Darrell Scott

Multi-Instrumentalist and Singer-Songwriter Darrell Scott mines and cultivates the everyday moment, taking the rote, menial, mundane, and allowing it to be surreal, ever poignant, and candidly honest, lilting, blooming, and resonating. The words he foster sallow us to make sense of the world, what is at stake here, and our place in it. And ultimately, Darrell knows the sole truth of life is that love is all that matters, that we don’t always get it right, but that’s the instinctive and requisite circuitous allure of things, why we forever chase it, and why it is held sacred. Darrell Scott comes from a musical family with a father who had him smitten with guitars by the age of 4, alongside a brother who played Jerry Reed style as well. From there, things only ramped up with literature and poetry endeavors while a student at Tufts University, along with playing his way through life. This would never change. After recently touring with Robert Plant and Zac Brown Band (2 years with each), and producing albums for Malcolm Holcombe and Guy Clark and being named “songwriter of the year” for both ASCAP and NSAI, these days find him roaming his Tennessee wilderness acreage hiking along the small river, creating delicious meals with food raised on his property, and playing music. He often leads songwriting workshops to help people tell their own truths with their stories, and is as busy as always writing, producing, performing, and just plain fully immersing himself in life.

Daniel Young is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, drummer, sound engineer, and producer from Salt Lake City. He grew up on the side of a tall mountain, and that sense of forceful elevation informs all of his work. Daniel's been recording and performing for over two decades—and he's not that old, which tells you much of what you need to know about his commitment to craft, about how deep this runs with him.

Who knows? On his soul-stretching, sometimes anguished fourth album, Leave It Out to Dry, Daniel Young finds his way to this question, over and over again. Through a heady stew of psych cowboy laments, Dead-style sideways rambles, and sagebrush pharmaceuticals, Leave It Out to Dry is Young's rawest, most expansive adventure yet. The medium matches the message: Young is looking at the great beyond; Young's music is becoming the great beyond. And, like the man said, sometimes when you stare into the abyss, it returns your gaze. Or sometimes, Young seems to acknowledge, you sing to it and it sounds back.

 The familiar influences are still there—country and western, early-70 r-&-r, observational songwriting á la John Prine—but they are filtered through something gnarlier, more unsettled. In other words, there's an urgency and a ragged edge to many of the cuts here that feels like a breakthrough. "Here Comes the Flood," for instance, finds Young at the edge of a new territory—sonically, spiritually—reaching outward, still reaching. Or the twin-guitar-lead, heavy-mic-bleed of "Help Us Get Along," a horn-driven plea that charges toward solace.

 Tracked mostly live in the basement of Orchard Studio, Leave It Out to Dry adds another length to the winding track of American song and sound that Young has been building for over half his life.