[SYN-040]
Grass and Bob Marley are often mentioned in the same sentence, but the grass being referred to isn't usually of the blue variety. Jah only knows what the bard of Trenchtown would think about a bunch of country pickers turning his ghetto anthems into mountain music. Yet one suspects that he'd get a kick out of it, and that he'd pick up on the traits that reggae and country have in common. At their best, both styles are steeped in spirituality, and both aim to uplift the lonely, the poor and the disenfranchised. "One Love" and "Redemption Song" could pass for classic hymns; "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff" could easily be age-old folk songs. That's just the kind of material that bluegrass musicians love to dig into, and dig in they do. — Mac Randall