Norman Blake - Far Away, Down on a Georgia Farm

If you want to hear fingerpicked acoustic guitar played with delicacy and precision matched with a straight-ahead vocal delivery, then just start stacking up a pile of recordings by Norman Blake. The back cover of this new one quotes the Oxford American as saying, "Norman Blake is one of the most nuanced and quietly influential acoustic guitarists in this whole great land," and you're inclined to agree by the time he's finished the opening track. His playing -- even when flailing on a six-string banjo, like he does on the title track -- always displays a stateliness and gentility missing in most instrumentalists mining the same turf; it's ornate, yet drills to the heart of the song every time. Read More