The Meat Purveyors

The Meat Purveyors are neither a porn production company nor an oiled-up WWE tag team (well, maybe a little bit oiled), even if their latest, Pain by Numbers, does kick off with the roiling “TMP Smackdown.” The Purveyors, in short form, are a 156-mph drug intervention. Riotous and unpredictable, the group is one of the few bands in America willing to use traditional bluegrass as the means to sing about pretty much anything, particularly the stuff with the built-in winks. Singer Jo Sanli Cohen, possessed by the spirit of Black Oak Arkansas’ Jim Dandy (gender issues notwithstanding), ably covers everyone from Fleetwood Mac (“Monday Morning”) to Johnny Paycheck (“It Won’t Be Long and I’ll Be Hating You”), not to mention modern classics from otherwise quiet guitarist and songwriter Bill Anderson.