Dave Rawlings Machine - Friend Of A Friend

Major cog becomes smooth operator

At least Rawlings has a sense of humour: many (or, indeed, any) who know him will have either read his name in the credits to Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker; or, more prominently, heard him collaborate with Gillian Welch on her quartet of albums. Friend Of A Friend, then, marks Rawlings’ debut as headliner, though he’s not without a little help from his friends. Welch co-writes and appears on over half the album, the duo’s precision bluegrass revivalism charging the recession conversation How’s About You. It’s Too Easy, meanwhile, veers towards the rockier end of Welch’s Time (The Revelator), and Ruby could be a cousin to Dylan’s Hazel, complete with Heartbreaker and Dylan sideman Benmont Tench.

Truth be told, though, Rawlings hasn’t quite got the tunes or fresh insight to the country stylings as Welch or Adams. Nodding to his own collaborative past, the rockabilly strains of Adams’ To Be Young (Is To be Sad, Is To Be High) are well bluegrassed up, but more in the way that clever people do acoustic versions of hip-hop songs, than a revelation of working practices. That Rawlings has the chops isn’t in question, but whether he can find the individual voice of some of his more famous pals remains unanswered.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

Acony | ACNY-0908

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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