| Traveler - Tim O'Brien | |
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Reviewed by Kathy Coleman
Bluegrass fans know they can count on superb music from Tim O'Brien. With his newest album, Traveler, O'Brien not only will delight his current fans, he's bound to make new ones as he continues to stretch the borders of simple bluegrass music to take on sounds which are at
once new and different yet soothingly familiar, taking on tradition and turning it to his own sound, as he has done since his time with the band Hot Rize.
Starting out with the upbeat, Cajun flavored "Kelly Joe's Shoes," the stage is set for the mood of the disc. It is very much a theme album, and O'Brien is taking the listener with him on a tour of all the places he's been. The Cajun accordion weaves nicely with the simple, light beat of the tune, about a pair of Converse sneakers that "didn't fit him but they fit me fine." With clever lyrics, the song hooks instantly. "Said take these shoes and be on your way/ It looks like you've got travelin' to do/ Come back and see me some other day/ Tell me all about where they took you to. ... I walked off the tread on the concrete pavement of London, and Dublin, and New York town/ I shook out the sand from the ocean beaches/ I left it on the floor of an airport
lounge."
"I've Endured" has the more classic "bluegrass" sound, with gentle mandolin strains, guitar, fiddle, and banjo; O'Brien's voice lifts a little higher; but the fresh new feeling, like the singer of the song, endures. The singer begins his journey where all journeys must begin, at home. "Turn
The Page Again" brings the beat back up, and O'Brien's mandolin takes off with a patter like a spring rain. The traveling begins with a farewell to home and love. O'Brien sings with the joyous abandon of someone who simply loves the music he's making. "Kiss you just one more time and hope it's not my last/ The past will be a stranger, the future is my new friend/ So let it change, turn the page again."
The simple beauty of O'Brien's songs, many self-written, are enhanced by his choices of musicians, often scorning the more obvious "bluegrass" tones to go for a more solemn sound, as with "Let Love Take You Back Again," where he's joined on vocals by Darrell Scott. Flavored
lightly with piano and lap steel, this song brings bluegrass and country back together as tightly as they should be. This is so again, with the traditional Appalachian sound of "Restless Spirit Wandering," a haunting song beautifully enhanced by Jerry Douglas's resophonic guitar. This
song is a ghost story, the "restless spirit" of the title, a Rebel soldier killed in the war. "I want to try to be a friend to souls that cannot rest/ I would not blame their anger, don't claim to know what's best/ But souls are all connected like the branches on a tree/ And things they see beyond
the grave might help out you and me." O'Brien's simple, elegant poetry is a tight tapestry against which the music plays.
We're taken to physical locations in song, but also areas in the heart and the mind, the contemplative thoughts of a poet, drifting through songs such as "Another Day," a remembrance of how life goes on, enriched by each life that passes on before; and "On The Outside Looking In," speaking of the hurt and anger of being shut out of others' lives. "Forty-Nine Keep On Talkin'" speaks of the road and all roads that lay before or have passed behind; "Family History" of regret; "Fell Into Her Deep Blue Eyes" of love. Emotions run deep on this disc, no
matter what is being discussed openly or with a lyrical twist; "Travelers" says it openly, how life is not only the journey the body can take, but the one the spirit takes.
O'Brien closes with an optimistically upbeat tune, "Less and Less," about how the simple life really is a pretty good one, all told.
The musicians on "Traveler" are top notch, including appearances by Jerry Douglas, Kenny Malone, Casey Driessen, and Bela Fleck; the songs are crisp, eloquent, and moving. Tim O'Brien scores high with this effort, and it's well worth a listen or two, especially if you're taking
a drive.
Song List:
Album cover, used with permission of Sugar Hill Records
Sound clips courtesy of Barnes & Noble.