Customer Reviews

Take It Home

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Hot Rize avoided many traditional Bluegrass paradigms, but their music was delightfully refreshing and just plain good. This album may very well be their best. Never known as THE hottest pickers of their era, O'Brien, Wernick and Sawtelle provide perfect instrumental framing for some of the best vocals ever put onto ANY record. Colleen Malone. Lamplighting Time in the Valley. Tenderly Calling. Bending Blades. Tim O'Brien's lead vocals on this record are as near-perfect as a Bluegrass singer could make them. I would consider Mr. O'Brien to be in an EXCEEDINGLY small group of Bluegrass lead vocalists which would only include the likes of Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski and Russell Moore. The harmonies provided by the other Hot Rizers complement perfectly. This is not the album to get if you like your bluegrass hot enough to singe your eyebrows. This is the album to get if you like your bluegrass stunningly beautiful. Easily one of the 5 best Bluegrass albums ever recorded.

Like all really fine music or paintings or literature, this incredibly beautiful CD by Hot Rize defies description. The best thing I can say about it is that you should just listen to it-- again and again. Unfortunately this outstanding group of musicians (Nick Forster, Tim O'Brien, Charles Sawtelle and Pete Wernick) no longer exists as a group, but we can be glad that we have their recordings.

All the cuts are superb. One of my favorites is "Lamplighting Time In The Valley" as it takes me back to my childhood when my dad would sometimes sit on our front porch in East Tennessee at twilight as the lightning bugs came out and sing this song while he strummed a Gene Autry guitar. I had not heard this song since then until I heard it here. The other is Jan Garrett's "Tenderly Calling (Home, Come On Home"). This amazing song will get you right where you are living. I had never heard it before although I understand that both the composer and John Denver have recorded it. The words are so simple that they would have been trite if someone with a lesser talent had written them: "Sometimes when I'm feeling lonesome/And no one on earth seems to care. . . I hear the voices of angels/tenderly calling me home." My brother told me recently that one of the young men from the Frontline PBS production of "Country Boys" sings this fantastic song a capella. It obviously speaks to the hearts of a lot of people. It will speak to you as well. I'm not sure why the Garrison Keillors and Doyle Lawsons of the world have not recorded this moving song.

Of course the photograph on this CD is of a house with a light in the window, always the symbol of warmth and love and family.

This CD will quickly become one of your favorites.

"Colleen Malone", the first cut on this CD, sets gets you tapping your feet, and the trend continues throughout! If you like that bluegrass sound without vocals that sound like tomcats in heat, you'll love Hot Rize. They nail the harmony--no feeling around for the right note. The instrumentals are right on, too. You'll love this group as much as I do.

I was privileged to see two shows Hot Rize did with Alison Krauss and Union Station in Kalamazoo in the 1980s. Wow, that dates me....

I actually thought I had a copy of this on cassette, but that has been sucked into one of the many black holes in my dwelling. I wasn't too unhappy because I never had invested in the CD. There are several reasons why, if you are a modern bluegrass fan, you should have this CD: One, it's Hot Rize, in the line-up that put it on the charts: Tim O'Brien, Peter Wernick, Charles Sawtelle and Nick Forster. (Forster, Wernick and Forster teamed up with Bryan Sutton a few years after Sawtelle succumbed to leukemia and died in 1999). Especially great are those that feature Sawtelle prominently, such as the classic, "Think of What You've Done", for which he sings lead. But for my money, their simply aren't any bad songs on this CD. The musicianship is terrific, and the production of the CD is clear.

From the moment my ears were treated to the gentle harmonies of "Colleen Malone" I knew this was a special recording.
The beautiful lyrics and simple arrangement, coupled with some of the best singing I have heard on a bluegrass album make this song a standout, along with every other selection included on this disc. The singing, particularly the graceful and heartfelt lead vocals, along with splendid harmony from the other band members made this a treat for my soul, touching both my musical sensibilities and my emotions on an equal scale.
I am not a Bluegrass afficianado, but I will tell you that this is one of the very best I have had the pleasure of listening to and would recommend it to anyone who likes their bluegrass crisp and clean.
Sometimes less is more....and Hot Rize nailed it on this one.

This CD was almost played to destruction during my honeymoon in Puerto Villarta, Mexico! If you're a fan of Bluegrass music, you'll love this CD!