This is Canadian Steve Dawson’s third album in a year, following on from last year’s ambient pedal steel informed Phantom Threshold, which along with Gone, Long Gone, make up Steve’s pandemic trilogy.
The band for this recording is Jay Bellerose and Gary Craig on drums, Jeremy Holmes plays bass, Fats Kaplin and Tim O’Brien add various stringed instruments, Chris Gestrin and Kevin McKendree add keyboards and Ben Plotnik viola/violin, Kaitlyn Raitz plays cello, plus there are also horns on a couple of tracks and exquisite backing vocals by Keri Latimer and Steve’s daughter Casey Dawson. Allison Russell also adds her considerable vocal talent support on three tracks.
He is an exceptional guitar player and the closest that I’ve heard to David Lindley, in his style of slide guitar playing, yes that good! He also plays electric and acoustic guitar and is a master pedal steel player and like David he loves to play a Weissenborn guitar. We sadly lost David recently and also Steve’s fellow Canadian countryman Ian Tyson, this new album kicks off with one of Ian’s songs, ‘Long Time To Get Old’. This is followed by ‘A Gift’, a nylon stringed acoustic tale concerning the gift of a knife given to a granddaughter, reminiscent of Guy Clarks Randall Knife, it also has some of the finest, swooping pedal steel notes I’ve heard in many a moon, which fall like blossom throughout the song, very, very nice indeed, oh and Steve also adds a touch of marxophone too.
Third track is a dramatic original ‘Hemingway’, a song about a hotel and its stories, decorated by a string quartet. Then it’s on to a traditional song with ‘House Carpenter’, a folky number replete with a mandolin solo by Tim, picking up where Pentangle and Bert Jansch left off. A long time favourite song by Bobby Charles appears next, Steve delivers a fine rendition of Bobby’s ‘Small Town Talk’, this features horns with tenor and baritone sax plus trumpet and plenty of slippery, slide guitars. Steve plays a mix of originals, covers and traditional songs and the following ‘Owl’ is one of Steve’s original compositions, which he informs with 12 string and lap steel. It’s a terrific ghostly tale, atmospheric and haunting.
A Steve Dawson album wouldn’t be complete without a Hawaiian number and Steve gets to grips with his Weissenborn for the tasty, instrumental ‘Waikiki Stonewall Rag’. ‘Polaroid’, is another original, sepia tinged delight and sees Steve play electric, acoustic, pedal steel, Mellotron and vibraphone. A great, lively instrumental version of the old traditional song Singin’, The Blues follows and swings like a devil. Steve takes the Jack (stack a track) Clement’s song ‘Guess Things Happen That Way’, out into the countryside, replete with pump organ and slide guitar breaks.
He finishes the album off with a solo performance of John Hartford’s classic ‘Let Him Go On Mama’, on which he accompanies himself with his trusty Weissenborn guitar. This is a great album and highly recommended indeed.