[SYN-063]
Gospel and bluegrass as we now know them both came to exist around the same time, in the era of the Great Depression. Their respective roots, of course, date farther back in American history, via centuries old "Negro spirituals" and the early folk music traditions that trickled down from the mountains of Appalachia. Despite the obvious racial divide, an eventual crossover was inevitable, seeing as how the two forms were, quite literally, neighbors. But not just in geographic terms. Both, in essence, were the music of the American south's poor, downtrodden and disaffected. Bluegrass might sound like a party but it cloaked an ongoing obsession with such themes as pathos and death. Gospel, meanwhile, for all its perceived weightiness, had but one main concern: delivering uplift and hope. How fitting, then, to tether a selection of classic gospel staples to the natural ebullience of bluegrass, and let fly! Let us now rejoice. — Mac Randall