DAVE PRESTON: Way Out West

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Drawing on themes earlier explored by alt-country legend Tom Russell on 1999’s The Man from God Knows Where as well as the Chieftain’s soundtrack to the 1998 film Long Journey Home, Dave Preston’s latest album, Way Out West, explores the journeys of the Europeans who came to the United States seeking a better life.

The music here is far more country than his previous releases—or, at least, more traditional. The instrumentation is purely acoustic—guitar, banjos, Dobros, mandolins, stand-up bass. But that lineup fits both the lyrics and Preston’s 10 songs.

The first song (“Let Freedom Ring”) sets the tone—the tale of a 17^th century European peasant waiting for his ship to take him to America, his pockets emptied by his king. There are strands of Appalachian and bluegrass woven throughout, with some tremendous mandolin work by Steve Peavey.

But “Long Road Home,” the second song, really begins digging into the hard lives that most of our ancestors lived:

I’ve been searching all my life to find a better way
But every time I get somewhere the devil’s there to pay
Left my home in ’49 the year the gold was found
Lost my claim to a better man who beat me back to town

The three last songs focus on our neck of the woods: “California,” “Golden State,” and “Way Out West.”

The middle of that trio is a stripped-down broken-hearted dirge with just Preston’s voice and guitar, and Peavey on concertina, which adds a mournful backdrop.

Golden Gate I need you to hold me tight
One last kiss before I step into the night
Why did she tell me that she didn’t need me anymore?

The album closes out strongly with “Way Out West,” set in our own times, where the nights are still cold are dreams are still hard to hold on to.

Whatever you are looking for
Whatever you’re trying to find
Whatever you are searching for
You’ll never find it here
Way out West.

In between the opening and the closing are songs about a relation doing time (“Sister Kate”) and a tongue-in-cheek re-telling of the Beverly Hillbillies tale (“Hey Jed”).

In addition to Peavey’s playing the above-mentioned mandolin and concertina, he also contributes banjo and Dobro. Jef Kmak is solid on bass, often handling all the rhythm work, since only a handful of tracks have drums. Ken Gill and Tom Wolverton also sit in on Dobro on some songs, and Darrell Richardson’s harmonica and Candy Girard’s fiddle likewise lend those unique sounds to the mix. Cheryl Jackson Preston’s harmony vocals throughout lend a nice counterweight to Preston’s lead singing.

The album as a whole is a nice, well-balanced take on our nation’s history as seen by the average folks who both lived and created it.