Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver "Lonely Street" (Rounder)

First, a confession: I haven’t heard much — maybe nothing — of Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver since the departures of Jamie Dailey and Barry Scott. Having those two together wasn’t simply Quicksilver, it was pure silver. It’s doubtful, I thought, that Lawson could ever compile a band with such strong vocal abilities again.

Another confession: I was wrong. All it took was one spin through Lonely Street, the band’s new CD, to convince me that Lawson, indeed, is still surrounded by some of the best voices in bluegrass.

Lawson doesn’t stray far from the traditional on this project, and the listener gets an early hint of that from the first track,”Monroe’s Mandolin,” a wonderful tribute to the genre’s father written by Missourians Virginia and Vernon Long.Lawson does veer away from dead center with a few tracks here, but always with traditional instrumental and vocal treatments.

The title cut, “Lonely Street,” co-written by rock-a-billy kingpin Carl Belew, certainly comes from a different genre, but Lawson’s arrangement gives it a straight-ahead, up-tempo bluegrass flavor with trio singing from start to finish. It’s a refreshing take of a song that, as Lawson points out on the liner notes, has been recorded many, many times, usually as a slow ballad.

Also particularly enjoyable and interesting is the driving bluegrass arrangement the band gives “Big Wind,” once a big hit by Porter Wagoner and the Wagon Masters. Wagoner’s original version, as I recall, was itself a hard-driving piece of music. It’s nice that a song like this, once a big hit but now pushed into obscurity, gets pulled from what deejay Eddie Stubbs refers to as “the deep vault” and gets remade with new vitality. The same can be said about “Call Me Up and I’ll Come Calling on You,” a Marty Robbins gem from the 1950s.

Lawson lets his social conscience show through on “The Human Race,” which dwells on the worrisome side of modern society, and, yes, of course there’s great gospel song — complete with quartet singing — on Lonely Street. After all, this is a Doyle Lawson CD. The band chose “When the Last of Our Days Shall Come,” written by Chris Stuart, for the gospel showcase. It makes for a fine closer on the CD.

Besides Lawson, the vocal standouts here are from guitarist Darren Beachley and bassist Carl White. Rounding out this version of Quicksilver are Joey Cox on banjo; Josh Swift on resophonic guitar; and David Johnson and Brandon Godman taking turns on the fiddle parts.

A word here must be said about the CD’s production and sound quality. It’s simply top notch, so engineer and mastering engineer Van “The Man” Adkins deserves a tip of the hat to share with Lawson, who’s listed as producer.