Consistently interesting, sometimes dark but always uplifting.
Bill Scorzari is a New York singer, songwriter and mutli instrumentalist, and ‘The Cross Winds Of Kansas’ is his fourth independently released album. Scorzari became a full-time musician via an unusual route. Giving up being an attorney in 2012 following his father’s death and already playing in clubs and bars in the evenings, he decided that life was too short and unpredictable not to follow a much different road. Half sung and often spoken his style is reminiscent of Tom Waits; however his raspy voice does have far more range – more John Mellencamp particularly on ‘1 2 3 Jump.’
The songs are all quite long and varied in topic covering life, love, including the loss of it and generally being on the road. All tend to be very cinematic and, in many cases, thought provoking – ‘The road wide open, heart wide open mind wide open’. Scorzari is ready to meet the world head on and very comfortable with himself: ‘I jumped into a taxicab ‘hey man I’m going nowhere and I’ve got no time to get there. Am cool with the situation’
Scorzari wrote the opening track ‘1-70East’ fighting exceptional winds driving through Kansas following the sudden decline of his mother’s health. “Then, came the crosswinds of Kansas unleashed, and it pushed me hard, north and south, all down I-70 east… As I tore home to my mother, before her health, it would fail, at 94, I felt another love leaving me lost, like a nail in a cross.” He knew he had the opening song to a new album. The album was born out of three months on the road covering the majority of America which had become a journey of self discovery..
The simple use of imagery and clever phraseology make it a very poignant record at times, with lines such as ‘its the Joyful memories that give you the most pain’ being thought-provoking.
Overall it’s an extremely confident album played beautifully especially the prominent violin by someone who has plenty of interesting and reflective observations on life. However he is still to be more widely appreciated. Perhaps ‘The Cross Winds Of Kansas’ will blow far more attention his way. He richly deserves it.
