Since the early 1990s Jim Lauderdale has been a fixture in Nashville, writing songs, performing, and making records — The Birds Know is his 39th album so far. A 2025 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, he’s collaborated with too many to recount, including Robert Hunter, Buddy Miller, Elvis Costello, Donna the Buffalo, North Mississippi Allstars, and Ralph Stanley. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association and won two Grammys for Best Bluegrass Album. This is his second collaboration with The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, who in their 10 years as a group have been nominated for a Grammy and been recognized by the International Bluegrass Music Association as Emerging Artist of the Year been nominated for Entertainer of the Year.
As you might expect from such luminous company, the music they make together is quite good. Lauderdale wrote these 11 songs just for this session, and, well, it’s for the birds! Including the album title and the song of that name, this musical aviary is packed with feathered friends, starting with the opening track “Two Crows.” This song is definitely not descended from the well known English folk song “Twa Corbies,” though; it’s a collection of non-sequiturs and nonsense lyrics in a quick-stepping bluegrass song. From the opening hot banjo lick to the final chord it’s a fine example of the genre, with a chance for all the players to show off their stuff (but not to excess) and a preview of the many group vocal harmonies to come, too.
The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys long-standing members are band leader C.J. Lewandowski on mandolin, Jereme Brown on banjo, and Jasper Lorentzen on bass. They’re joined on this album by newcomers John Gooding on guitar and fiddle player Max Silverstein. They’re good singers (one of them does some great high harmonnies) and very good players, and the production team captures it all superbly; this is a really great sounding acoustic album.
The song that gives the album its title is of course on an avian theme, this one about the woes of a troubled soul. It’s a mid tempo tune with a little bit of swing to it thanks to the rhythm section of bass, fiddle and mandolin. A bluebird shows up in my favorite track, “Don’t Look Down,” a peppy number about the precarity of love. And the slightly creepy “Chuck Will’s Widow” tells the mythical origin story of the bird of that name, a nightjar common to the American southeast, the chorus mimicking the bird’s call. And there apparently are birds living in the engineer’s beard on the upbeat bluegrass song that closes the album, “Rainbow Choo-Choo Train.” It’s a top-notch way to wrap up the album, with notable solos on banjo, guitar, mandolin, and some impressive bass plucking.
Not all the songs have gone to the birds and not all are strictly bluegrass. Among the better ones are “Little Bitty Diamonds,” a George Jones style honky tonk weeper, with a hint of the Possum in Lauderdale’s lead vocal; the upbeat shuffle “You’ll Never Forget Her (Until You Do)” featuring a guy missing his gal who’s gone for good; and “You Wanted Mountains From Me,” an acoustic honky-tonk about a guy blaming his ex for his inadequacies and the fact that she expected more from a relationship. You know, the usual.
Thematically, none of these songs are very momentous, and there are some lyrics I find awkward. But you don’t come to bluegrass with high expectations along those lines, and this has lots of what you do expect: superb playing and top-notch vocals.
(Sky Crunch Records, 2026)
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