Published in Bluegrass Unlimited, January 2002. Used with permission.

Shannon Nix And Southern Praise

Going To A Land

Crosscut Records CR-1123

“Going To A Land” is a well-executed but derivative bluegrass gospel collection from Shannon Nix and Southern Praise. Other than a couple of songs which seem to be originals, “Going To A Land” could carry the subtitle “Picking On Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver” – fully half of the songs on the CD (“Gone Away”, “My Rock”, “Let Us Travel On”, “Sun Of My Life Goes Down” and “Lover Of The Lord”) are among Lawson’s most familiar songs. The playing is solid and even Lawson’s intricate vocal arrangements are duplicated closely here, an impressive feat for any band not called Quicksilver. Inexcusably, no songwriter credits are given on the package, nor are there any publishing credits for anything other than what appear to be the band’s original songs. That’s an unforgivable slight to the sources of most of their material.

It’s hard for bands to locate good songs that haven’t been overdone, but Nix and Southern Praise are good players and good singers. They clearly have the instrumental and vocal skills to be more imaginative than this. The songs are good, but the band doesn’t add anything to make them their own. Let's hope that they find the inspiration to dig deeper for better material in the future. If they do, they’ll be on their way to establishing a top-notch reputation.

Archie Warnock, [email]

Archie's BU Review Page