Ivan Rosenberg
Album: Oldies And Old Time
Label: Vole-O-Tone
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.ivanrosenberg.com

Ivan's a veteran of Western Montana's bluegrass community who has already gained a dedicated following for his engineering skills (albums by Pharis & Jason Romero, John Reischman and Evie Ladin). He's also an intensely accomplished musician, a masterful player of (especially) dobro and clawhammer banjo, as well as an artful composer of original tunes for those instruments.

All three elements of his musical personality are brought together on Oldies And Old Time, Ivan's first solo release since 2006, on which he plays (and for the first time on record, also sings) some of his "oddball" favourites. These include a number of what might now be termed standards, from the worlds of country, blues and Tin Pan Alley (for Ivan's philosophy is that "the great pop hits of yesteryear, given enough time to sleep, become some of the most enduring of all folk songs"); all of these are given the characteristic Ivan Rosenberg treatment. This mostly means an understated and tasteful delivery, from the intricate clawhammer figures of Ivan's original (but very much old-time-inspired) tune Abject Woodchuck through to country staple Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain. On the latter, and on a handful of other selections including Roving On A Winter's Night, Don't Pity Me and Danny Boy, Ivan plays a resophonic banjo, while he picks up the Clinesmith dobro for the beautiful self-penned Maryville Waltz and a particularly heartfelt rendition of Georgia On My Mind.

All in all, I'm not entirely sold on Ivan's choice of material - Eddy Arnold's You Don't Know Me and The Christmas Song don't really hit the spot for me - and some of Ivan's vocal work isn't really a match for his instrumental prowess, being a touch perfunctory I guess; however, most of the rest of the disc proves more than sufficiently pleasing to merely while away an idle half-hour, and Ivan's playing is always a delight and bears repeated aural scrutiny.

David Kidman