Jonathan Wilson
DIXIE BLUR
BELLA UNION
After 15 years in Laurel Canyon, at the end of a tour as Roger Waters’ musical director, Jonathan Wilson took the advice of Steve Earle and relocated to Nashville for the Dixie Blur sessions. Recording at Cowboy Jack Clement’s famed Sound Emporium with a group of virtuoso musicians assembled by co-producer Pat Sansone of Wilco, Wilson’s fourth album benefits from the fact that the erstwhile polymath is not trying to do everything himself. The group dynamic elevates a set of spacious bluegrass-flecked compositions that evidence a master craftsman. Wilson recently told Long Live Vinyl of the furiously productive sessions, “It was all so fast that suddenly I was trying to scramble for songs”. That being so, nothing appears rushed here. Wilson’s hushed Southern heritage is swept up in the aching majesty of Mark O’Connor’s fiddle playing. 69 Corvette finds him pining for the South of his childhood: “I still think of Carolina sometimes. I miss the family. I miss that feeling. I miss home.” Russ Pahl’s yearning pedal steel guitar is used with admirable restraint on the airy New Home and it’s a decorative delight on the lovely, Beatles-y Oh Girl. Revisited old song Korean Tea is perhaps finest of all, a delicately woven tapestry of Spanish guitar, piano and Wilson’s lonely vocal. He’s said he’s already looking forward to “diving back into my deeper personal solo style”, but Dixie Blur should remind him that magic occurs when you share with your friends.