One of the premiere Bluegrass bands in all of the traditional roots music genre, The Grascals released When I Get My Pay, their second album for Mountain Home Music Company, in November of 2013. The album features strong performances from the five piece band (Multi-IBMA winning banjoist Kristen Scott Benson, lead vocalists and guitarists Jamie Johnson, Terry Eldridge, mandolin player Danny Roberts, bassist Terry Smith and fiddler Jeremy Abshire (who has since left the band and replaced by Adam Haynes). It only takes one listen to When I Get My Pay to know why The Grascals have played the Grand Ole Opry as many times as they have and why folks like Dierks Bentley want to collaborate with them (as he does on this album’s lead single “American Pickers”).
The album’s title track gets the album flowing with a fun percussive track that’s sure to be a radio hit on SiriusXM’s Bluegrass Junction and tells a story of a blue-collar man who lives hand-to-mouth, something all but a few people will experience at one point or another in their lives. “American Pickers” is a song that one might assume uses the History TV channel’s signature program’s title as a song for and about bluegrass musicians but it’s actually a song written for and about Mike Wolfe, Frank Fritz and the whole team on the “American Pickers” program (Wolfe’s a huge fan of the group and appeared in the music video while also hosting the album release party at his Nashville Antique Archaeology store). Dierks Bentley joins in on the fun singing the second verse (Jamie Johnson sings the first) and the final verse with Jamie.
“When Your Rock Turns To Stone” is a love song of everlasting love written by Jimmy Melton and the late, great songwriter/bluegrass artist Harley Allen.“Two Boys On A Dirt Road” is a great story song from the pens of Harley Allen and Patrick Davis while Allen “It Won’t Break My Heart” (which was co-written with Brice Long) is the kind of steel-guitar driven heartbreak song that has been in Country and Bluegrass since the beginning of time. “When I Fall In Love Again” is a great companion song about being more hopeful about heartbreak while “Mister Fix It” is a great Bluegrass song (performed by Terry Eldredge). Being a bluegrass album there has to be an instrumental that showcases the band’s pickin’ prowess and “Five Miles To Milan” is that song. It closes out this very strong album from one of the best acts in all of Bluegrass.
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