Artist: Jon Pousette-Dart
Album: Talk
Label: BDF
Release Date: 07/24/15
One of the nearly forgotten heroes of the northeastern folk rock scene, once so prevalent in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Jon Pousette-Dart mined the same musical environs as America, Poco, Crosby Stills & Nash, Orleans and other college campus favorites of that once gilded era. The fact that his namesake ensemble, the Pousette-Dart Band, failed to find the same measure of success as their aforementioned contemporaries had less to do with any initiative on the band’s part, and more to do with the increased competition for the audience’s attention. Nevertheless, the group left behind a series of stunning albums they recorded for Capitol Records, many of which remain hidden classics to this day.
Pousette-Dart himself continues to persevere under his own aegis, thanks to a succession of solo outings that still stay true to that original soft rock pastiche. Talk, his latest, is no exception: a collection of unhurried, unassuming songs that effortlessly adhere to that easy, breezy motif. There are many a number of outstanding offerings: the quiet yet captivating “Marisol,” the rousing country-tinged toe-tapper “Come On Come On Come On,” the sweetly entreating “Can We Just Talk” and the calming reflective ballad “The Story of My Life” chief among them. Indeed, having enlisted an all-star gathering of top notch Nashville sidemen (including Reggie Young, Glenn Worf, David Hungate, Clayton Ivey, Kenny Malone and Dan Dugmore), Pousette-Dart mines a wealth of top-notch material, two early Pousette-Dart Band standards, “Amnesia” and “County Line,” included.
Suffice to say, the connection between past and present has never sounded so seamless.
Although Talk is an unassuming effort compared to a lot of the music that passes for pop these days, its honesty and enthusiasm breathes new vitality into a sound, seemingly abandoned by the musical mainstream. In a very real sense, this Talk speaks volumes.
– Lee Zimmerman
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