Artist: The SteelDrivers
Album: Bad for You
Label: Rounder
Release Date: 02.07.2020
Surviving the departure of a lead singer and songwriter of Chris Stapleton’s towering caliber is one thing. Losing the richly versatile mandolinist, guitarist, and writer Mike Henderson soon after, and steadily enhancing their music despite both hits? Miraculous. It appears that nothing can ding the riveted—and completely riveting—armor of The SteelDrivers. Here they are in their twelfth year, on their fifth album, with their fourth lead singer and second mandolinist, and they sound exactly as they should—bluegrass-rooted, full of piss and vinegar, and working their way through a slate of fantastic new songs.
Bad for You introduces singer Kelvin Damrell to the Nashville-based fold. Although he hails from Kentucky, Damrell cut his teeth on rock and metal. Remarkably, at just 25 years young, he already emits a calloused, soulful timbre that fits right in with his long-seasoned, exceedingly talented bandmates. When Damrell sings that he’s “bad for you,” his warning radiates like the intolerable heat of a massive fire pit. But, the tough-as-nails bluegrass rolled out underneath him by fiddler/singer/songwriter Tammy Rogers, banjoist Richard Bailey, bassist/singer Mike Fleming, and mandolinist Brent Truitt, softens the blow.
Rogers, one of the original members with Bailey and Fleming, had a hand in writing all but one of these 11 gems. “Forgive” resonates with particular intensity. Wafting in on soothing pulls of the various strings, the melody picks up as Damrell relates in his blistering voice how love transcends everything, and how compassion and forgiveness can kill even the devil. Therein lies a lesson everyone should take to heart, amid simply wonderful mountain music. Dilapidated barroom-style country music, with a direct connection to rock ‘n’ roll rises up in the heated picking and sawing fiddle of “Glad I’m Gone,” co-written with Mr. Stapleton, who’s still an avid supporter of the band. The blues bleeds through in the sorrowful “Falling Man,” but the instrumentation, and especially Rogers’ sweet fiddle, conjures a deeply hidden place in the Virginia hills.
Country, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll—those are the stakes these ‘Drivers hammer into their ‘grass to mark the borders they play within. Absolutely no other band plays this kind of distinctly Southern music with such energetic drive and tumbledown, hand-made nature, like the SteelDrivers. Bad for You is good for your soul.
—Tom Clarke
I need to send picture Tammy’s mother Wanda painted and gave to my Mother. They were cousins. I will mail it to Tammy if she wants it. My name is Mona Bennett. Sending email address so she cann send address where to send it. Tell me her Grandmother name(Wanda Mother) so I will not send it to someone that might see the note and address.