Montreal Gazette

While guitar, mandolin and banjo player Joey Wright is best known as sideman for such artists as Sarah Harmer and his wife, Jenny Whiteley, he’s front and centre leading the likes of Jesse Zubot, Steve Dawson, Dan Whiteley and Joe Phillips on this relaxed, thoroughly enjoyable set of instrumental tunes. While Wright presents these pieces in a progressive bluegrass context, his inventive compositions are influenced and coloured by strains of bluegrass, blues, Gypsy music and jazz. There’s also a lot of humour in tunes like Farm Show Ghost, which sounds like a summit between Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli and Bill Monroe, and the light-stepping Andre the Giant. Along with his original material, Wright also offers a Hawaiian-flavoured cover of Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday.

(4 stars)

-Mike Regenstreif