20 Best of Bluegrass Gospelby Anonymous

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October 25, 2005: Playing Time - 53:01 -- Steve Ivey is an impressive musician and producer, but his real strength may be in music marketing. His gospel products, distributed by Madacy, consistently appear in the Billboard bluegrass charts for considerable periods. Ivey’s third collection of traditional bluegrass gospel songs indicate a great demand and appreciation for this music. Ivey’s approach has been to enlist the support of top Nashville session players –Andy Leftwich (mandolin), Richard Bailey (banjo), Shad Cobb (fiddle), Charlie Chadwick (bass), and Jesse Lee Campbell (female lead vocals). Steve Ivey provides all lead male and background vocals, as well as proficiently playing guitar, mandolin and dobro. “20 Best of Bluegrass Gospel” is part of Madacy Record’s Sound Sensation series which has nearly 100 different albums which sell for $7-8 each. There are reggae, big band, jazz, country gospel, country, children’s, rock ‘n’ roll, patriotic, Latin, Celtic, blues, broadway, disco, pop, doo wop, and relaxation offerings in the series. Not just great music for the budget, the gospel album has expert, albeit rather conservative, arrangements and good fidelity presumably from its high resolution 24-bit/96-KHz mastering technology used. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)