Customer Reviews

Walk This Mountain Down

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4 star:		(2)
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Prime Cuts: The Trouble with You, Love's Crazy Train, Lovin' Every Minute

Call it career makeover or re-routing, Donna Ulisse has abandoned her brief fling with country music from the early 90s and she has evolved into a bona fide bluegrass sensation--the type of bluegrass that Rhonda Vincent and Melanie Cannon would find much kinship with. Helmed by hit writer Keith Sewell (Montgomery Gentry, Steve Wariner, Sonya Issacs) and an A-listed cartel of backing vocalists (Claire Lynch, Curtis Wright and Jerry Salley), "Walk This Mountain Down" is a carefully crafted piece of art that is well put together and impeccably performed. Calling on a small assemblage of co-writers including Richard Leigh, Rick Stanley and Marc Rossi, all these 13 cuts are co-writes or solo compositions of Ulisse herself. Though some of them would benefit from a tauter melodic structure and more prominent hooks, Ulisse shows her mettle for covering a wide range of issues from faith, to love found and lost as well as social discrimination. At times she even deftly weaves all of these themes together to reflect a more realistic portrayal of the complexities of life.

While bluegrass has often been maligned as laidback, Ulisse sets the record straight with the incendiary "The Trouble with You." Donning a full on sprint of a diatribe against her cavorting lover, Ulisse struts with attitude when she sings, "The trouble with you is that you are good looking/And looking at you is what women do/The trouble with me is that I don't trust women/Especially when they are lookin' at the trouble with you." While on the Richard Leigh co-write, "Love's Crazy Train," her gentle understated ache at love's unpredictability displays a tearful ambiance brought out most beautiful by its mournful fiddling and dobro cries. Love does become concrete on the movingly sweet "Lovin' Every Minute" where Ulisse's dulcet vocals sound like Alison Krauss in her younger days.

Ulisee shows her swampy roostier side when she tackles the insouciant swagger "Poor Mountain Boy" which tells of a doomed romance between two socially disparate lovers. Interweaving between two narratives, one of which is the Biblical story of God commanding Moses to leave the mountain while the other is a far cry of a mother urging her daughter to leave her impecunious life behind, "Walk This Mountain Down" is a perfect musical homily that shows the contemporary applicability of the Bible. Faith again is the subject of "Everything Has Changed." Here the economically sparse backing and Ulisse's stark almost acapella performance is spine-chillingly beautiful.

However, not everything here is immaculate: "I Lied," for instance, suffers from some lazy rhymes, "Well, I lied `cause I cried." "Dust to Dust," on the other hand, suffers too much from its verbosity when a tighter editing could have easily rectified it. Most interesting is the album closer "Levi Stone," a languidly long narrative about the folly of not balancing faith with common sense. Its pretty dark storyline of a father who lets his son die without seeking any medical help but only God's intervention is a topic that would certainly ignite many fires of late night debates, but somehow the song just drags on and on and on. Nevertheless, despite these quibbles, this is still a top notched bluegrass CD. Ulisse has never sounded more comfortable: when she sings bluegrass she sings it as if she was born just to sing it.

Excellent work by Donna. This is now one of my favorite Bluegrass albums. I 'tested' her music a little online. I talked with Donna a bit. And I knew I was making the right choice by purchasing her "WALK THIS MOUNTAIN DOWN" album when looking for something new in Bluegrass.

Donna has shown she knows which end is up. She has it in her. She's got what it takes. I think she is a breakout premier songwriter and one pretty darn good singer as well. She is in some pretty good company too and sometimes, that rubs off a little. (That's a good thing).

We all know (and love) Rhonda Vincent and Alison Krause and Claire Lynch, etc, etc. But now, when looking to hit a Bluegrass album for an hour or so, I confidently reach for Donna's "WALK THIS MOUNTAIN DOWN". And so should you.

(You know my feelings here Donna. Great work. I applaude you and the guys. ... Bill).

Prime Cuts: The Trouble with You, Love's Crazy Train, Lovin' Every Minute

Call it career makeover or re-routing, Donna Ulisse has abandoned her brief fling with country music from the early 90s and she has evolved into a bona fide bluegrass sensation--the type of bluegrass that Rhonda Vincent and Melanie Cannon would find much kinship with. Helmed by a hit writer Keith Sewell (Montgomery Gentry, Steve Wariner, Sonya Issacs) and an A-listed cartel of backing vocalists (Claire Lynch, Curtis Wright and Jerry Salley), "Walk This Mountain Down" is a carefully crafted piece of art that is well put together and impeccably performed. Calling on a small assemblage of co-writers including Richard Leigh, Rick Stanley and Marc Rossi, all these 13 cuts are co-writes or solo compositions of Ulisse herself. Though some of them would benefit from a tauter melodic structure and more prominent hooks, Ulisse shows her mettle for covering a wide range of issues from faith, to love found and lost as well as social discrimination. At times she even deftly weaves all of these themes together to reflect a more realistic portrayal of the complexities of life.

While bluegrass has often been maligned as laidback, Ulisse sets the record straight with the incendiary "The Trouble with You." Donning a full on sprint of a diatribe against her cavorting lover, Ulisse struts with attitude when she sings, "The trouble with you is that you are good looking/And looking at you is what women do/The trouble with me is that I don't trust women/Especially when they are lookin' at the trouble with you." While on the Richard Leigh co-write, "Love's Crazy Train," her gentle understated ache at love's unpredictability displays a tearful ambiance brought out most beautiful by its mournful fiddling and dobro cries. Love does become concrete on the movingly sweet "Lovin' Every Minute" where Ulisse's dulcet vocals sound like Alison Krauss in her younger days.

Ulisee shows her swampy roostier side when she tackles the insouciant swagger "Poor Mountain Boy" which tells of a doomed romance between two socially disparate lovers. Interweaving between two narratives, one of which is the Biblical story of God commanding Moses to leave the mountain while the other is a far cry of a mother urging her daughter to leave her impecunious life behind, "Walk This Mountain Down" is a perfect musical homily that shows the contemporary applicability of the Bible. Faith again is the subject of "Everything Has Changed." Here the economically sparse backing and Ulisse's stark almost accapella performance here is spine-chillingly beautiful.

However, not everything here is immaculate: "I Lied," for instance, suffers from some lazy rhymes, "Well, I lied `cause I cried." "Dust to Dust," on the other hand, suffers too much from its verbosity when a tighter editing could have easily rectified. Most interesting is the album closer "Levi Stone," a languidly long narrative about the folly of not balancing faith with common sense. Its pretty dark storyline of a father who lets his son die without seeking any medical help but only God's intervention is a topic that would certainly ignite many fires of late night debates, but somehow the song just drags on and on and on. Nevertheless, despite these quibbles, this is still a top notched bluegrass CD. Ulisse has never sounded more comfortable: when she sings bluegrass it is as if she was born just to sing it.

Donna Ulisse
"Walk This Mountain Down"
(Hadley Music Group, 2009)
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This is a strong independent bluegrass album from an artist who made a run for Country Top Forty in the early 1990s... Ulisse faded from sight for a long time, but recently reemerged with a new, primarily acoustic sound and a firm command of her material. The album is only partly straight-ahead barn-burning super-picking truegrass (and with a band that includes players such as Rob Ickes, Andy Leftwich and Scott Vestal, that stuff sounds pretty good...) Most of the record is more contemplative and working class-poetic, with a handful of hard-hitting gospel tunes as well. Although Ulisse has a throatier, earthier palette, fans of Alison Krauss might like this -- or perhaps, closer to home, think about Dale Ann Bradley or Nanci Griffith. Either way, it's a strong offering for fans who like their 'grassy music mixed with a bit of message-oriented folkie storytelling. "Child Of The Great Depression," a song about the wisdom that older generations have to offer us, is an album highlight; if you like that song, the rest of the record will probably speak to you as well. Definitely worth checking out. (DJ Joe Sixpack, Slipcue Guide To Country Music)