The Whitmore Sisters

★★★★ Ghost Stories COMPASS. CD/DL/LP

Eleanor and Bonnie Whitmore’s sparkling hymns to absent friends.

Self-penned though most of these fine songs are (there’s a lovely take on Macca’s On The Wings Of A Nightingale, as sung by The Everly Brothers), Ghost Stories’ tracklisting might have been cherry-picked by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant for one of their duets albums. Chris Masterson’s production is pukka too, each classic country trope trimly understated. If Friends We Leave Behind is a suitably haunting standout on a work informed by the passing of ex-lovers and close friends including Bonnie Whitmore’s ex-partner Justin Townes Earle, there’s plenty for the juke joint jukebox too, not least Big Heart Sick Mind, two minutes and 34 seconds of precision-tooled, brilliantly-sung exuberance. The Whitmores’ unconventional upbringing saw their pilot parents doing aerobatics to induce mum’s labour with Eleanor and Bonnie; the sisters soar even higher here.