Full Review

Lucy Kaplansky – Over the Hills

Over the past 10 years or so Lucy has gained a formidable reputation as a great singer and interpreter of songs, but her last few albums have seen more of her own material coming to the fore. This album continues the trend, and her own songs about the joy of motherhood to the loss of family and friends feature in Lucy’s writing, and it’s these songs that provide the highlights of the disc, in particular ‘Today’s the Day’ is a beautifully musically spare piece about the death of her father.

Musically this is more acoustic than her recent albums and occupies the familiar folk/Americana territory. Where it does stand out is in the musicians, the album features a world-class band of Larry Campbell, Duke Levine, Jon Herington and Stephan Crump are joined by Richard Shindell, Eliza Gilkyson, Buddy Miller and Jonatha Brooke. This slightly more acoustic sound suits her vocals well; she has a smooth and effortless voice which suits this more considered and spare backing.

Her varied and often left-field choice of covers continues on ‘Over the Hills’, with songs from the pens of Cash, Loudon Wainwright III, Bryan Ferry and Julie Miller.

‘Over the Hills’ is another fine album that builds on Lucy’s excellent collection of solo albums and shows her to be a fine writer as well as an interpreter of other writer’s work.