Songs: Augusta Ridge, Cliffs Of Vermilion, Your Saddle Is Empty Old Pal, Picking Peppers, Bird In The Wood, Cole Younger, Georgiana Moon, It Ain't Right, Cottonpatch Rag, Ghosts Of The Walls, Saint Anne's Reel/ Fisher's Hornpipe, Last Letter, Quaking Aspen

Personnel: Peter McLaughlin -- guitar and vocals; Laurie Lewis -- fiddle and vocals; Tom Rozum -- mandolin and vocals; Jerry Logan -- bass; Todd Phillips -- bass; Craig Smith -- banjo; Tony Trishka --banjo; Darol Anger --fiddle; and other special guests

Anyone who has seen Laurie Lewis and Grant Street perform in the past six years or so has also seen Peter McLaughlin, who has been the guitar player in the band for most of the 90s. He was National Flatpicking Champion some years back and he has been singing harmonies in Grant Street besides playing some red hot guitar. So it was just a matter of time before he stepped out and made his own CD, and it is called Cliffs of Vermilion.

Even though Peter has made his first "solo" recording here, he has kept it all in the family -- both literally and figuratively -- as not only are members of Grant Street backing him up, the CD was produced by the multi-talented leader of the band, Laurie Lewis, and he does a duet with his brother David and one with his father Bill. So it sounds a lot like a Grant Street recording -- Laurie and Tom each even sing lead on a song -- with Peter doing most of the lead vocals. While not the most dynamic singer in the band, for a guy who doesn't get a chance to sing much on stage he sounds pretty good on his own.

As you might expect from a player who usually lets his fingers do the talking, Cliffs of Vermilion begins with a hot instrumental that Peter wrote called Augusta Ridge. The second song is the title cut, which was written by one of his bandmates in his former band Flying South. Peter also lives in the area of Arizona where the cliffs are located. Your Saddle Is Empty is a traditional cowboy song that he learned from the Stanley Brothers, and he sings it as a duet with his brother David, who used to play in The Johnson Mountain Boys. Picking Peppers is a very nice instrumental written by Peter, and that is followed by another pretty song called Bird In The Wood, which is sung by Laurie Lewis. Cole Younger is a bluegrassy traditional song about one of Jesse James' gang members that Peter sings, and that is followed by Georgiana Moon, a fiddle instrumental that is played by Laurie and is a tribute to Chubby Wise. It Ain't Right is a song from the 1930s that sounds like a Dan Hicks number but is actually sung by mandolinist Tom Rozum. Cottonpatch Rag is an instrumental that was written for the fiddle but is picked by Peter on the guitar, and that is followed by Ghosts Of The Walls, a minor mode song about a ghost town that was penned by Peter. Saint Anne's Reel/ Fisher's Hornpipe are two more traditional instrumentals. The Last Letter is an old cowboy song that Peter sings as a duet with his father Bill, from whom Peter learned a lot of these songs. And finally there is Quaking Aspen, which features just Peter's voice and guitar plus bass and fiddle.

There is a good mix of material on Cliffs Of Vermilion, and the production and pickin' are first rate. Yet such should come as no surprise to fans of Laurie Lewis and Grant Street, who are quite the talented band -- Laurie has several recordings of her own, bassman Todd Phillips recently won a Grammy for his Bill Monroe Tribute True Life Blues, and mandolin man Tom Rozum is recording his first solo project right now. But if you've ever wondered what that quiet guitar player in the band would sound like on his own, take a trip to the Cliffs Of Vermilion.