Personnel: Nanci Griffith (vocals, acoustic & hi-string guitars); Sonny Curtis (vocals, acoustic guitar, resonator); Darius Rucker (vocals); Doug Lancio (acoustic, electric, baritone & hi-string guitars, acoustic & electric 12-string guitars, resonator, background vocals); Philip Donnelly (electric guitar, background vocals); David Angell, David Davidson (violin); Kristin Wilkinson (viola); Ron De La Vega (cello, upright, electric, fretless & tic-tac basses, background vocals); John Catchings (cello); Jim Williamson (flugelhorn); James Hooker (piano, B-3 organ, synthesizer, background vocals); Joe B. Mauldin (upright bass); Pat McInerney (drums, percussion, train whistle, background vocals); Fran Breen (drums); J.I. Alison (percussion); Lee Satterfield, Le Ann Etheridge (background vocals).

Recorded at Woodland Studios and Almo Irving Studios, Nashville, Tennessee.

Includes liner notes by Nanci Griffith.

All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.

On BLUE ROSES FROM THE MOONS, Griffith covers Nick Lowe and Guy Clark, re-visits some of her own best-loved songs, adds a potpourri of new ones, duets with Hootie, and brings in Buddy Holly's old band, the Crickets, to join her own Blue Moon Orchestra on several tracks. Griffith dedicates the album to the Blue Moon Orchestra, with whom she has been playing for a decade, and the whole thing serves as a kind of retrospective of what she and they have been up to all that time; it's a new studio album organized like a live album.

The Blue Moon Orchestra is a versatile group, and its gets to show its many faces on these tracks, which range from positively jubilant ("Everything's Comin' Up Roses") to wistful and contemplative ("Wouldn't That Be Fine") to dark and moody (Lowe and Paul Carrack's "Battlefield"). Hootie & The Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker duets with Griffith on a re-make of her "Gulf Coast Highway," a bittersweet tale of devotion and loss. There are many lovely moments on this album, nicely juxtaposed with more energetic tunes, such as the tongue-in-cheek raucousness of the rock classic "I Fought The Law" (written by Cricket guitarist Sonny Curtis, who duets with Griffith on this version) and the honky-tonk spirit of "Maybe Tomorrow."

Q (5/97, p.122) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "A pleasant surprise....the core performances pack a very real emotional punch."