their favorite causes,  Joolie and Lynda are seen clowning around, most famously during their Great New Zealand Gypsy Caravan Tour.

But life is not all joy, even for the joy-filled Topp Twins (who, for instance, demonstrably inform audiences that "Yodeling is all about hip movement.")  Should there be any doubt about that, or the fact that the camera never blinks, "thanks" to archival film Pooley took full advantage of access to footage of Jools going through chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Untouchable Girls, titled after the Topp Twins' song of the same name, has won more than 20 Best Documentary awards.  Non-rated and running 84 minutes, the film has been screened at over 80 international film festivals, winning the Cadillac People's Choice for Best Documentary at its North American premiere during the Toronto International Film Festival.

 Rating *** 1/2

The International Bluegrass Music Association's Vocal Group of the Year winner for seven consecutive years, Moore and his mates' 16th album in 20 years features its bluegrass chart hit single, If Your Heart Should Ever Roll This Way Again.

Kentuckians and Montanans will especially enjoy the opening track, a tribute to Old Kentucky Farmers, followed by Goodbye Old Missoula, a bittersweet farewell to Rosie, the object of an unrequited passion, as a new love awaits in Bozeman.

Moon Magic retains the bluegrass flavor of every other song on this CD, while providing some  cross-genre stylistic surprises.

The guys also provide contemporary covers of Sugarfoot Rag and the instrumental, Carroll County Blues.

They close the album by sounding a populist, yet weary lament in the form of What's the World Coming To. While songwriters  Ronnie Bowman and Michael Garris deserve kudos for creating a lyrical reference (and rhyme yet!) to North Platte, Nebraska that is actually singable, the bluegrass equivalent to the sentiments expressed by Merle Haggard in his hit, If We Make It Through December is marred by the scapegoating, simplistic "solution," favored by the ignorant, to all of the world's problems, including greedy "politicians and Wall-streeters": Returning (Christian) prayer to the (public) schools.  

 

 Rating *****

Ricky Skaggs has just released a second volume of A Skaggs Family Christmas  (Volume Two is a 10-sided CD combined with a Bonus DVD featuring 26 concert performances, released five years following the initial Skaggs Family Christmas album).  But since, with very few exceptions as I have previously explained, I don't review Christmas albums, I wanted to at least acknowledge receiving Ricky's latest release while not overlooking Skaggs' most recent, mostly secular release, Country Hits Bluegrass Style.

I can't think of a better reminder of how many top hits (several of them admittedly covers) Skaggs has amassed than to spend some time listening to Skaggs' new bluegrass arrangements of his country (though sometimes bluegrass and gospel-tinged) classics.

The 14-time Grammy winner was encouraged to pursue his creative approach to reprising the familiar songs when he tried them out during his road to great audience reaction.  I have to believe that such acceptance stemmed from Ricky's knowing just how to give the folks a little something extra and unexpected without straying too far from the familiar stains they've come to know and love.

While keeping these re-recordings fresh for himself, Ricky delights fans with his instrumental turnarounds as his bluegrass pickin' lifts the spirits and pleasures the ear.

Highlights: Heartbroke, You've Got A Lover, Flatt & Scruggs' Crying My Heart Out Over You, Highway 40 Blues,   Porter Wagoner's Uncle Pen,  Webb Pierce's I Don't Care While, Country Boy, I Wouldn't Change You If I Could and Don't Get Above Your Raising.

 

 

 Rating ****

The Oak Ridge Boys can’t leave a stage without singing Elvira.  Likewise, a Cracker Barrel collection of the Oaks’ hits, and the newer songs they hope will be as well-received, also includes a re-recording of that most famous showcase of Richard Sterban’s bass vocal.

Five other Oaks hits are included among the dozen fan favorites.  They are True Heart, Gonna Take a Lot of River, No Matter How High, Beyond Those Years and Wish You Could Have Been There and Lucky Moon, along with William Lee Golden’s solo project and video hit, Louisiana Red Dirt Road.

This brings us to the newest material.  What’  Gonna Do? is light-hearted lyrical celebration of commitment that, like Elvira, is a nod to Richard Sterban’s signature style and an example of how the group allows not only Duane Allen, but all of the four of the “Boys”’ strong vocals to shine.  Before I Die is, as its title suggests, about taking stock.  The Shade is a similarly sober bit of shared philosophy while Sacrifice… For Me is Joe Bonsall’s paean to heroism.