By Derek Lynch
Making up half of the Minnesota/Wisconsin native duo the Wooldridge Brothers, Scott Wooldridge’s first solo album will be released May 3rd. The self-titled release is a hark to more raw, more vulnerable times in pop music, sitting in that timeless American Venn diagram center of folk, country, and rock and roll.
The album kicks off firing on all cylinders with If You Don’t Keep Running, You Fall Behind. Scott introduces the listener to his personification of Minnesota’s favorite season in Winter’s Walk, a piece beautifully supplemented by Jonathan Rundman on harmonium and Sara Pajunen on violin. In what may be tongue in cheek or just plain old bare-bones preferences, Scott recorded the Millenial on a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. Yeah, the same one you had. Is he poking fun at us kids? Maybe. Is he showing this generation of $100k recordings that music can be made anywhere, under any conditions? Absolutely.
The remaining songs of the album tie together nicely with some more standouts-particularly Give It To the River, which has the grit of the deep south, just a hint of the delta-blues dark gospel preached by Muddy Waters and Mississippi John Hurt. Scott’s influences are thinly veiled throughout the album-catch, if you can, the nod to Dylan on the track Highway 31 Revisted. In fact, Scott’s entire album feels like a period in time revisited. Note to self and reader: Put Scott Wooldridge on a playlist between CCR and Tom Petty for summer weekends.
http://www.scottwooldridge.com
http://riftmagazine.com/event/scott-wooldridge-cd-release-show/
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