CD Review- Donna Ulisse- Walk This Mountain Down

Music is an amazing thing- at once a treasure, a healer and sometimes, a connector between generations. A close friend of mine lost her father recently. It was a loss that was predetermined by doctors over a terrible illness. With only a few months left with her dad, she spent hours upon hours with him in his final weeks and developed an amazing and deeper connection with him with his love of bluegrass music. It was a style of music that she had flirted with liking (she's a big fan of Alison Krauss & Union Station), but in those final days, bluegrass became the blanket of memories that by which will carry on her father's memories and legacy forever. It was the soundtrack of his life, the soundtrack at his service- and most importantly, will trigger an emotional trigger in my friend for all of her days each time she hears a mandolin, dobro or fiddle picked.

It was with this mindset that I sat down to listen to the new Donna Ulisse album Walk This Mountain Down being released today- January 20, 2008. This second album for Ulisse is a star-studded bluegrass effort. Produced by Keith Sewell. it includes an all-star cast of players including, Andy Leftwitch, Byron House and Rob Ickes. Walk the Mountain Down is a gorgeous effort from start to finish and should establish Ulisse as a key player in the bluegrass genre.

It is the final song on this album that is easily worth the purchase price of the album, however. "Levi Stone" is the darkest, most equally eloquent haunting and stirring bluegrass story song that I have heard in many years- possibly ever. Its lyrics are moving and it is set to a sound that makes the listener shut out the world and turn an ear to the speaker with concern that you might miss something. It's an exceptional song that rises above everything else on a good album:
"Levi Stone lived by the gospel
He taught his child to do the same
So when his son took sick that winter
He knew he'd be fine once springtime came
The boy grew weaker by the hour
But Levi Stone never lost faith
He told his wife no county doctor
Quit your cryin' woman, kneel down and pray
Papa, please, a drink of water
Wipe the fever from my brow
Tell these angels all around me
They need to put me down
Papa, you tell them I'm in God's hands now"

And so it goes with the sound of bluegrass. The beauty of music- and most certainly bluegrass- is that it speaks from the heart and whispers to the soul. Any album can wow you with amazing pickin', and great harmonies- but it's the really great ones that transport you to another place and time and deliver a flood of emotion. Donna Ulisse's Walk This Mountain Down moved me- if you have a heart and a soul- it will move you too.