Album Review: Béla Fleck, ‘Live Heart: My Bluegrass Heart at the Ryman’

Oh, to have been at the Ryman Auditorium on the night of January 8, 2022.

That evening Béla Fleck gathered an all-star cast of friends — Sam Bush, Michael Cleveland, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Sierra Hull, Edgar Meyer, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz, Billy Strings, Bryan Sutton, Tony Trischka, and Molly Tuttle — who assembled on the stage of the Mother Church to deliver an inspired, rousing live version of Fleck’s album ‘My Bluegrass Heart,’ which would go on to win the 2022 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. ‘Live Heart: My Bluegrass Heart at the Ryman,’ a 3-LP or 2-CD set, captures every magical moment of the night and every crisply rendered note, giving us a front row seat and a chance to relive the event.

The evening roars off as each player takes the stage strumming or picking on the foot-stomping, hand-clapping “Blue Mountain Hop.” Sam Bush’s mandolin strums give way to Bryan Sutton’s frolicking fretwork, ahead of Jerry Douglas’ shimmering dobro runs; the bridge features Fleck’s rapid-fire banjo picking and Stuart Duncan’s flying fiddling chasing each other around the melody line.

Fleck’s rapidly ascending picking induces the — well — vertiginous improvisation of “Vertigo,” a tune that flows along a free jazz structure and mimics the motion of teetering on the edge with a fear of falling and catching oneself before teetering on the edge again. The crowd cheers on the jaunty rambler “This Old Road,” as the stage fills with Bush, Cleveland, Douglas, Duncan, Hull, Meyer, Moses, Schatz, Strings, and Sutton and one group hands the bluegrass baton to the other in mid-song.

Fueled by Sierra Hull’s almost psychedelic mandolin runs in the song’s opening measures, Cleveland, Strings, and Schatz shift into high gear in the middle in a galloping riff on the “William Tell Overture” on “Slippery Eel,” with Hull and Strings playing note for note on a call and response between mandolin and guitar. Molly Tuttle leads the poignant old time rounder “Hug Point,” as Cleveland, Hull, and Schatz weave layers of harmony and melody underneath her lead lines.

Sierra Hull takes the stage alone on “Psalm 136,” with its sparkling arpeggios of ascending and descending harmonics and counterpoint. “Baptist Pumpkin Farm” opens like a waltz before rolling into an up tempo tune that blends the rhythms of a hoedown, a reel, and a waltz.

Somber and haunting, “Our Little Secret” evokes the ponderousness of silence and the tingling jolts of joy that may lie beneath such silence. “Boulderdash” careens straight down the bluegrass highway, picking up a ragtime hitchhiker along the way, while the high lonesome bluesy “Dark as the Night, Blue as the Day” features Tuttle and Hull on vocals.

The final song, “Tennessee,” features Strings on vocals and gives every musician a chance to stretch out a little. ‘Live Heart: My Bluegrass Heart at the Ryman’ captures an anointed night of picking, singing, and strumming; it’s a celebration of musical genius.