For three years, The Bankester Family has been quietly producing quality bluegrass music that mixes traditional and contemporary bluegrass in both song choice and style.
Phil and Dorene Bankester both play guitar and, along with their daughters (Alysha on fiddle and mandolin, Emily on fiddle, and Melissa on bass) contribute lead and harmony vocals. Their son-in-law (and Melissa's husband), Kyle Triplett is a multi-instrumentalist who concentrates on the banjo.
For their third CD, self-produced and self-titled, the Illinois-based Bankesters are joined by special guest Jamie Johnson of The Grascals and the result is another down-to-earth, deeply-felt bluegrass CD.
Traditional Bluegrass Songs and Themes
With a lead vocal that's chock-full of heart and soul, "Sure as the Sun," the driving, mid-tempo opening track, compares enduring love to the constancy of the elements and a few other things we count on.
Enduring love is a theme that runs throughout this CD, and the symbol-rich "Blow Out the Candle, Laura" with its lovely, old-timey twin fiddle kickoff; is a prime example. It's one of Tom T. and Dixie Hall's patented story songs, informed by their harrowing experience in a coal mine.
The Gospel provides The Bankesters with more traditional bluegrass themes, and a traditional bluegrass song in the case of The Stanley Brothers classic, "I Am the Man, Thomas".The Bankesters' version, with a bluesy fiddle kickoff and high lonesome trio singing, is a compelling one.
The more recently-composed bluegrass gospel tracks are equally worthwhile. Written by The Grascals' Terry Smith with his brother, Billy Smith, " Get Right or Get Left " is a rousing call to get right with God. Urgent, yet compassionate, Dorene, Emily, and Melissa bring it home with more blues-inflected, high-lonesome singing.
"Watergrave" is a popular, contemporary Sunday worship tune that The Bankesters have transformed into driving, powerful bluegrass gospel. The modal fiddle intro sets a foreboding tone, that the song's first line does nothing to dispel: "Now in my house/There's been a mercy killing." Phil Bankester's matter-of-fact lead vocal makes it all the more haunting - one of the CD's strongest cuts.
Heartfelt Progressive Bluegrass
Country artist Sylvia Hutton popularized "I Will Not Forget You," which The Bankesters turn into a folk-inflected tune about steadfast love throughout time and life-changing experience. The main thematic element is repeated in "My Love Will Follow You" with yearning vocals from Emily, who's joined by The Grascals' Jamie Johnson.
"When You Put Your Hand In Mine" is a lovely country number about the ecstasy of love, and a perfectly gorgeous way to close yet another solid collection of bluegrass songs from The Bankesters.
Sources
- The Bankesters. 2011. The Bankesters. July 2, 2011.
Diane Amov - Bluegrass singer/songwriter and classically-trained flautist who has written on bluegrass and American roots music since 2005.
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