The voices we hear in song make us laugh, cry, nod in agreement and, most importantly, think. The words are from the songwriter, beyond that the lineage gets hazy. Where do the stories and the experiences come from, whose life bared its soul, shared its secrets and outted those who walked through. The songwriter safe space may be having the benefit of letting out the ghosts or hinting that the skeletons rattling belong in other closets. Easier for some writers than others, listening to Rod Picott, you get the feeling that his blood and history course through his songs.
Rod has the ability to not only get into the being of his characters but he is involved. You can hear the depth as his voice bends around a hurt and can almost feel the smile for triumphs. On ‘Welding Burns’, he builds his characters lives with the hands of a craftsman, one who knows where the bricks go and how the structure looks when completed. The teenager wearing the “Black T-Shirt” to match the eye, whose real time is in the parking lot listening to The Doobie Brothers, not hitchhiking to work. The right age for decisions, weighing the words of Mama against the seductive plans and bullet loaded muscle of a dealer off the interstate. The youngster waiting for Dad to come home from welding work at the navy yard in the title track, who learns at an early age that “some days you need something to knock the edges off”. The Firebird driver, a laid off tire plant worker, who gets a new plan when he reaches the end of the line at the unemployment office, starting his own business based around the “410” in the backseat.
Over the simple honesty of acoustic Americana , Rod Picott constructs a song with the same stark faces
that stare back from a Dorothea Lange depression era B&W photograph. Over soft/hard guitar strums, you clearly see better times shine and watch the clouds roll into a town planted in the “Rust Belt Fields” and can almost see the green glow from a “Jealous Heart”. He sees a memory and gives some advice (“A Father’s Tattoo”), looks back at the potential of school and the reality of blue collar work, drinking money with friends (“Sheetrock Hanger”) and watches as love fades in a rear view that nonetheless still offers an image that is larger than it looks (“Little Scar”).
Rod Picott has released five solo albums, one with Amanda Shires, as well as having his songs recorded by Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves and Fred Eaglesmith. The x’s on his calendar for gigs played total over one hundred and twenty dates a year and most of his roads are traveled behind the wheel of his Jeep Cherokee. Rod delivers vocals with a bit of ragged soul in the notes and a clear eye for the way people move through the world, whether running from the past, standing on the shaky ground of the present or walking with hope towards the future.
Rod Picott will be touring the west and east United States through mid-September before setting off to Europe for shows that run throughout September to the end of October. For specific dates, and more information, look to Rod's website. Danny McCloskey
