...from his "Poor David's Almanack" 2017. Acony Records Poor David's Almanack marks David Rawlings' fourth headline date, and he leaves his Machines out of the studio. That said, his singing and songwriting partner Gillian Welch is here as always on harmony vocals and percussion. She also co-wrote five of these ten songs. It's difficult to discern how the pair divide the creative labor and its accreditation, but it must make sense to them. Produced by Rawlings and engineered by Ken Scott (David Bowie) and Matt Andrews, these tunes are arranged to reflect not only Rawlings considerable gifts as a guitarist, but the fleshed-out sound of a full band that easily balances American folk music and roots rock (the DRM will be playing these songs on the road). Other contributors include fiddler Brittany Haas, Willie Watson, Old Crow Medicine Show, Dawes, and Punch Brothers' bassist Paul Kowert. Opener "Midnight Train" hovers between country gospel and country blues. It's the first instance we hear the gorgeous entwining of Welch's and Watson's voices in harmony supporting Rawlings' slippery drawl. Haas' fiddle and Rawlings' lead guitar share breakdown space in front of Watson's banjo in the hokum blues "Money Is the Meat in the Coconut," a seemingly simple allegory that barely disguises the lusty overtones in its lyrics. "Cumberland Gap" is framed in stark, minor-key folk-rock with a popping bassline, and wound-out electric guitars and drums; it owes a deep debt to Neil Young. The highlight here is "Airplane," a tender yet passionate country-soul tune that employs a string section framing the lovely harmony singing and Haas' solo. It features the most passionate lead vocal Rawlings has ever delivered. "Guitar Man" is another rocker; it could have come right from the Band's fakebook and briefly references "The Weight." At five minutes, "Lindsay Button," sung with the refrain placed after every line, is the set's longest track and it feels like it. "Yup" and "Good God a Woman," come from the same humorous terrain that "Money Is the Meat in the Coconut" does, and like it, they offer something lyrically darker underneath all that sprightly playing and singing. "Put Em Up Solid" is a tender meld of country-gospel and folk. The harmonies frame Rawlings' vocal in a basket of sweetness and light as sweeping fiddle, strummed guitars, and banjo cover the backdrop. It's very difficult to argue with what Rawlings and company have assembled here. Aside from one misstep (that, to be fair, others might find less wearying), it's every bit as good as Nashville Obsolete. AllMusic Review by Thom Jurek [-] Over the past decade, ever since releasing the first album under his own name — 2009’s Friend Of A Friend – David Rawlings has gradually emerged in his partnership with Gillian Welch as the duo’s primary vocal outlet. Though it often seems as though the only discernible difference between albums under Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings is who happens to be singing lead, three of their past four albums have been released under Rawlings’ name. Poor David’s Almanack takes a more full-band approach toward Welch and Rawlings’ neo-traditionalist American roots music. Enlisting longtime collaborators like Willie Watson, Brittany Haas and Ketch Secor, Rawlings runs through a mix of light folk-rock, orchestrated country-soul, traditional country-gospel, and folksy low-country blues. When recording under the Rawlings name, Welch and Rawlings are freer to toy around musically and stray from the note-perfect craftsmanship of the acoustic duo format they tend to stick to when performing as Gillian Welch. Poor David’s Almanack, for instance, features plenty of electric guitar, full string sections, rollicking fiddle and ramshackle three-part harmonies. A large component of Rawlings and Welch’s musical/historical project with their David Rawlings’ releases is their repeated insistence that in traditional music, there’s no such thing as a novelty song. Like on past comical high-dramas like 2009’s “Sweet Tooth” and 2015’s “Candy,” new numbers like “Yup,” “Good God A Woman” and “Money Is The Meat In The Coconut” are humorous, deadpan allegories that often tell deeper stories of lust, greed sex, and violence. What’s so profoundly American about these songs are the way they often deploy humorous metaphor and simple, child-like storytelling devices to convey deeper, darker truths. Other times, the songs are simply funny stories without a larger lesson. In this way, Dave Rawlings records exist as an important counterweight to the inherent gravitas and high stakes seriousness in Gillian Welch albums. An earlier version of this review listed Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith as producers of the album. The album was produced by David Rawlings and engineered by Ken Scott and Matt Andrews. by Jonathan Bernstein/ American Songwriter

David RawlingsPoor David's AlmanackCumberland Gap