Rod Picott - Fortune

Welding Road Records 



Twenty-first century troubadour Rod Picott is acoustic Americana music personified—a true grit, grass roots talent. This latest album—his seventh—is an unapologetically bare bones, brutally honest and brave recording, at times raw with anger. Whether he’s drawing on personal experience or knitting vivid imagery into starkly real tales, Rod unequivocally affirms just what a master he is at turning a melody, and some words into songs filled with so much emotional intensity, they almost burn. At his most intimate, soul-baring best, these are sorrowful song-stories of loss, isolation, desire, rejection, resignation, despair, ageing and anxiety.

Rather than dress these up in fancy studio arrangements, he has assembled a small band comprising Will Kimbrough (electric guitars), Lex Price (acoustic bass), producer Neilson Hubbard (drums) with his own acoustic nylon string guitar well to the fore on each track. It’s all recorded live in the studio, so what you hear on the CD is very much what you’d hear at a Rod Picott gig—real, raw, honest music that cuts to the bone. Covering topics such as war, relationships, love, the grinding toil of work, as well as the everyday nuances of life, Rod has a wisdom and insight far beyond the majority of singer-songwriters plying their trade across the clubs, barrooms and concert halls of the world.

He lays it all on the line with Maybe That’s What It Takes. Opening with a lonesome harmonica and Rod’s naked voice, this deceptively gentle song of unrequited love piques the listener with moments of desolation and an irresistible unhinged quality. He reminds us of his previous life as a blue-collar worker with the catchy Elbow Grease; with jangling guitar he illustrates a series of small, vulnerable life moments. Then you’ll find him shifting gears to the aching slide-guitar of Until I’m Satisfied and the redemptive country-ish I Was Not Worth Your Love. With the story of Jeremiah he showcases his rare ability to conjure entire vistas and characters in no more than a couple of lines as he lays out the tragic tale of a soldier who doesn’t return from Iraq and how it affects those left behind at home. From lyrics chronicling the confusion of lost love in Alicia to commentary on the darkly violent tendencies seen in human nature as presented in This World Is A Dangerous Place this album laments hardship, poverty, death, loss… those moments in life when the darkness seems most impenetrable.

The dozen songs on FORTUNE add up to an album that reflects Rod’s philosophy of finding hope when weary and that most things that happen in life are more often than not down to chance. Literally brimming with intriguing stories, it is exquisitely, poetically lyrical. Out of the pain and sadness, Rod Picott has fashioned the finest album of his career.

www.rodpicott.com