OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'PICOTT, ROD'
'Paper Hearts And Broken Arrows'   

-  Label: 'Welding Rod Records'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '10th June 2022'

Our Rating:
Rod Picott has released consistently high quality albums over the last twenty years. He gives voice to outsiders and writes honestly from his own experience.

Now in his late 50s, The former construction worker has also written two poetry collections. He was born in New Hampshire, raised in Maine and has lived in Nashville, Tennessee for twenty-five years.

Two songs on his latest collection are directly related to where he’s from and where he now calls home. Lost In the South is critical of the class snobbery in Nashville while Washington County, co-written with Mark Ere, is based on short writings about Maine published on social media which revela that the stark choice for citizens of this state is to leave or stay poor.

Three songs of quiet desperation address the lack of a true love in Picott's life. In Lover, he sings “I’m tired of these chains in my head” ;Mona Lisa is described as ”a wail into the void of loneliness” and Valentine’s Day is a simple song about solitude. In contrast (or perhaps in consequence) naked lust rather than romantic love is on his mind in Dirty T-Shirt.

In Mark Of Your Father, Picott sings of how his late father personified a form of masculinity he could not identify with.

Not all the tunes are so personal although a recurring theme is the singer’s sympathies to life’s underdogs. In the outlaw song Frankie LeeSonny Liston is about the black fighter who was widely loathed by those of his own race and exploited by the white boxing establishment. Liston was heavyweight champ from 1962-1964 until he was eclipsed by Cassius Clay. Picott says: “In some ways I feel Liston’s life is a metaphor for our country’s greatest shame - slavery.”

Two songs were co-written with Slaid Cleaves: Through The Dark and Make Your Own Light. Picott’s literary bent comes out in Revenuer , a song inspired by Taylor Brown’s novel ‘Gods of Howl Mountain’ which explores the fine line that exists between right and wrong.

The crisp production by Neilson Hubbard highlights Picott’s typically unpretentious mix of confessional folk and muddy electric blues that deserves to reach a wider audience but probably won't.

Rod Picott’s website
  author: Martin Raybould

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------



PICOTT, ROD - Paper Hearts And Broken Arrows