Artist: Darrell Scott
Album: Couchville Sessions
Bitrate: 227kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: Full Light Records
Genre: Country
Size: 103.18 megs
PlayTime: 0h 59min 56sec total
Rip Date: 2016-05-13
Store Date: 2016-05-13
Track List:
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01. Down To The River 4:21
02. Waiting For The Clothes To Get 4:42
Clean
03. It's Time To Go Away 3:12
04. Big River 3:29
05. Love Is The Reason 3:12
06. Ramblin' Man 6:46
07. It's About Time 4:53
08. It's Another Day 5:13
09. Moonlight Midnight 5:13
10. Morning Man 4:41
11. Come Into This Room 3:59
12. Loretta 2:57
13. Another Grey Morning 4:05
14. Free (This Is The Love Song) 3:13
Release Notes:
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Country singer-songwriter Darrell Scott takes sustainable living seriously. He
uses wood for heat, the sun for power, and grows his own food on his home on the
Cumberland Plateau, outside of Nashville. In fact, the word sustainability is
the first one listed in his biography on his website, www.darrellscott.com/bio.
Except he spells it ôsustain-abilityö. ThatÆs how seriously he takes it; he
chews each side of the conjunction to show its individual importance and
relationship to each other.
Scott notes that conservation used to be a popular idea back in the æ70s, as the
future promised to be overpopulated and polluted if we did not safeguard our
resources. Unfortunately, Scott says today the world acts as if we will never
run out of resources in our rush to become bigger: fracking for natural gas,
building pipelines, and such. He practices what he preaches on Couchville
Sessions, but maybe not in the way you might think. His recycling is of a
different nature.
The songs on ScottÆs new album were recorded in his living room during 2001 and
2002 and feature the playing English multi-instrumentalist Danny Thompson and
Nashville musicians drummer Kenny Malone and guitarist Dan Dugmore. The homemade
process endows the music with a comfortable, downhome feeling. Even when there
is virtuoso picking, the riffs seem playful. Scott took the tapes to Bill Payne
to master in 2015, and now more than a dozen years later the music is available.
Payne allegedly performed his magic in the living room of ScottÆs new domicile.
Now one canÆt quite call this composting. That would require breaking down the
old tracks. But one really canÆt call this a new crop of tunes either. In any
case, it does reveal ScottÆs consistency. Most of these decade plus year old
songs, both originals and covers, resemble his more recent output in terms of
sound and quality. Ironically, the most dated cut is a Scott original called
ôItÆs About Timeö. ItÆs squeaky clean acoustic arrangement recalls past
countrypolitan styles of another era. The cutesy lyrical wordplay and ScottÆs
affected vocals seem out of place here, among a funereal version of Hank
WilliamsÆ ôRamblinÆ Manö, a melancholy treatment of Townes Van ZandtÆs
ôLorettaö, and a somber take on James TaylorÆs ôAnother Grey Morningö. Every
song doesnÆt have to be sad, but they cannot be facile.
Scott does offer some fine happy moments. The opening cut, ôDown to the Riverö,
celebrates the diversity of friends who sing together soulfully only to be
criticized by the music police for not sticking to one genre. The magic realism
of this tale goes from fanciful to the nitty gritty without ever losing
direction. The band plays loose and free to capture the mood and Scott even
yodels off-key to emphasize that being crazy has its merits. The song ends with
a wooly Guy Clark narration that seals the deal. And the album contains more
serious depictions of life, such as the character study of a woman and her
abusive boyfriend, ôWaiting for the Clothes to Get Cleanö. The sketch strongly
captures the pathos of such a relationship without being cloying. The simple,
mantra-like melody suggests how we fall into patterns without knowing we are
falling into a trap until it is too late.
Other self-penned tracks like ôLove Is the Reasonö, ôMorning Manö, and ôCome
Into This Roomö offer proof of both ScottÆs songwriting talents and his singing
to set a mood and hook an audience. The band just falls into the groove and
subtly reveals their talents.
As a preservationist, Scott understands how to treasure resources. Putting out
15-year-old material with a good band and just a minimum of reprocessing fits in
with his lifestyle and behavior, and we are all the better for it.