Brother to the Wind

Pennsylvania-born Craig Bickhardt briefly flirted with a career as a mainstream country artist in the mid-1980s, when he enjoyed radio success as part of the trio Schuyler, Knobloch and Bickhardt. But for most of his career he has concentrated on writing hits for others, and in fact only made his debut as a solo artist with 2001’s Easy Fires. Eight years later, the follow-up offers a dozen tracks of varying vintages that cohere into a nicely unified whole with the help of an all-star cast of acoustic players anchored by bass player Byron House and Craig’s own elegant fingerpicking.