A mature, accomplished and timeless debut.
A songwriter for artistes such as Levon Helm and Rhiannon Giddens, Laurelyn Dossett makes a long-overdue step towards the spotlight in releasing her debut album, How Many Moons? produced by Hiss Golden Messenger’s MC Taylor.
Dossett assembled a collection of North Carolina and regional players to help her deliver her solo debut. Players include the aforementioned Rhiannon Giddens, who sings and plays banjo on Dossett’s take on her own Anna Lee. There’s also Charly Lowry, artist and activist who lends her vocals to The Vision And The Call; Stephanie Coleman, a Brooklyn fiddler and musical partner of Nora Brown, who’s worked with everyone from Rhiannon Giddens and Aoife O’Donovan to Béla Fleck; DaShawn Hickman, whose pedal steel skills have featured on America’s Got Talent; jazz/folk bassist Jason Sypher, whose list of notables includes Irma Thomas, Kermit Ruffins, and Clarence Gatemouth Brown, among many others; drummer Nick Falk (Molly Tuttle, The Wood Brothers, CAAMP and Hiss Golden Messenger); Riley Baugus (Willie Nelson, Alison Kraus and Robert Plant) and producer Taylor, who pitches in on acoustic/electric guitars and mandolin.
Opening track The Vision and the Call features urgent, riffing Cajun-style fiddle before Dossett’s take on the standard Anna Lee, where vocally she embodies the spirit and vocal timbre of Nanci Griffith, with Giddens underscoring with a richer, deeper vocal line.
The Nanci Griffith vocal and melodic comparisons are further strengthened on War, West Virginia, which inhabits a similar worldview of observation, expanding the individual to the universal. The title track then leaps into view; How Many Moons? is a fast two-stepper with soaring fiddle breaks and has the rhythmic push of a Cajun dancehall, before the contrasting The River’s Lament slows the tempo with its greasy Daniel Lanois-ish swampy story of “a love gone wrong”.
The Mark of Kith and Kin “scars without and scars within” stays in Emmylou Harris Wrecking Ball territory, adding gentle woodwind into the sonic mix. The motif of flowing water is then resumed on the late-night jazz of Run to the River, and the tempo remains in relaxed and reflective mood with the soulful confessional of Believe Me.
The sprightlier The Year of the Perfect Garden adds pastoral metaphor and harmonica to the musical and lyrical palette. It’s then followed by the deep south bluesy wail of Tomorrow I Won’t Remember and the jaunty and catchy You and the Moon with its emotive descending runs. Closing track Glory Glory is more downbeat than its title suggests, with its minor key shifts and reflections on the natural world before the title’s mantra is repeated into the gospel-ish birdsong fade.
Laurelyn Dossett, despite being an experienced player and songwriter, has bided her time in releasing her debut, but it’s definitely been worth the wait. The comparisons with Nanci Griffith are striking, but that’s no bad thing at all. This is mature, accomplished and timeless work.
