Blue Trail of Sorrow: 16 Top Bluegrass Gems

1	I'll Remember You Love in My Prayers / Alison Krauss & Union Station 3:03
2	You Don't Love God If You Don't Love Your Neighbor / Rhonda Vincent 2:58
3	Man of Constant Sorrow / Tony Furtado 4:09
4	Cruel Willie / Red Roberts 3:15
5	Bringing in the Georgia Mail / Norman Blake 2:28
6	Owl Feather / John Hartford 3:20
7	Cotton Eyed Joe / The Freight Hoppers 3:36
8	Time Is Winding Up / Ginny Hawker 4:18
9	Blue Trail of Sorrow / Alison Krauss & Union Station 3:40
10	Wild Bill Jones / Dirk Powell 3:08
11	Meet Me in the Moonlight / The Stanley Brothers 2:35
12	When I Went Down in the Valley to Pray / Dry Branch Fire Squad 1:24
13	Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven / The Cox Family 2:49
14	A Conversation With Death / Lloyd Chandler 4:10
15	Crazy Heart / Jason King 2:31
16	Hills of Home / Hazel Dickens 4:14

Barnes & Noble

A previously unreleased 1959 track by the Stanley Brothers, the keening love plea "Meet Me in the Moonlight," is the telling track on this outstanding collection. Recorded more than 40 years ago, the song sounds right on time, even when wedged into a tune stack of more recent vintage. Alison Krauss, Rhonda Vincent, Tim O'Brien, the Freight Hoppers, the Cox Family, John Hartford, and other Rounder artists represented here have kept the faith with the Stanleys' vision while infusing their bluegrass with ever-so-nuanced quotes from pop and traditional rock 'n' roll. Other artists' styles say the Stanleys had it right all along: James King's brisk account of mad love, "Crazy Heart," is a quintessential, classically constructed bluegrass barn-burner; at the other end of the spectrum, Hazel Dickens's austere, searing memoir, "Hills of Home," is as chilling an account of time's inexorable toll on the human spirit as anything in the Stanleys' canon, and it brooks no intrusion from outside sources. Blue Trail of Sorrow is all bluegrass. Some entries are a bit bluer than others, but the varied shadings are a testament to the style's complexity. David McGee

All Music Guide

Rounder's excellent Blue Trail of Sorrow: 16 Top Bluegrass Gems compilation collects 16 woeful tracks from some of contemporary bluegrass and folk's finest practitioners, including Rhonda Vincent ("You Don't Love God If You Don't Love Your Neighbor"), Dry Branch Fire Squad ("When I Went Down in the Valley to Pray"), Alison Krauss & Union Station ("Blue Trail of Sorrow"), and Hazel Dickens ("Hills of Home"). Reverend Lee Power