Steve Dawson Eyes Closed, Dreaming

March 23, 2023

Steve Dawson

Eyes Closed, Dreaming

Black Hen Music

Steve Dawson’s status in his home country Canada could decorate the face of a skyscraper. Dawson has played remarkable guitar on, and/or produced, over 200 albums since emerging in the late 1990s, winning a cabinet full of trophies including seven Juno Awards for his efforts. Now in Nashville, he works with the who’s-who of Music City’s roots artists, but inexplicably still strives for the recognition in America that he well deserves. Eyes Closed, Dreaming, Dawson’s 14^th album and remarkably his third released in the last twelve months, should open plenty of eyes and ears to his talents, and his wonderful way with a song.

In a program awash in variety and style, Dawson moves from deft fingerstyle picking to whipcrack notes to smoky, moaning slide like Blind Willie Johnson or one of the Allman Brothers specialists. He sings eight of these eleven songs (five his own) in an unaffected, but very affecting tenor. The performances offer a picturesque feel by their handmade textures and downhome emotion. Dawson uses Ian Tyson’s “Long Time to Get Old” to great effect to open the album. The song features the beautiful, soulful voice of Allison Russel of Birds of Chicago fame in counterpoint to Dawson’s. It conjures image after image of thankfulness at the most basic level—for being alive and enjoying the journey. Fats Kaplan’s mandolin, chiming alongside Dawson’s slinky slide, adds to the brilliance. Contrast that with “A Gift,” on which the players lay out dreamy atmospherics around Dawson’s sturdily picked notes. It comes off as fantasy, full of imagery of a knife offered as a gift to a young lady. Unique indeed.

The traditional “House Carpenter” features music as if from deep in the Gaelic woods, Tim O’Brien’s dazzling mandolin and Jay Bellerose’s drumming like beckoning steppingstones through the tangled vines of Dawson’s notes. Bobby Charles’ immortal “Small Town Talk” then comes off like a stroll on a sunny day, the message about gossip and judgement conveyed hopefully, dressed in wonderful, New Orleans-inflected rock and roll.

“Waikiki Stonewall Rag” marries Dawson’s love of Hawaiian guitar stylings to that of the hillbilly East Coast, whereas in “Polaroid,” imagination and contemplation bordering on infatuation all emanate through the music and the words. All of it places Dawson in a category reserved for the best. Eyes Closed, Dreaming mesmerizes and entertains with ease and purpose.

Tom Clarke for MAS

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