As a member of Wyatt Rice & Santa Cruz and Blueridge, he helped define the sound of driving, modern traditional bluegrass, Junior Sisk founded Ramblers Choice in 1998.Virginia native, Heather Berry-Mabe is a gifted two-time IBMA award winning singer for her work with the Daughters of Bluegrass, and a two-time SPBGMA female vocalist of the year nominee. Jonahtan Dillon began touring as a member of Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice in 2013, now is in his tenth year with The Junior Sisk Band, and Curt Love is a mandolin and guitar player, playing the bass for the very first time.
URL: https://www.juniorsisk.com/
What I don’t like about bluegrass, I like about the Junior Sisk Band, as they manage to combine traditional straightforward bluegrass with country and inflections of other genres without letting hardcore bluegrass lovers down. This is not an easy feat, as evidenced by combining genres with poor results in the past, but the Junior Sisk Band crosses over and brings some commercial viability perhaps missing in bluegrass artists music of the past. Opening with “Where Love Goes To Die” and closing with “The Devil’s Train” and all points in between, It’s All Fun And Games is exactly that, all fun and games.
“Where Love Goes To Die” doesn’t exactly send a positive lyrical message at first, but in the context of the album it winds up perfectly placed at the outset, as they get the first few songs out of their system before some of the better goods do the rest of the business. I like this one, and the title track to follow it, as well as “Weather Woman,” but that’s another story as it starts to get the message more across with each song. The overall point is they’re just getting started and not looking back from here.
“Still Be Blue” is a song anyone can enjoy, and swear they’d heard it a hundred times before, but that is also just some of the beauty in Junior Sisk and his band, as this near perfect little gem gets a lot of airtimes with me, so it comes highly recommended and so does “The Last Time Again” with its even more contagiously adaptable energy. These two alone are worth the price of admission, but the pinnacle of the album is “Sweeter Than Tupelo Honey” which reminds me of Delta, as it’s more than likely supposed to without a doubt.
“Go Back You Fool,” “Break His Heart All Over Again,” go together well amongst the fun and games, as “And Eye For And I Do” and “I Don’t Hurt Anymore” also add to both elements with the fun coming out the most inspiring for me when anyone’s mileage will vary. They all get a run for their money on the grand finale “The Devil’s Train” which is much more up my alley than the latter song, but the former three mingle better with it as the album comes to an unwanted end, and the train comes to a dead stop.
Chadwick Easton