By Katherine Cole

It’s funny. I’ve been to  Nashville many times and I’m starting to think that no musician there is satisfied doing just one thing. Pickers want to be singers. Songwriters want to be producers, and I bet a bunch of those producers have guitars sitting by their beds, just waiting for the next song to come out of their heads.

Well, with Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott , we don’t have to worry about that because they are true “triple threats”—guys who are exceptionally good at more than one job. Between the two of them, Tim and Darrell have released several well received solo CDs and duo recordings and their latest is a live performance recorded in Ashville, North Carolina .

Now not all live CDs are good ones, but a wonderful live recording is the next best thing to being at a concert. And that’s exactly what we have with the new release from Tim  and Darrell,  “We’re Usually A Lot Better Than This.”  It’s almost as much fun as it must have been to be sitting in that Ashville audience.

Tim and Darrell have also written hit songs for artists including the Kathy Mattea, Hal Ketchum, and Garth Brooks.

Of course, I can’t leave out what might be my favorite, the Dixie Chicks hit “Long Time Gone.” This is how it sounds when the guy who wrote it gets down and picks.

Most of the songs on the new disc are originals, though there are a few well chosen covers, including this version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain.”

You can find out more about Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott in this American Songwriter review of the disc, which also lets you stream the entire recording.

And if you want to see more, check out this clip of  Tim and Darrell performing at the Transatlantic Sessions in Scotland a few years ago.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.