Steve Martin & Edie Brickell: Love Has Come For You [Album]

It has been my experience that nothing can make you feel like such a hipster douche as discovering an amazing new album  featuring two people that you truly admire….whilst wondering aimlessly through a Wal Mart.  This very event happened to me just a week ago.  I had a few minutes to kill, so I decided to do the old school routine and look through the racks.  Of course, I seem to have taken myself off the radar what the big cats have been doing these days, so I was absolutely enthralled when I saw one of my favorite actors has teamed up with one of the finest female vocalists of our time to create Love Has Come For You, a wonderful little batch of Appalachian style bluegrass songs performed precisely on key and true to form.

It is widely known to most that Steve Martin is not only a brilliant comedic and dramatic actor, he is also an acclaimed banjo picker.  Anybody who has watched Martin and Kermit the Frog duel it out can attest to this.  And Brickell has proven herself in the last three decades as being one of the finest female vocalists and songwriters of the modern era.  And on Love Has Come For You, the duo manage to blend a beautiful mixture of old school mixed with something old, something new, and everything wonderful.  Even the album’s opening line is symbolic and proof to this claim (“When you get to Asheville/send me an e-mail”).  For fans of bluegrass, this is probably one of the best albums of the genre to be released in a very long time.  And for fans of Brickell, you might just find her best work as a vocalist to date.

Each track on this amazing album is a wonderful little story in its own right.  Some are happy.  Some are sad.  And some are downright silly at times.  But what makes this album so wonderful is the exhilarating experience it is as a whole to listen to these two masterminds of all things creative express their love for self expression in such a fun way.  If you can’t sit with a goofy grin on your face when you listen to “Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain Baby”, then you must have sold your soul to the worst kind of devil.  Steve Martin and Edie Brickell may have just introduced the world of bluegrass to a whole new audience in the same manner that Robert Plant and Alison Krauss did a few years ago.  Except much better!  Let’s just hope they choose to listen.  Or that my fellow pretentious douchers find themselves wandering aimlessly in a Wal Mart as well to discover this amazing album.  Although now that I know it exists, I would recommend iTunes.  You’re welcome everyone!