#barrett smith

Song Review: Steep Canyon Rangers with Woody Platt - “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down” (Live, 2025)

Woody Platt temporarily rejoined Steep Canyon Rangers at 2025’s Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival to lead the band through a raucous rendering of “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down.” And even if it hadn’t been a smashing musical success - ah, but it was - the sight of Platt, his former bandmates and his successor, Aaron Burdett, playing as a big, happy family would’ve been enough.

Singing lead and sharing acoustic-guitar duties with Burdett, Platt makes it seem like he never left as he nails the vocal, adroitly follows Graham Sharp’s baritone entree to the chours and joins in harmony with mandolinist Mike Guggino. And when the resulting pro-shot video captures Platt leaning into Sharp, Guggino and fiddler Nicky Sanders as they solo, his 2022 departure seems slightly less tragic.

“Love you guys, thanks for having me up,” Platt says after bringing the “Deal” down.

“You, too, Brother,” Sharp responds.

Grade card: Steep Canyon Rangers with Woody Platt - “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down” (Live, 2025) - A

Song Review: Steep Canyon Rangers feat. Steve Martin - “Heart’s the Only Compass”

Steve Martin guests on it, but Steep Canyon Rangers’ “Heart’s the Only Compass” is not a funny song.

It is, however, a three-minute sonic film in which the narrator, in finding out who his dad is, also finds out who his mom was one long-ago night on a Greyhound bus to New Orleans.

History will show/we make it up as we go/and the heart’s the only compass you can trust/and the way from yours to mine/never was a straight line/it’s a tale of hope and fear and love and lust, goes the harmony-rich chorus.

Bassist Barrett Smith sings banjoist’s Graham Sharp’s words on the verses, leading to an unexpected twist and an ending no one could’ve seen or heard coming. Though the melody and uptempo arrangement are pedestrian - and Martin’s second banjo is unessential - the story renders the music secondary and “Compass” is thus a masterwork.

The track announces the May 22 arrival of the Rangers’ Next Act; the title track and “Circling the Drain” were released as standalone singles in 2025.

Grade card: Steep Canyon Rangers feat. Steve Martin - “Heart’s the Only Compass” - A-

Song Review: Steep Canyon Rangers - “Circling the Drain”

Steep Canyon Rangers are masters of musical disguise on “Circling the Drain,” setting a song about economic and addiction crises to an uptempo, quasi-bluegrass arrangement.

But when banjoist Graham Sharp wraps the verses about the end of mining and the beginning of painkillers, he conveys a bit of hope:

What I’m willing to die for/is what I’m staying alive for/I’m a survivor, he sings in his determined baritone, surrounded by his banjo and his bandmates’ mandolin and fiddle.

There are similar entries in the SCR songbook - “Can’t Get Home” comes immediately to mind - which makes the arrival of “Circling the Drain” slightly less exciting.

But, it does follow “Next Act,” suggesting an as-yet-unannounced LP may be in the offing. And that’s pretty exciting.

Grade card: Steep Canyon Rangers - “Circling the Drain” - B

Song Review: Steep Canyon Rangers - “Next Act”

Guitarist Aaron Burdett sheds his new-guy status, co-writing with banjoist Graham Sharp and singing lead on Steep Canyon Rangers’ “Next Act.”

The three-minute standalone is as purely rooted in bluegrass as the Rangers get. It’s a song of determination as Burdett sings the story of a woman moving on:

She said, ‘for my next act I’m not actin’ for anyone/hold to the love that’s held me true/for my next act I’m gonna have me a little fun/it’s been too long I’ve played the fool,’ goes the chorus leading into Nicky Sanders’ fiddle solo.

Although not associated with an album, the mid-tempo, slight-wobble of “Next Act” presents the Burdett-era band sounding confident and embracing its own next act.

Grade card: Steep Canyon Rangers - “Next Act” -B+

Screaming Trees’ “Razor Line Molly” Could’ve been Something Special

- Gary Lee Conner unleashes 1995 demo “because I’ve always really liked it”

It’s not finished. And the surviving 1995 demo recording is saddled with a persistent and annoying bit of static.

But what’s there of “Razor Line Molly” indicates the song could’ve been fashioned into something special for Screaming Trees’ 1996 swan song, Dust.

Alas, “this one didn’t make it to the L.A. recording session,” Gary Lee Conner said in releasing the drum-machine-driven demo.

Speaking of swan song, “Razor Line Molly” bears a passing resemblance to Led Zeppelin. It doesn’t sound like the mighty Zep, but it sounds like Conner and Mark Lanegan might’ve been under their influence when it was conceived.

In any event, it never went anywhere beyond the vault. Conner, however, freed the song “because I’ve always really liked it.”

It might’ve been a monster. Instead, “Razor Line Molly” is an early-stage demo, a could’ve been - and perhaps a should’ve been.

Alas.

Song Review: Steep Canyon Rangers - “Your Lone Journey” (Live, April 28, 2019)

Two acoustic guitars, five voices, one mic and a heavenly performance.

Their rendition of Doc Watson’s “Your Lone Journey” is the latest 2019 MerleFest video the Steep Canyon Rangers released to celebrate North Carolina Songbook’s much-deserved Grammy nomination. On it, the band, sans fiddler Nicky Sanders, sing as one against Woody Platt’s gentle rhythm guitar and Graham Sharp’s languid, fingerpicked leads.

It’s a sad song of a soon-to-be widower saying farewell after a lifetime of love and devotion. This version is all the more wrenching due to the Rangers’ close harmonies:

My darling/my heart breaks as you take your lone journey, they sing.

It’s one of those performances bound to evoke a physical response. If you don’t feel it, you may have already taken a lone journey of your own.

Grade card: Steep Canyon Rangers - “Your Lone Journey” (Live - 4/28/19) - A+

Song Review: Steep Canyon Rangers - “Shake Sugaree” (Live, April 28, 2019)

Now that the Steep Canyon Rangers’ North Carolina Songbook has - rightfully - been nominated for a Grammy award, the band is issuing previously unseen videos from the MerleFest gig that spawned the record.

Their version of Elizabeth Cotten’s “Shake Sugaree” goes a long way toward explaining the Grammy nod. Set to an uptempo, folk-rock arrangement with full rhythm section, two acoustic guitars, fiddle and mando, with room for soloing baked in, this specimen confirms the only thing that rivals the Steep (Cotten) Rangers’ multi-instrumentalist prowess is their vocal abilities.

It’s - like most of the album from whence it came - perfect. And the story about Cotten’s pre-fame chance meeting with the Seeger family makes it educational to boot.

Grade card: Steep Canyon Rangers - “Shake Sugaree” (Live - 4/28/19) - A+