Ok so it’s Twang Tuesday that means let’s check out the Bluegrass Chart on the Roots Music Report. I checked off several names on the list that looked promising. One name that stood out at number six was Adam Steffey, hum do I know that name? I thought I did but I couldn’t quite place him. So I thought let me check Dan Taminski’s site to see if he has anything new. When I went to the site, I found out where I knew Steffey from, he played mandolin on Taminski’s Wheels album. I then remembered that I has listened to another band member Justin Moses’ solo CD Dusty Road a while back and it was good. Ron Stewart the banjo and fiddle player had a solo album out also entitled Time Stands Still. So I downloaded all three albums onto the mp3 player and I had a great day of bluegrass music!
The first album was Adam Steffey’s One More for the Road. Steffey is an amazing mandolin picker and has won the Mandolin player of the year from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) five times! Along the way, he has played with some of my favorite bands including Lonesome River Band, Alison Krauss and Union Station and Mountain Heart. He also spent some time with Dusty Miller, where he met Alison Krauss and also the gospel groups The Isaacs. But back to One More for the Road this is a great bluegrass album Steffey had a great group of friends helping out including every member of of his former group Alison Krauss and Union Station except for Jerry Douglas . Fiddler, Stuart Duncan, songwriter/singer Chris Stapleton of the Steeldrivers, singer Ronnie Bowman, dobro player Randy Kohrs and Steffey’s own wife Tina on the banjo. From the first track “Deep Rough” I was hooked and it was good! Steffey’s vocals are good and along the way some of his helpers take over the vocals on several tracks and each one does a great job, including Alison Krauss on “Warm Kentucky Sunshine” For me the standout tracks included “Let Me Fall”, the title track “One More for the Road”, “What Gives You the Right” and especially the instrumental tracks like “Durang’s Hornpipe” and the closing track “Barnyard Playboy”. On both tracks Steffey’s mandolin picking is outstanding,. This CD will certainly stay on the mp3 player for a long while!!! 4.5 to 5 stars!!
The second album was Ron Stewart’s Time Stands Still. Stewart has filled in with a host of top 
bluegrass acts including the Lonesome River Band, Rhonda Vincent, the bluegrass supergroup Longview (of which he is now a member), Don Rigsby, the Bluegrass Album Band, Kenny and Amanda Smith, Blue Ridge, and many more. If I remember correctly he was the special guest fiddler on Lou Reid and Carolina new CD! . Ron was given IBMA’s “Fiddle Player of the Year” award in 2000, and has been nominated every year since.
I love this album too. The vocal tracks are good and his voice is pleasing, but the instrumental tracks like the one I am listening to now “Blue Fiddler” and “Black and Tan”, “Stewart’s Dream”, “Riding the Saranac” “Fiddler’s Dream” “Whistling Rufus and the closing track “Soldier’s Joy, are awesome! I do think I am going to be making a playlist out of these tracks for running I know they will really keep me going!!
So we are about halfway through a great day of music and it’s time for a break! But still to come Justin Moses and more!
Here’s a 1997 video of Ron Stewart on fiddle with the Lynn Morris Band doing “Whistling Rufus”