Jim Lauderdale & Ralph Stanley - I Feel Like Singing Today (1999)

Jim Lauderdale is among the most creatively expansive of Nashville's commercially bankable songwriters. Ralph Stanley is an ageless bluegrass icon. Put 'em together and you have one of the finest country albums to come out in 1999, not to mention a feather in Lauderdale's cap as a recording artist. Unlike Steve Earle, who put out an excellent bluegrass album (The Mountain with Del McCoury) earlier in '99, North Carolina-born Lauderdale sounds like he grew up singing this stuff. He wrote or cowrote 9 of the 15 tracks, including the gospel-sounding title track and the a cappella "Like Him." When Stanley comes in with his otherworldly high harmonies and ringing banjo, you may feel like singing today as well. -