Darrell Scott
Album: Long Ride Home
Label: Full Light
Tracks: 16
Website: http://www.darrellscott.com

You never get anything less than top quality from any album that includes Darrell among its participants, and his own solo collections - of which Long Ride Home is the seventh so far - can be relied upon to deliver songwriting, singing and musicianship of the very highest order. This latest collection (which stretches to a heavenly and generous 62 minutes and wastes not a moment of it) might be regarded as Darrell's most personal to date, for while it's dedicated to his mother (who died only last year), it also uses his own songwriting as a vehicle to revisit and pay tribute to the music of his youth.

It's no mere exercise in musically derivative retro-nostalgia either, though, being a uniformly classy set, entirely idiomatic in character (the country of country) and yet managing to remain astoundingly literate (memorably so) even when the imagery and thoughts are of the most straightforward or obvious kind. The richness and strength of Darrell's singing voice is remarkable, coping effortlessly throughout a range of emotional demands: from the tenderness of Candle For A Cowboy and the honky-tonk heartbreak of Too Close To Comfort and Trying Not To Love You through to the gentle introspection of Someday and the wistful 70s troubadour feel of Every Road Leads To You and You're Everything I Wanted Love To Be, and the piano gospel of Dance In The Darkness contrasting with the rollicking boogie-woogie of Hopkinsville and the ragtimey No Use Living For Today.

Instrumentally, while Darrell's own prowess on guitar and pedal steel is etched into the soundscape of the album, it's never allowed to get in the way of the proven chops of his backing band of friends, whose members are allowed a comfortable degree of steppin'-out in return for their expertise being used at the service of Darrell's excellent songs. Mere mention of their names - Kenny Malone, Dennis Crouch, Hargus "Pig" Robbins - should be enough to whet the appetite and ensure a guarantee of stature, whereas the "drop-in" presence of folks like Guy Clark, Tim O'Brien, Mickey Raphael, Patty Griffin, Charlie McCoy and Rodney Crowell adds even more kudos. And there's an added poignancy too, in the contributions of Darrell's father Wayne (vocals on The Country Boy and co-writes on that song and You're Everything I Wanted Love To Be) who died in a car crash shortly after the recording sessions were completed.

But the sheer strength of the material (songs you feel you've known for ages - that acid test!) and Darrell's personality alone should ensure this album a top place on any true country fan's wish-list, for it displays everything that's good about classic country music in its most accessible form - and without the need to compromise to artificial commercial or industry demands.

Darrell is briefly touring the UK during the last two weeks of this month.

David Kidman