Sugar Hill

Jim Lauderdale comes out with a new song showcase – otherwise known as an album – virtually every year, a feat that’s possible because he’s a reliably good songwriter. Reason and Rhyme is a continuation of his collaboration with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Unlike last year’s Patchwork River, this is a bluegrass outing; but they’re hardly sticklers for tradition. “Love’s Voice,” for instance, takes a left turn at the chorus – Lauderdale’s especially tuneful hook. And the lyrics that Hunter penned for “Tiger & the Monkey” are clever, layered and anything but straight-ahead. The hard-driving “Fields of the Lord” is the most traditional track, and it’s a mighty solid one at that. Most of the songs were given such crisp, tight, modern bluegrass arrangements that there’s not much room for Lauderdale to get playful vocally. But he works in his expressive twists all the same.