Dave Rawlings Machine - Friend of a Friend

On a rec from an old hometown pal I got the debut Dave Rawlings Machine album Friend of a Friend. Here's a recommendation for you: go get it for yourself, loved ones, and strangers. I can’t stop listening to it to save my life. Full to overflowing with generosity of spirit Friend of a Friend conjures up a world with laughter in the air, possibility around every corner, and a sense that good times are present when good friends are near. Even strangers, like the telegraph man in one of the album’s best tracks, “Ruby”, bring help. Wisely placed in the center of the album is Rawlings’ and long-time musical partner Gillian Welch’s miraculous duet cover of Conor Oberst’s “Method Acting” into Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer.” An absolutely entrancing song, “Method>Cortez” is the one dark room in this house. The abiding joy found elsewhere on the album, while deeply present on the song, is tempered here by a desperate yearning for understanding which seems out of reach. When Rawlings’ sings

I don’t know what tomorrow brings,
It’s alive with such possibility,
But I know that I feel better when I sing,
Burdens are lifted from me,
That’s my voice rising

it’s the pain behind “feeling better” and the weight of those burdens that we register. But that burden can be lifted and the world still sings with possibility.

Rawlings and friends have so many musical textures and colors at hand, and they cover, without any loss in creativity, a large amount of stylistic territory. We are treated to country porch hi jinx with "It's Too Easy" and “To Be Young (Is to be Sad, Is to be High)"; some Michael Hurley silliness "Sweet Tooth"; a dust bowl folk blues "How's About You?" which hits the right notes during our depressing economic moment; a trad folk "Monkey and the Engineer"; and, another highlight, a gorgeous piece of Dylanesque folk-pop “Bells of Harlem.” Really, strangers will thank you.

Dave Rawlings Machine - Method Acting>Cortez the Killer
DRM - To Be Young (is to be Sad, is to be High) [buy]

Coupla videos of Rawlings, Welch, and some members of Old Crow Medicine Show at Grimey's in Nashville performing songs off Friend of a Friend: