One Step Ahead

1	Kentucky Borderline 3:32
2	You Can't Take It With You When You Go 3:31
3	One Step Ahead of the Blues 2:34
4	Caught in the Crossfire 3:40
5	Ridin' the Red Line 2:20
6	Pathway of Teardrops 2:54
7	An Old Memory (Found It's Way Back Home Again) 2:43
8	Missouri Moon 3:45
9	Walking My Lord Up Calvary's Hill 3:18
10	Fishers of Men 2:36
11	Frankie Belle 3:18
12	The Martha White Song 0:25

Barnes & Noble

Looking tough in black leather on the cover of her new CD, Rhonda Vincent projects the image conveyed by the music contained within: uncompromising, fearless, and alluring all at once. In keeping with this message, Vincent and her songwriting partner, Terry Herd, take two of their original songs into rarely charted areas: The hard-driving "Kentucky Borderline" salutes a great train, with a verse devoted to those who toiled to build the steel rail, while the foreboding ballad "Caught in the Crossfire" is told from the viewpoint of a child conflicted by his parents' divorce. These and three other originals -- including a classically styled bluegrass doomsday scenario, "One Step Ahead of the Blues," which features a harmony vocal by Alison Krauss, and a toe-tapping evocation of a homeward-bound trucker in "Ridin' the Red Line" -- demonstrate the impressive growth in the songwriting collaboration between Vincent and Herd and are of a piece with the exemplary covers here. Behind Vincent is a cast of superlative musicians, including guitarist Bryan Sutton, fiddlers Stuart Duncan and Aubrey Haynie (the latter on mandolin), and Vincent's brother Darrin (from Ricky Skaggs's Kentucky Thunder), who co-produces, plays bass, and adds lovely sibling harmonies. Heartbreak gets no deeper or more beautifully expressed than when the Vincents blend their voices on Webb Pierce's honky-tonk tear-jerker "The Pathway to Teardrops," but the most stirring moments come in a pair of religious numbers, the stately "Walking My Lord Up Calvary's Hill" and a stunning a cappella gospel quartet rendering of "Fishers of Men." And to put a fine point on the past informing the present, Vincent again closes with her rewrite of the theme song of the venerable Grand Ole Opry sponsor, "The Martha White Song." All that black leather can't hide the fact that Vincent's heart is always in the right place as she brings the ancient tones into the present. No one does it better. David McGee

All Music Guide

Rhonda Vincent has so adeptly incorporated the sparkling production of the best contemporary bluegrass recordings with the heartfelt songwriting and passionate playing of the classic era of traditional bluegrass that her third album for Rounder hits that almost perfect balance: updated enough to not sound stuffy, but faithful enough to still sound honest. The leadoff track, "Kentucky Borderline," is an ol' fashioned train song along the lines of "Orange Blossom Special" or "Wabash Cannonball," and the title track (a duet with guest vocalist Alison Krauss) takes reverent cues from the Del McCoury Band in its tight harmonies and laid-back, bluesy solos. In context, the divorce-through-the-eyes-of-a-child song "Caught in the Crossfire" is only slightly maudlin, and the blistering trucker tribute "Ridin' the Red Line" is sung with such amphetamine-fueled conviction that very few female country singers could pull it off convincingly, but Vincent has the range (and the Rage) to perform both the dewy-eyed "Crossfire" and the fiery "Red Line" back to back. The group's warm, a cappella rendition of "Fishers of Men" is reminiscent of Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver's best gospel work, and their 20-second rip through the Martha White Flour song is a sly nod to Flatt & Scruggs and any other picker who has exchanged their music for a quick sponsorship to all of the "Health and Happiness" tonics throughout the years. Highlighted throughout by breakup waltzes, makeup stompers, '40s train songs, '70s trucker songs, and up-to-the-minute acoustic folk numbers, One Step Ahead is all over the place thematically, but right on the money stylistically. Zac Johnson

Entertainment Weekly

This album... should bolster Vincent's reputation as the next big bluegrass star. (B+) Alanna Nash

Billboard

What we have here is perfection.