Artist: Rod Picott
Album: Wood, Steel, Dust, & Dreams
Label: Welding Rod Records
Release Date: 6.26.21
I only knew of Rod Picott because he wrote and worked with Slaid Cleaves, but that was enough to pique my interest. Wood, Steel, Dust, & Dreams is a collection of songs written by the lifelong friends over several years. While they come from very different backgrounds, their friendship in both life and music makes for a perfect collaboration.
When I dropped the proverbial needle on the first track (“Warden’s Hotel”) of this two-disc set of 26 songs, I was transported into another world. For a brief moment, I felt the pull of Steve Earle but with a rougher voice. It felt like home. I was reading a book of short stories; that’s what Rod and Slaid do—they write stories of the everyday lives of everyday people. We hear about young people whose hearts have been broken or “look for gold in all the wrong places.”
Songs of proud people who live hard lives and play hard to balance reality keep swinging their wrecking balls and hold onto their rusty dreams where “a little broken china coffee cup could hold the rest of what you still won’t give up.” The songs represent lives in blue collar towns everywhere as seen through the eyes of two friends, one who hung drywall for 18 years. As Rod explains it, “It might be folk art but I’m not pulling any punches.” It’s a work of love that helped him get “to the other side of 2020 – the scourge of years.” And that it does. If you are lucky enough to find copy of this limited edition work of art, you’ll see that it could help us all break those barriers that 2020 put up and show us how to love and respect the everyday lives of everyday people.
—Gene Knapp
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