(2022) Bill Scorzari - The Crosswinds Of Kansas  


Review:
Bill Scorzari has done it again. This writer finds it remarkable that the New York-based singer-songwriter and former trial lawyer could produce works as strong as his 2017 Through These Waves and 2019 Now I’m Free but his Crosswinds of Kansas is every bit their equal and maybe just a tad better. We throw around terms like a “songwriter’s songwriter” and Scorzari fits that to a tee. His thoughtful, cinematically shaped songs continue to resonate after repeated listens. There are not any reference points except perhaps comparing his lived-in, oft gravelly voice to that of the late Dave Van Ronk. But even that is a stretch. Scorzari sometimes narrates his tunes in a whisper and other times in his raw voice that is uniquely his which is the only voice that could carry his unique songs. We’re not expecting any artist to be foolish enough to attempt covering them. To be sure, one needs solitude to appreciate his literate craft, a blend of prose and poetry put to music, a Walt Whitman of sorts for our times. While Scorzari conceived and recorded this work alone (more on that later) he is smart enough not to mess with a successful formula, finishing the songs in Nashville with many from prior efforts including exceptional production from Neilson Hubbard and contributions from among the best roots players in multi-instrumentalists Will Kimbrough and Fats Kaplan, ace fiddler Eamon McLoughlin, and in-demand bassist Michael Rinne, to name a few. This one benefits from new additions – Brent Burke (dobro0, Danny Mitchell (piano and organ) and Juan Solorzano (various guitars), Kyle Tuttle (banjo), among others. This is Scorzari’s fourth album, and he wrote, arranged, and performed all the material, much of it inspired by a three-month tour of his last album cut short by the pandemic, and the sudden decline in the health of his then 94-year-old mother in New York which we learn about in the opening track. With Scorzari, one hangs not just onto every word, but just about every breath (which unbelievably, you can hear.) Strap yourself in. This album runs for 71 minutes, and some are so emotionally devastating that it’s almost too much to take in at once. Allow yourself the time. The music is mostly surprisingly upbeat even when he is singing about pain and darker times. With both new songs and others reworked from his back catalog, he courses through a wide palette of moods, places, and themes.  “All Behind Me Now” is the prototypical Scorzari song, featuring his unique guitar picking, both acoustic and electric, as he sings about a broken relationship. “Multnomah Falls” describes a rainy day hike in Oregon as he sings of trials and struggles to his own caressing mandolin picking and the warm harmonies of Mia Rose Lynne to the chorus “Yeah, the day’s too long, and the night’s all wrong.” The string-imbued “Oceans In Your Eyes” cleverly uses water metaphors to describe his own tricky navigation through an obsession that poses plenty of danger. The story song “Not Should’ve Known” retreats to gentle folk, sprinkling in baritone guitar, mandolin, banjo, and fiddle expertly with lyrics coming to a head with these lines “…No, I’m just waiting for the courage to accept what I can’t change. Still, I can’t help but worry ‘bout how sometimes things turn strange…” He gets rocking, detailing the destruction of a relationship in the since-released single, “The Broken Heart Side of the Road.” As good as those are, the album’s second half is even stronger with the acoustic jam of the story song “A Ghost, My Hat, and My Coat” and one of the most beautiful love songs heard this year in the nostalgic “Patience and Time.” His guitar picking and the gentle cello-imbued backdrop frame these opening images – “If I could build a house for you, each wall would be a window and nothing more…and the roof would all be made of windows too. And, we could look up at the sky and listen to the wind blow, and we could watch the clouds all fly across the moon.” He follows with the uplifting “1,2,3 Jump,” the rhythmic, self-reflective “The Measure of a Man” with Hubbard handling such odd percussion as buffalo, moose, and bear hide shakers which along with even more he employs on the hypnotic “Try, Try, Again,” another song, like the previous “Not Should ‘ve Known,” exploring the dichotomy between finding confidence amidst uncertainty coupled with the strange knack of being able to foresee things before they happen. The 11-minute psychedelic and disorienting opus “Tryin’, Tryin’, Tryin”, Tryin’” is a bit of an outlier as Scorzari uses Navajo lyrics and chants from flute maker Ty Allison and his friends.  Maybe it was one too many, but who are we to diminish the pride that Scorzari takes from learning the Navajo lyrics.  Crosswinds of Kansas is deeper and every bit as good as his last one. This is his major triumph. Somehow, he reached an even higher level. — glidemagazine



   


Track List:
01 - I-70 East
02 - Inside My Heart
03 - All Behind Me Now
04 - Multnomah Falls
05 - Oceans In Your Eyes
06 - Not Should've Known
07 - Broken Heart Side Of The Road
08 - A Ghost, My Hat And My Coat
09 - Patience And Time
10 - 1, 2, 3, Jump
11 - Try, Try Again
12 - The Measure Of A Man
13 - Tryin', Tryin', Tryin', Tryin'


Media Report:
Genre: americana, folk-rock
Country: New York, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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