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Aubrey Haynie A Man Must Carry On 2000, Sugar Hill Every now and then you hear a musician and are immediately convinced he (or she) must be from a different planet. Aubrey Haynie’s second release will introduce many people to such a player although it is likely that you’ve heard him play many times before. Haynie is another of those inhumanly gifted studio players (he’s equally adept on both fiddle and mandolin) who’ve quietly made a living backing up Nashville names like Trisha, Clint, Brooks, and Dunn. When a musician of Haynie’s caliber decides to release his own album, you can almost hear the jaws drop and hit the floor across the country. (It happened early in 2000 with releases by studio whizzes Bryan Sutton and Darrell Scott.) On A Man Must Carry On, his second recording for Sugar Hill records, he assembles some of the biggest names in bluegrass and acoustic music to accompany him, including Sutton, Jerry Douglas, Bela Fleck, Tim O’Brien, and Scott Vestal. Carry On is primarily a bluegrass instrumental album, with a handful of extremely well-chosen sung tunes ("Can I Get An Amen" is the finest gospel tune I’ve heard in years). Haynie wrote many of the tunes on this album, and interestingly enough, he seems to favor minor keys. It contributes almost an ongoing theme to the album, and helps to put the "blue" back in bluegrass.—Michael Gaither