Becky Buller and Dark Shadow Recording have presented us with a delightfully fresh and new all-star Christmas record.

Greener Grass by Billy Swinson contains eight original songs and covers of two classics.

Sleeping Dogs is the type of album on which you can hit the play button and go about your business with a smile.

I usually listen to a CD several times before I ever start to write a review, but A Life Well Lived is only eight songs in, and already I have seven favorites.

One can hear Jake's influences, and each song on the CD introduces us to a new influence. To say that Jake is an amalgam of Elvis, Cash, Perkins, Scruggs, (Tommy) Hunter, (Faron) Young, (Buddy) Holley, and (Webb) Pierce would not yield the whole story.

These musicians are all over the CD, not all playing at once, but I can’t say I would mind it if I heard the tune with them all. They all did a fine job, but a few caught my ear.

While each individual track on Big Spring is definable, the CD is not easily done.

Even Monroe can’t perform the same two or three sets of music when he plays two sets a day for nine days to the same folks. I can remember that twenty-something Mike Compton seated right there, staring up at the master.

Prairie Wildfire brings in a cast of musicians, including Andy Leftwich, Darrin Vincent, Jessie Baker, Josh Swift, Mike Johnson, Lonnie Wilson, Greg Blake, Greg Cole, Kevin Grantt, John Willis, and James Mitchell. The CD lists no notes about who is playing what, or when.

I love for bands to introduce to new, original songs that may just become tomorrow's standards. There may be a couple here that work their way into that category. There are five band-original tunes on here, and a some are just fabulous.

McGeehan has shown us he's not afraid of waltzes; there's three of them here. Kenny Baker sure loved a waltz; he taught me to like one, too. Ellery Marshall's banjo playing was just right all the way through, particularly on Monsac, a tune coming in at about 100 beats per minute. Pulling off a slow banjo tune is not easy. Salute.

This three-piece band, consisting of Fred Kosak, Alissa Wolf, and Cody Tinnin, is not traditional Bluegrass but something between it and a loose, banjo-less jam band.