Dana Robinson -- Reviews

Dirty Linen
The Trade is Dana Robinson's third album, and it captures both the spirit of rural America as well as the joys of the open road in one finely crafted recording. With a voice that at times sounds remarkably like Cat Stevens, Robinson is also a skilled multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. The recording opens with the infectious, banjo driven "Pat Do This", which sets the mood of the album. "Troy" tells of a young man's lofty ambitions, supported by Dar Williams' backing vocals. Tales of the road abound, all of them, like "Chautauqua Day", and "Anderson Grade", speaking of the "journey" being a joyful and spirit-enlivening thing. "Ballad Tree" is yet another tale of a songwriter's journeyman-like existence, which Robinson so dearly loves. The traditional "Lazy John" ia a piece of pure country twang, supported by former Bill Monroe fiddler Robert Bowlin, Johnny Hiland's electric guitar, and Lui Collins' high, lonesome harmony vocals. The unashamedly positive "Rainbow Sign" finds Robinson at his Cat Stevens-sounding best, while "Somebody Loves You" is a rare tale of exchanging habitual blues for a satistfying life. Robinson treats us to some tasty bottleneck slide on the Nebraska landscape-inspired instrumental "Crossing The Platte" before returning to his ever-present wanderlust in the form of bumming on the American railroads in "Counting Freights". The album closes with a traditional bluegrass rave-up on "Little Sadie", a close cousin to "Shady Grove". Many songwriters, such as Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp, have been heralded as modern-day Woody Guthries or keepers of the American rural spirit, but that mantle might be better entrusted to musicians like Dana Robinson who embody both the heart and the soul of folk music.

The Valley Advocate, Northampton, MA
With a voice that's simultaneously raspy and smooth, a passel of fine songs, guitar prowess to spare, and a well-crafted album that integrates talent such as Lui Collins and Salamander Crossing mainstay Rani Arbo, Midnight Salvage is a sheer delight. Typical of his thoughtfulness is his opening three-song mini set of close encounters of the female kind, the sweet 'Sadie', the time-to-part 'Goodbye MaryJane,' and the tragic traditional 'Shady Grove.' Songs like 'Redpoll' and 'Sweet Dream' sound as if they escaped a lost recording of Cat Stevens, of whom Robinson's voice is reminiscent. But his guitar playing is more Robert Johnson, with the title cut paying subtle homage to his masterful 'Crossroads.'

Music Upstream, Hartford, CT
Dana Robinson's songs call us to this world in an uncanny way, by drawing us into stories of those redeemed, tormented, granted epiphanies, or given simple ease by their being in the world. With a gentle easiness that comes from her particular being, the title character of Midnight Salvage's first song says, "There ain't no use to hurry, pull up yourself a chair, now tell me dear, what's brought you by this way?" In Midnight Salvage's world this easiness is with the whole of existence from the apparent cruelty in the predator/prey relationship, to the beauty of a love almost too good to be true.

One of the central songs in this cohesive collection, "Stalk Your Calling," is a hauntingly wild thing inspired by Annie Dillard's essay "Living like Weasels." It opens with a vividly drawn image of an eagle swooping down to catch a momentarily off-guard weasel. The weasel is in the eagle's talons, but the weasel's teeth are in the eagle's neck. Then, these enigmatic words as the weasel falls:

The eagle's flying east and
the weasel's falling north, when we...
Stalk our calling, we can stalk our calling
We can stalk our calling
And the weasel's falling north.

Robinson favors "old-time" instrumentation, playing guitar, mandolin, and banjo himself. Rani Arbo of Salamander Crossing adds fiddling and vocals on several tracks, and Lui Collins adds vocals to some. Robinson's voice is an airy tenor that sounds a bit like Cat Stevens, but without the overblown quality that makes Stevens tiresome for sustained listening. Robinson only pushes as much air as he needs to. His string playing lets you know these instruments are made of wood, and his hands of flesh and bone.

It's no accident that the only song here not written by Robinson is the traditional Appalachian ballad "Shady Grove," an expression of a sort of "total immersion" in love/lust that leaves the mental contrivance separating love from lust in very deep shade indeed. Like "Shady Grove," Robinson's own music is elemental, immersed, and immanent--in and of this world with a vengeance, but filled with brilliant epiphanies that throw narrow shafts of light into the corners of worlds barely imagined. Midnight Salvage is exquisite music--physical and spiritual, contemporary and ancient, up to it's eyeballs in mud and transcendent. Musicians like Dana Robinson don't grow on trees (even though he might like the metaphor)--enthusiastically recommended.

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