Nashville based Canadian singer-songwriter Steve Dawson (the Juno award winner is also a producer, sideman, label owner and podcast host) has started 2023 the way he musically entertained/ explored in 2022 with Eyes Closed, Dreaming.

The album is also Dawson's third album in a year, primarily because he had lockdown time to write a large collection of songs during that pandemic restrictive period.
The results were enough material for three albums that collectively make for an enjoyable triple Dawson dovetailing, each with its own identity.
 
First album of the three, Gone, Long Gone, featured nine songs mostly co-written with Alberta songwriter Matt Patershuk; that highly successful team-up led to Steve Dawson’s most all-encompassing release to date – a delicious mix of roots, folk & blues with influences from Nashville to Hawaii.

Phantom Threshold, released five months later, was a wholly instrumental album that featured Steve Dawson’s delightful and deeply immersive pedal steel surrounded by a multitude of keyboards (from moog and mellotron to Wurlitzer and pump organ) that added further sonic textures.

And so to Eyes Closed, Dreaming, released one year after Gone, Long Gone.
Much like that album the third instalment of Steve Dawson’s "pandemic trilogy" is a rootsy and folky affair but with lighter, melodic warmth and a sometimes (as title-reflected) dreamier stylisation; it features four originals co-written with Matt Patershuk and a selection of choice cover interpretations.

Nor does it hurt that Dawson has once again called in the support of friends who happen to be some of the best North American roots musicians around.
Joining the studio/ house band of Gary Craig (drums), Jeremy Holmes (bass) and keys players Chris Gestrin & Kevin McKendree are Fats Kaplin & Tim O’Brien (mandolin & strings), Ben Plotnik (viola/ violin), Kaitlyn Raitz (cello), a horn section, drummer Jay Bellerose (five tracks), singer Allison Russell (three tracks) and additional vocals from Keri Latimer & Steve Dawson’s daughter, Casey Dawson.

Opener, the Ian & Sylvia / Great Speckled Bird number 'Long Time to Get Old,' featuring Allison Russell on harmony & backing vocals, has a lovely Nashville inspired country charm about it but it’s simply the appetiser to lighter delicacies.

All four Dawson-Patershuk compositions stand tall as storytelling fulcrum points of the album, from acoustic led roots-country number 'The Gift' and the string accompanied 'Hemingway' to the slightly ethereal acoustic folk-blues of 'The Owl' and memory reflective ballad 'Polaroid,' which title fittingly creates poignant imagery through its lyrics ("I like to think about the way that they were made, light reflected from your face onto this very page, like some real life piece of you trapped in celluloid… Polaroid").

Each of the other covers also make their mark however, from traditional olde folk ballad 'House Carpenter' and a soulful, horns accompanied take of Bobby Charles' 'Small Town Talk' to Cowboy Jack Clement’s 'I Guess Things Happen That Way' (made famous by Johnny Cash) and a delightful solo piece (Steve Dawson and Weissenborn guitar) in the finger picking shape of John Hartford’s 'Let Him Go On Mama.'

As befits the best Steve Dawson albums, there are also a couple of instrumentals – new piece 'Waikiki Stonewall Rag' (think Django Reinhardt in a Hawaiian shirt) and a wonderful jazz cornet to guitar transposition of the Frankie Trumbauer Orchestra & Bix Beiderbecke version of 'Singin’ The Blues.'

That this is yet another beautifully crafted release from Steve Dawson (one of his best to date) makes it all the more third-album-in-a-year noteworthy – but that’s not really a surprise, given the quality of Dawson’s catalogue and the esteem and regard with which the multi-talented musician is held in roots music and its broader-scoped, Dawson-ised setting.