Jesse McReynolds & Friends "Songs of the Grateful Dead"

(Woodstock) McReynolds is a super legend of country and western music. Jim and Jesse were Opry mainstays since the early 60s (their career going back  a decade earlier) and Jim McReynolds death in the early 2000s was one of C&W's true "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes" moments. Thankfully brother Jesse not only can still play mandolin with grace and style, but his voice is intact, enhanced by time rather than withered, and he sounds great on the new album. I am not enough of a Dead devotee to judge this collection by those standards, and to be honest, I'm not sure all of these songs float my boat. But this is a great argument for Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter as a solid Americana songwriters, as most of these songs - especially "Standing on the Moon" and "Loser" - sound fantastic in these arrangements. David Nelson, Stu Allen and others collaborate on this, and best yet, McReynolds and Hunter collaborate to write a new tune, "Day by Day" (don't worry, no Godspell makeup is donned for this mellow bluegrass song), my fave track on the CD.