Steve Dawson. Eyes Closed, Dreaming. Black Hen Music

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And so, the third of Steve Dawson’s “pandemic” trilogy hits the shelves, drawing to a close his year long release strategy on a very triumphant note. As with its predecessors, Eyes Closed, Dreaming was recorded remotely with musicians joining in from Nashville, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver with never a join to be heard, the whole skilfully woven together by Dawson in the producer’s chair. In terms of the trilogy, Eyes Closed, Dreaming is a close cousin of the first release, Gone, Long Gong, both being a collection of songs excellently played and using both his fellow players and his undoubted guitars skills quite perfectly. And while Phantom Threshold, the middle release of the trilogy was an intriguing collection of instrumental music, it’s great to hear Dawson back on his rootsy song saddle.

More top heavy on covers than Gone, Long Gone, Eyes Closed, Dreaming nevertheless features four excellent songs written by Dawson and Matt Patershuck which easily equal those on the earlier album. Two of these find the writers delving into the area of Child ballads. A Gift is a beautiful song, tinged with a hint of danger and played with a tender sense of purity, the highlight being Dawson’s pedal steel playing. The Owl is not dissimilar although it harks more to the ensemble playing of the Pentangle in their heyday. Meanwhile Hemingway is an intimate reflection on the author with Dawson’s acoustic guitar opening recalling Bert Jansch before a string section billows in giving the song a very nice yet restrained sense of majesty. The best however is the gentle meditation on the nostalgia and affection contained within a simple Polaroid snapshot on the song titled Polaroid. The lyrics bring to life the experience of taking such a snap as Dawson sings of the picture “slowly fading into view” and the way that “light was reflected from your face and onto this very page.”

Elsewhere Dawson rewards those who love his gutbucket R’n’B with the opening song, Ian Tyson’s Long Time To Get Old which is suffused with his slide guitar licks while Allison Russell sings gustily along with him. There’s more of this Ry Cooder like humbucking on a grand cover of Jack Clement’s Guess Things Happen That Way while Cooder comes to mind again on the Hawaiian styled Waikiki Stonewall Rag and on the lazy swingtime of Singin’ The Blues, both allowing Dawson plenty of space to impress on Weissenborn, National guitar and ukulele.

Rounding up the covers, Dawson breathes new life into that old folk chestnut, House Carpenter. With Tim O’Brien on mandolin, Dawson performs it in a modern bluegrass fashion giving Billy Strings a run for his money. He closes the album with a solo performance of John Hartford’s Let Him Go On Mama which is perky and affectionate and, it goes without saying, perfectly performed.

Aside from a cover of Bobby Charles’ Small Town Talk which, for this reviewer, didn’t really take off, with Dawson straining to get the right vocal vibe, Eyes Closed, Dreaming is a further reminder that Dawson really deserves to be as well known for his solo endeavours as for his multitude of studio sessions and production work.

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Matt Patershuk. An Honest Effort. Black Hen Music

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If you’re looking for someone to write you a fantastic song about a horse, then look to Matt Patershuk. The Canadian singer/songwriter seems to have a weird predilection for songs about our equine buddies as witnessed on past albums and An Honest Effort adds another two to the list. Horses however are but one element in his bag as this album allows him to deliver a fantastic set of wonderfully warm and laid back songs which range in subject from downtrodden women, the aimless flight of a bullet, Shane McGowan’s dentures and the laws of thermodynamics.

As on its predecessor, If Wishes Were Horses (see, we told you so), Patershuk’s songs here are ably recorded by Steve Dawson who produces and plays guitar and pedal steel while Fats Kaplin offers sublime banjo, fiddle, ukulele and harmonica. Gary Craig and Jeremy Holmes are the subtlest of rhythm sections and Keri Latimer adds harmonies to Patershuk’s handsome voice on several selections. The overall feel of the album is somewhat restrained, the songs allowed to find their own level which, in the main, is immensely relaxed, an album to be savoured late at night, an unwinding of sorts as Patershuk beguiles you with his (sometimes tall) tales.

We’ll kick off with those horsey songs. Jupiter The Flying Horse is a Jerry Jeff Walker like number which incorporates the whimsical style of The Handsome Family. It’s a grand song but it’s beaten to the post by the extraordinary tale of Clever Hans, a true story about an early 20th Century attraction, a horse who could calculate, add and subtract and whatnot. It was, of course, a con, but Patershuk allows the colt some dignity as he tells the tale with Dawson adding sly guitar much in the manner of Ry Cooder on an early Randy Newman song. Staying within a realm of weird humour, Patershuk postulates that Shane MacGowan’s new dentures can pick up radio signals and, in a fine front porch manner, kind of like Steven Hawking hawking tobacco and playing banjo as he lectures to a bunch of locals, on The 2nd Law Of Thermodynamics, Patershuk explains that the universe tends to disorder.

Aside from the whimsy, a brace of songs are more down to earth and occasionally quite dark. The opening track, Johanna, a song dipped in molasses, has the heroine casting off her shackles to embrace a new life. Trepidatious to be sure but full of hope. Sunny, another song about a woman trapped, is more vague. She’s one of those abused women, the sort who feature in Willy Vlautin’s song stories, and Patershuck brings her to life with brushstrokes as evocative as those employed by The Delines. On the other side of the coin, Afraid To Speak Her Name is a shimmering joy with Dawson excelling on guitar and Weissenborn guitar as Patershuk paints a picture of an almost unattainable romantic memory.

Rounding out the album, Turn The Radio Up has a Tupelo Honey Van Morrison like lilt to it while 1.3 Miles is a return to front porch picking as Patershuk takes the listener on a bullet’s trajectory. An odd subject to be sure but, like Alice’s rabbit hole, a doorway into a wonderful series of vignettes. Stay With Me is a juicy slice of laid back country rock with rippling mandolin, fatback guitar and Kaplin’s harmonica surrounding Patershuk’s tender and nostalgic reverie with Latimer’s harmonies quite glorious. Finally, Patershuk pays tribute to his grandmother, a Liverpudlian activist, on the spare, banjo speckled Upright. Arrested aged 73 campaigning against the bomb and a fan of Fats Waller, she lives again on this affectionate song. It’s a magnificent end to what is a magnificent album.

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Matt Patershuk. I Was So Fond of You. Black Hen Records

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We’ve written about several acts who might be considered a new wave of young country bucks (Sturgill Simpson, Cale Tyson, Daniel Romano, Barna Howard etc.). They sidestep the current Nashville trends such as Bro’ Country and EDM and instead look back to classic country music, not the hillbilly type but the golden years of the fifties and sixties, their heroes George Jones,  Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Glen Campbell and John Hartford, artists who were mavericks but still able to turn in a hit song.

Well it’s time to add Canadian Matt Patershuk to this list. I Was So Fond Of You, his second album, is a breath of fresh air, an inhalation of healthy banjo, fiddle, pedal steel and guitars, all set to a fine shuffle from the excellent rhythm section and topped with his  sometimes honeyed, sometimes gravelly  vocals.  Recorded at producer Steve Dawson’s Nashville studio, the band, Mike Bub, bass, Gary Craig, drums, Fats Kaplin, fiddle, banjo, accordion and guitar along with Dawson on guitar and pedal steel, sat down together and played live with no overdubs. The cherry on the cake here is the addition of Ana Egge on harmony vocals, added later but knitted right into the songs.

The opening song, Back Against The Wall is a gritty slice of Southern slither with mean slide guitar and rasping fiddle. It’s a great opener but hardly indicative of what is to follow. Prettiest Ones introduces Egge’s voice, a perfect foil for Patershuk’s wearied tones on a gentle song that tiptoes along sprinkled with mandolin and sweet pedal steel. She remains on board for the mild Western swing of Smoke A Little Cigarette, Kaplin here superb on fiddle and Patershuk capturing the laconic songspeak of Bob Wills perfectly, a trick he repeats on the upbeat Burnin’ The Candles At Both Ends. Pepe The Cat Murdering Dog, an absurdist tale of sorts finds the band all jaunty and hitting a bluegrass stride while Mean Coyotes heads into Tex-Mex country on a Willie Nelson like ticket. Here Patershuk just hits all the right buttons, the harmonies with Egge beautiful, the band just on the right side of closing time at a cantina, reedy accordion setting the scene  on a mournful song that paints a rancher burying a pony, a victim of those coyotes, as he relates this to his own life.

There’s more equine content on Tennessee Walker, an epitaph to a beloved steed that recalls Doc Watson as imagined by Steve Earle and Earle comes to mind again on the revenge ballad of Harviestown. Here a “yellow bellied drunk man killed my darling girl” and the singer vows to go down to Harviestown where “I’ll use my two bare hands, I won’t need a gun.” It’s a great song, a fine addition to the old murder ballad tradition but it gains some extra weight when one realises that Patershuk is here dissembling a tragic moment of his own. His sister, Clare, was killed by a drunk driver in 2013 and he dedicates the album to her memory and in particular he describes his memory of this on the title song, a truly affecting piece which is given a respectful reading from the band, a slow waltz with Egge echoing his plaintive vocals. It’s tearstained indeed and sad to think that the song grew from a tragedy but ultimately (and here one does feel somewhat helpless, like a mourner not knowing what to say at a funeral) it’s a beautiful song and hopefully gives some comfort for those who knew her. Patershuk can certainly wring the emotions and he does so expertly on Little Guitar, a song that stands tall in the grand tradition of the likes of Kris Kristofferson and Jon Prine. Here he inhabits a veteran of world war II, bruised and battered, his brother killed in the war, blood flowing through his flaxen hair. He finds solace in his second hand guitar singing, “you can’t make a fist when you’re playing guitar.” It’s a monumental song delivered with grace by the players and well worth the price of admission on its own. A wonderful album.

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