My business requires me to travel, more often than I would like sometimes, and all of it by automobile. Sometimes late in the afternoon I will find myself hours from home, driving through the mountains of West Virginia or the back roads of southern Ohio, and passing by houses with couches on the front porch, and two, three or four people gathered, facing each other, playing guitars, fiddles, dobros, sometimes even a dulcimer. No overdubs, no reverb, just the real deal. While I have never had the opportunity to stop and listen, I doubt that the music that these people are creating has changed much from what was being played in the area 100, or even 200, years ago. And I bet that it sounds a lot like what Bruce Molsky lays down on "POOR MAN'S TROUBLES."

Molsky is a multi-instrumentalist --- guitar, banjo, fiddle --- whose love for the bluegrass and folk music which is his forte resonates in every single perfect note which he plays. A Bruce Molsky album is a collection of tunes and at the same time is a subtle study of the beauty and homogeneity of that wondrous thing which we call American music. The influences here --- West African melodies, medieval ballads, blues and field hollers --- resonate and intertwine so strongly that genre labels, such as "folk" or "bluegrass," though convenient, soon become meaningless. This is due in equal parts to Molsky's musical prowess and his fine ear for repertoire selection. POOR MAN'S TROUBLES accordingly includes the familiar "Fishin' Blues," previously done by such disparate artists as Taj Mahal and the Lovin' Spoonful; obscurities such as "Peg and Awl" and the title track; "Brothers and Sisters," an original; and "Bolts and Locks" a timeless tune that is still relevant today. Each of these selections is different, yet there is a wonderful cohesiveness, a sense of belonging, throughout. While Molsky's vocal skills are not, perhaps, the equal of his instrumental proficiency, they are rarely featured and even when they are they transcend, and transform, the material. Thus, the heartbreaking and rending dirge "I Truly Understand," featuring nothing but Molsky's voice and fiddle, is full of love, loss, and regret.

"POOR MAN'S TROUBLES" is the real deal. No matter what your musical interest, this CD belongs in your collection. It is not one of those "boring, but good for you," things that your hipper-than-you'll-ever-be college roommate would play ad nauseum to impress guests. It is, rather, a careful, loving cultivation of a representation of a rich heritage by someone, who, as it happens, is also a flawless technician of his chosen instruments.