Seven-time Juno Award winner Steve Dawson brings us the follow up to 2016’s Solid States And Loose Ends. The Vancouver native and Nashville resident is a busy man whether it’s recording & touring under his own name, producing for others or working on his podcast, Music Makers and Soul Shakers. He’s managed to fit in the time to write, mainly with Matt Patershuk, nine new tracks for this album however and added one carefully chosen cover. In fact, he’s written enough material for three albums with Gone, Long Gone just the first. The opener, Dimes, is a groove of a start with electric guitar (Dawson) and horns (Malcolm Aiken, Jerry Cook and Dominic Conway) laying it down with great backing singing from Allison Russell and slide guitar also from Dawson. It's reminiscent of The Band in places and he’s lost none of his humour as he sings about turning dollars into dimes. It all sounds like good fun was had. The wonderfully titled King Bennie Had His Shit Together is a leisurely Country Blues. He has a homely style, very easy to listen to and he is a talented storyteller as he recounts the tale of King Bennie Nawahi, the flamboyant Hawaiian steel guitarist from the late 20s. The barroom piano from Kevin McKendree adds some atmosphere as Steve’s slide guitar breezes through. He rattles out the notes on the acoustic guitar for Bad Omen. This has excellent lap steel too as we remain on that Country Blues vibe, this time with a sense of foreboding. You can hear how good a guitar player he is and when you throw in crisp drums from Jay Bellerose and the joyful, dulcet tones of McKendree’s Hammond B3 then you have a highlight. The title track is given a string introduction from Ben Plotnick and Kaitlyn Raltz before Steve’s rapid, fingerpicked acoustic arrives. This is a classic Americana road song with Steve’s pedal steel picking out the notes in the background. Gentle brilliance. Reverb guitar introduces fingerpicking again on I Just Get Lost with its swinging chorus and change of tempo. It’s well played although it is it isn’t up to its predecessors, a hard act to follow I grant you. However, Steve’s slide guitar is again excellent. Kulaniapia Waltz is played in waltz tempo as you would expect. His acoustic slide is top notch and although I’m not a dancer, I might be persuaded to get up and shuffle along to this beautiful instrumental. Chris Gestrin joins in on pump organ with Gary Craig’s drums keeping the beat along with ukulele from Steve and bass from Jeremy Holmes. The solos are magnificent and round off a lovely song. The brooding 6 Skeletons In A Car has excellent vocal backing from Allison Russell as she has been throughout. Organ is there again from Gestrin but it’s all about guitar and whilst the percussion is as unobtrusive as ever, it does let you know it’s there when we reach the heavier mid-section where electric guitar joins the pounding drums from both Craig and Bellerose in raising the heat. A sort of true story about 6 teenagers in a car that had a crash. They were ok but passers-by thought that they looked a bit skeletal. The only cover is that of The Faces’ Ooh La La. It lacks the originals’ ‘cheeky boys’ style and Rod Stewart’s rasping vocal but it’s a good version despite that. It’s gentle and rolls along at its own pace with excellent guitar work from Steve, both electric and acoustic. Casey Dawson and Allison Russell’s backing vocals along with McKendree on organ round off the sound. Steve treats us to a guitar masterclass on the acoustic instrumental, Cicada Sanctuary before rounding off the album with the low-key Time Has Made A Fool Out Of Me. This has just Steve and electric guitar to begin with until he starts building it with Russell gradually joining in as slide also becomes more involved. Shuffling drums from Craig come in towards the end to take us to the finish with just Russell and guitar rounding it out. Steve Dawson is a jack of all trades and master of them all.