D. Gross - We Left The Roadside

I’m going to go ahead and say that I think Portland’s extremely fortunate to have one of the Country’s best singer/songwriters living and working here.

Dana Gross’ sophomore album We Left The Roadside is some crazy masterpiece. He’s hit a wonderful balance, blending allegory, parable, virtuoso guitar work, deft lyrics and good old American song structures.

We Left The Roadside shows remarkable growth since his first album, Pirates. The album as a whole is tighter and the songs show more restraint and artful use of structure.

The second track, Matchsticks, is - to me, at least - a microcosm of the whole album. The song is damning of The Establishment. You can pick whatever specific you want to throw in there (Government, Society, Media, Bad Relationships). The message is the same: in order for something to be worth, it has to have a strong foundation. “House made of matchsticks / got to tumble down / like everything you ever done / baby maybe come back around.”

Musically, Matchsticks is a wonder for me. I’ve been watching him play this song for something like 2 years and the most I’ve figured out is that it’s relatively simple in structure: basically C, G and F. But I can’t figure out how he manages to get such an incredibly full sound out of his guitar. It doesn’t necessarily sound like more than one guitar but its incredibly well orchestrated. There’s a head-bobbing bass line and a smart hook and ubiquitous harmonic notes. Plus the foot stomping and vocals. All of the incredible sounds really come into play during the one empty pause after he sings “I had a love / soft as snow.” Sometimes you have to take everything away to realize what you’ve got.

It’s hermetic and masterful.

Hand in Hand is a track that sticks with me much longer than I thought it ever would. It has some of the albums most evocative lyrics, I think, but what I keep going over in my head is that bottom-of-the-register bass line. Duane Edwards plays the upright on the album and the sounds coming out of it sound almost like a tuba.

The mood the music builds up is slow and dark, a bit moody after two up-tempo tracks. That’s in juxtaposition with remarkable lyrics about couple-hood. The words border on poetry as he sings “I’ll bring imagination / you can bring the morning’s dew / Sunshine’ll take us higher / And wind’ll carry us through / We’ll be painted ‘cross the nighttime / reflected in the sand / and step together lightly / as we travel hand in hand.” The connection he builds over the course of the song is nearly fantastical.

Hand in Hand, and the album in general, also showcase Dana’s vocals more than Pirates ever did. It’s a smart decision, he’s got a rich and warm voice that’s pleasantly weathered, I think.

Dana plays with Sam James most every 1st and 3rd Thursday at Blue. Sam’s last album had a track called The Water’s Always Changing But The River... Dana’s new album has a track about a river called Roll On...

They have not confirmed whether it’s the same river.

Dana’s ellipsical river song is a lovely piedmont blues song featuring some top notch washboarding from Jason Ingalls who provides the drums for the rest of the album (except for Hummingbird, which we’ll get to in a minute). Roll On... is a delightful leaving song which seems to embrace the Hobo approach to getting out of predicaments. Predicaments likely caused by the singer. It also sounds like it was recorded on a tin can feeding a vinyl scratcher.

Higher Ground and Steady On The Staircase are in constant competition for my favorite tracks. I just love their moody acoustic drone. And like Matchsticks, they’ve got sharp hooks to pull you in. In the boozy dark of Blue, both set heads bobbing and feet stomping among the audience.

Higher Ground gets into the philosophical as a trip up a mountain becomes the escape from a mental prison. And as the trek keeps going, the mountains keep coming. But the search is, perhaps, more important than the destination as Dana intones “We keep on climbing / though we might not arrive / Me, I won’t take it personal / Just glad to be alive.”

Played on Dana’s father’s mother’s banjo, Hummingbird is the most unexpected track on the album. Banjos can be found all across Americana, sure, but rarely, if ever, are they paired up with the table, played by Amos Libby here. The two sounds gel together in a really interesting way: the tapping of the tabla balances out the brightness of the banjo and provides an almost dance floor rhythm. As I listen to the dropping, repeated bass of the drum I can almost hear it blasting out of the Old Port Tavern on some sticky summer night.

Family Man is Dana’s bittersweet country waltz. It’s as wonderful as it is depressing. The lap steel and the gentle strum of Dana’s guitar practically weep as we hear about a man who, for whatever reason, just hasn’t figured out that love is a two way road. He winds up alone and “emptiness rattles his bones in the night.”

The Family Man is a complicated character, too, as he is keenly interested in finding love he just misses his opportunities. From the chorus: “From the womb / to the tomb / through every phase of the moon / well his eyes saw a world of their own / Now the pious they pray / and the kind hearted play / and each one must go their own way”

But the Narrator does comfort, perhaps, for the downtrodden that the chance was there, our protagonist just missed it. Dana sings “Before we turn back to dust / a door opens somewhere along the way.”

Heartbreak never sounded so good.

Knowing the songs in advance, I though Dana would’ve picked Family Man for the closer. Instead he went with One About Sunshine, which wound up being the far superior choice.

It’s delightful, a beautiful way to end the album and just a lovely little song, really.

There’s some sweet fiddlin’ courtesy of Vince Nez, a pleasant walking piano line, country chords and a pleasant verse.

It starts with what sounds like a child’s piano, the guitar comes in, then the bass and fiddle carry us along. And the song itself is one about music and its transformative powers. Powers that Dana captures. “One About Sunshine” feels like a breezy summer day, to me, with clothes on the line. Or sometimes it feels like a dance.

It’s the sort of sweet sentiment about music that’s particular to Americana.

The last time I heard Dana perform it at Blue, he received the most rapt attention of the night. Sam gave it a very nice introduction and you could hear the sounds of the street behind Dana as he crooned in his near falsetto “Maybe, baby, long down the line / I’ll sing for you while your feet keep the time / so if you can please remember / a song in your heart to light you up like an ember / I’ll fan the flames / dance the refrains / tippety tap til you run through my veins / Oh, won’t you sing me a song / don’t wait too long.”

And the guitar fades out and the piano finishes the track and the album.

We Left The Roadside was recorded and mixed by Todd Hutchisen and Marc Bartholomew at Acadia Recording Company and mastered by Ron Harrity at Forest City Studios. The recording is clean and crisp, the mixing sharp. It allows Dana's superlative talent as a songwriter to shine through.

You can - and should - listen to Family Man, Hummingbird, Beggin' and Matchsticks on Dana's website.

We've also got Sky Blue and Steady on the Staircase streaming on our player on the right side of the page.

And, of course, we've done an episode with Dana where you can catch the beginning strains of Hummingbird (less the tabla) and Matchsticks.

And don't forget to pick up We Left The Roadside this Saturday, September 18, at One Longfellow when Dana hosts a release party with Dan Blakeslee and In Flight Safety.

Posted by Krister