Wednesday

Excellent Qualities Of The New Delphinium CD

By Jerry Collins


People who came late into the current music world have created the most memorable works, and many of them have moved on to become well known. All sorts of people, young and old, are creating the most pleasing sounds, age being ethereal in a world ruled by YouTube and online sites. Many were waylaid and came back to music, while others have come into the picture quite late.

One person who has wide experience of the world is the artist Dean Maser. His road was longer than others had, but he made his way back into making music after attending a hootenanny open mic session, which led to the making of Delphinium CD. Lucky are those who have accessed the album.

In the spirit of James Taylor and the Depression era song Wandering, Maser has become something of a modern definer of wandering blues minstrelsy. He has followed the footsteps of masters like Bob Dylan, creator of a now accepted standard for wisdom in both music and literature. Plus, he creates a visually oriented kind of music a la Grant Wood with this album.

Delphinium is a way into seeing a legend filled world which partakes of spiritualism in the American West and the wide open skies of the Midwestern plains. The title is derived from the flower of the same name, which horticulturists know to bloom late, around June or July. This summer flower is broadly distributed, from the meadows to the uplands of pine.

His musical roots was church music like Kumbayah from which he has recovered after years of struggle. His music with guitars and ukeleles is all the better for having exchanged the song with real spiritualism he found during the wandering and undecided years. In high school, he tried shooting the works with a band, recording a 3 part work that he says no one has ever heard or will every hear.

The musician is also a blogger, and his blog is entitled The Good Ancestor, which is a rumination about roots ethereal or real. It is about the history of his music. The artist in him has finally taken everything in stride and this shows clearly in this first full length album he has made.

Maser also plays with a blues band, experienced musicians like himself and they have eclectically influenced new album coming. They call themselves SoulShine, and the album wander the discography of the idiom, from BB King to ZZ Top, from Cash to Dylan, Hendrix and Clapton. Blues fanatics should watch out for the work of this trio.

He recorded the album in studios in Boston and Minneapolis, with players coming from the Dakotas and Africa. His stand is all about making his influences come at as native to the album. Despite the eclecticism, all things that stand for the Blues are there, as defined by the first ditty ever dedicated to its source Old Man River.

Song titles include Heart Be True, Heroes, One Time and Strong Love. Others include the title track, Fall Apart and A Little Older, and you cannot help but notice their strong echoes of tradition. The Blues are all about tradition, about the travails of Biblical Christians and their replication in the American tradition, about love, life and death felt so deeply it opens up a spring of tears.




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