Peter Rowan & The Nashville Bluegrass Band - New Moon Rising (1988)

Ex-Blue Grass Boy and Sea Train member Peter Rowan is captured here at the very top of his game. Aided by the then-fledgling Nashville Bluegrass Band, Rowan sets out to create a quality, original yet traditional bluegrass record and creates a classic. Such a force was this album in bluegrass circles, that Rowan and the Nashville Bluegrass Band, by popular demand, performed many of these songs at bluegrass festivals for the next decade. Whatever song style the Rowan pen attempts the Rowan pen nails. Whether it is straight-ahead grass like "That High Lonesome Sound," unapologetic gospel such as "Jesus Made the Wine," or wistful ballads like "Meadow Green" and the extraordinary title track, his writing is hitting on all eight. The Nashville Bluegrass Band's harmony singing, always their specialty, is especially potent here. Their floating, shifting harmonies on the title track are nothing short of transcendent. In Pat Enright and Alan O'Bryant, NBB boasts two of the best singers in bluegrass. NBB's Stuart Duncan on fiddle has become the standard for bluegrass violin, and splits his time with NBB as probably the most in-demand fiddle session player alive. Non-NBB member Jerry Douglas, a frequent Rowan partner in later years, abets on sliding, snaking dobro. In the past 20 years, Douglas' dobro has become the pre-eminent voice in bluegrass instrumentation.