Highway of Diamonds

An album you will replay as soon as the cello fades on the last track.

     

There are some albums which when you put them on for the first time you don’t realize that as soon as you reach the last track you will be hitting replay, then doing it again.

Highway of diamonds is one of those albums.

The CD opens with a strong tip of a wide brimmed hat to their roots in Americana on the track Darlin’. Then track 2, Exit Only, immediately transports your mind to your favorite bar and you feel as if you are hanging out on the night of a show when the band just has it all together. However, it is the first 8 seconds of track three, Fire Eater, in which the breadth of Edith Grove really comes to the fore as Suzanne Shelton’s cello opens the score with a richness only a muse can provide. The reverberation of Shelton’s strings seems to be singing lyrics that invite Kooser to join as a duet.

The rest of the tracks on this album carry your senses along on a journey through your mind as each of Kooser’s lyrics and every stroke of the cello allow you to visualize each scene in your imagination. The album rounds out with the sadly too short Easy Way To Say Goodbye. Again, Shelton’s cello is not so much a set of resonating strings as much as it is a vocal partner to Kooser. As the vocals end at 2:26 with a tender “goodbye” Shelton’s cello, like a lingering goodbye kiss, continues to seductively serenade your imagination for another 20 seconds. I only hope that this goodbye is only for short time.