Reviews
Artist:Scott Cook Album: Tangle Of Souls
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.scottcook.net
It's hard to decide which is more impressive, the album or the 241 page hardback book in which it is contained, a beautifully cloth bound series of thoughtful philosophical essays, unsparing autobiographical musings,poignant reminiscences, song lyrics, book references, quotes, travelogues, guitar chords, backgrounds and explanations, and photographs, telling the story of his life and of crises, enviromental and otherwise, and a society seemingly bent on self-destruction. All beautifully illustrated on eucalyptus leaf prints by Australia artist Cecilia Sharpley. Even without the music, this would be well worth the price.
The twelve songs celebrate and encourage love over fear,a plea for global citizenship and mutual understanding, songs of transition and transformation, Scott supported on the journey by intercontinental string band The She'll Be Rights. It sets out in Guthrie/Seeger foot stomping, fiddle scorching style with the Walt Whitman-inspired 'Put Your Good Foot In The Road' which essentially captures the idea that a 100 mile journey starts with the first step, albeit here, nodding to his past drink troubles, with a reminder to take it "easy on your liver".
"This is a low budget love song" he announces at the start of the second-chances themed 'Leave A Light On', Liz Frenchman's upright bass, Bramwell Park's banjo and fingersnaps setting the jazzyfolk tone,before Pete Fidler's dobro colours 'Just Enough Empties', a memory of childhood, friends lost in war, alcoholism, homelessness and the prospect of redemption and salvation through becoming a father.
As you might suspect, 'Say Can You See' is a patriotic song about love of America, but one that sees and says it as it is as he balances the inherent humanity of the working man against the "greedy opportunists and the peddlers of hate", not to divide but in an attempt to heal.
His battle with booze ("how'd you make it home last night?/Where'd you get those bruises?/Could it be that all your reasons/Are nothing but excuses?") also informs the dust country sounds of 'Tulsa' with its observations of a life wasted ("The marrow you sucked out of life/You sure could use it now"). Again reflecting on those drinking years, looking back through the prism of regret is there on the equally dry and sparse 'What To Keep' that moves from looking through old photos ("And I'm wondering if I'm anything/Like that bright-eyed boy had in mind") and extends to ponder the tearing down of statues of "the men we called heroes" in moral outrage and considering "what to keep and what to leave behind".
Chiming with the album being about "the world as a proving ground for souls", 'Passin' Through' is a cover, originally written by Dick Blakeslee and previously recorded by Leonard Cohen, updated here to change the verse about Roosevelt and add an extra one about the Chilean poet, and activist Víctor Jara, underscoring how while we remember the names of the villains, those of the true heroes are often untold.
'Rollin' to You' returns to banjo romping Guthrie territory, even with a semi-yodel, a straightforward song about hooking back up with an old flame who's just been dumped by her latest lover to "see what kind of trouble we can get into".
The final stretch starts with the sparse banjo plucking of 'Let Love Have Its Way', a number that reminded me of Loudon Wainwright III in places, which returns to the theme of the solid bedrock of people upon whom America is founded ("I been looking all over/For the heart of this land/It's all the same from the highway/Paranoid and bland/But I found a string of outposts/Dug in deep behind the lines/It's getting harder to hold hope/But that's where I'm keeping mine"). It's followed by the second cover, Scotty Dunbar's thirsty boots song 'Why Am I Leaving My Home Again', shaded with Guy Clark colours and some fine fiddle work.
The album ends with an fiddle and banjo-based Celtic tinged instrumental, 'Right to Roam', echoing the sentiments of Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land', but not before the title track, which, anchored by a staccato guitar riff and summoning Earle and Springsteen thoughts, pulls together the album's theme of how we're all connected in a global community and how it's pretty much the duty of troubadours like himself, "the poets and the misfits, the lost and profound" to remind us of this, deftly summed up in the verse
Some say this world's an accident
Just a clockwork running down
Some talk like it's a tournament where the cruelest gets the crown
Seems to me it's a pilgrimage and every step is hallowed ground
A walk through fire in a holy tangle of souls.
Walking alongside him would be an honour. A book and album of the year in one package.
Mike Davies
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