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Customer Reviews of Side By Side

Kickin' Bluegrass
BlueRidge has come out with has to be one of the top projects of the year. Their last project "Come Along With Me" was very good but "Side By Side" is on a total different level, THE TOP!! This is the best they've ever sounded and great material too. Bibey's mandolin playing always rocks but I think he's better than ever here. The tone of that mandolin is incredible. The title track written by Bibey is a great tune and really well sung also. Also sounding better than ever here is Junior Sisk. I've always liked his voice but I love it here. He is definitely on top of his game on this project. You Better Get is also one of my favorites that Junior wrote. Ed Biggerstaff's tenor singing and bass playing are flawless and very strong as is his lead singing on Back To Cana. New banjo player Joey Cox and fiddle player Alan Johnson have really added to the overall sound of the band. Cox really excells on Ten Plagues and Avalanche as does Johnson. I was amazed to see that Johnson is singing bass. He has one of the best bass voices I've heard. The fiddle backup on You Better Get is wonderful. Overall this is a must buy for any REAL bluegrass lover. Way to go guys. Hope to see you out west soon!

Top-notch band with all the necessary ingredients to go far
I don't think that "BlueRidge" is the greatest name for a bluegrass band, but their music will certainly leave an indelible image on your memory banks. The quintet, formed in 1998, now has three albums under their belt with the release of "Side by Side." Their two previous efforts, "Common Ground" (1998) and "Come Along With Me" (2002), sold well and introduced us to their cohesive neo-traditional bluegrass sound characterized by some good material selection. It could be that the band's rather blasé band name is the antithesis of their hard-hitting, professional music. Perhaps "BlueRidge" simply represents an expression of their cool, relaxed, nonchalant, yet still workmanlike, approach to bluegrass. Jon Weisberger's liner notes, however, explains that the band has fashioned their sound to draw "on the discoveries of an entire cluster of musicians based in the Blueridge region of western Virginia and North Carolina." While BlueRidge has seen banjo-player Terry Baucom and fiddler Dewey Brown move on to other endeavors, their current configuration has some impressive pickers and singers: Alan Bibey (mandolin), Junior Sisk (guitar), Joey Cox (banjo), Alan Johnson (fiddle), and Ed Biggerstaff (bass).

Nine of 13 tracks feature the lead singing of Junior Sisk, whose emotionally-charged vocalizing is equally comfortable with tempos ranging from slower numbers like "Brand New Tennessee Waltz" and the classic "All the Good Times" to songs like the peppy opener, "What If (Then I'll Come Back To You)" and closer "Pocket Full of Money." His own original "You Better Get" exclaims "Well I better get while the getting's good." In the late 90s, Sisk toured the U.S. and Europe with his band, Rambler's Choice, as part of their "Songs from the Mountains" project.

Besides Sisk's lead vocals, another of BlueRidge's strengths is their instrumental prowess. No one epitomizes that better than Alan Bibey, with his 1923 Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5 mandolin, who has made a name for himself with IIIrd Tyme Out and The New Quicksilver. Few people know that Bibey can claim to be a world champion player, having won the mandolin contest at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville. Even his 1983 stint with Wes Golding's band, Sure Fire, might have helped BlueRidge rediscover Golding's old mountain home song, "Back to Cana" for this project. Bibey's self-penned instrumental, "Avalanche" burns a few barns enroute, but his lead vocals on his original ballad, "Side by Side," seemed to lack some energy, perhaps as a result of arranging the song in the lower region of Bibey's vocal range. All of the songs only span two to three minutes, and this effectively places the emphasis on the songs themselves, while the instrumental accompaniment supplements their messages.

The other performers on this recording are also very fine bluegrass players. Bass-player Eddie Biggerstaff has played with Larry Rice, Rambler's Choice and Herschel Sizemore. While many of BlueRidge's arrangements feature his tenor harmony, Eddie steps up the plate and sings lead with a lot of credibility and conviction on "Back to Cana." Alan Johnson has a lyrical, fluid and precise approach to bluegrass and country fiddling, and has done stints with Pam Tillis, Larry Cordle and Lorrie Morgan. Young banjo-player Joey Cox had big shoes to fill when he joined the band just weeks before completion of this album. However, he rose to the challenge and imparts some breaks and rhythmic intensity to "Side by Side" that are remarkably powerful.

BlueRidge demonstrates that they're a top-notch band with all the necessary ingredients to go far. They execute their music with great skill, and there's plenty on "Side by Side" to win them considerable praise and acclaim from bluegrass music fans. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)