Guest contributor: Bob Cannon
Imagine Norman Rockwell providing lyrical ideas for Bill Monroe, and you may get an idea of what transpires on bluegrass veteran Daryl Mosley’s Small Town Dreamer. Mosley, a native of rural Waverly, Tenn., offers up 12 original tunes that are richly-told short stories that examine the characters and traditions of small town life in precise, often heartbreaking detail.
On the nostalgic “Transistor Radio,” Mosley chronicles the people and places that spawned his lifelong love of music. “Hillbilly Dust” is a moving portrait of a small-town farmer whose values were shaped by hard work and faith and the fulfillment they brought: “Me and God are partners in this ground / He made me an offer too good to turn Him down.” Likewise, the lilting waltz “You Are the Reason” expresses his love for that one special woman who makes that simple life so rewarding. Similarly, the driving “Bringing Simple Back” rejects an ambitious lifestyle, declaring “I’m gonna get off the going-too-fast lane and find me a place to park.”
It’s not all sweetness and light, however. “The Waverly Train Disaster” recounts the true story of a lethal explosion that ripped apart Mosley’s hometown.
And “I Can’t Go Home Anymore” is a sad reflection on a place and time that’s lost forever, as he laments “Daddy’s gone and Mama too, it’s lived in by somebody new / Strangers locked behind our old screen door.”
Finally, the intimate “Mama’s Bible” is the album’s emotional peak, where Mosley sifts through the Good Book, only to find family artifacts his mother had placed between its pages. Starting with “a faded rose / One she saved from her bridal flowers, I suppose,” Mosley pulls on your heartstrings until you feel they could snap. If you have a beating heart, call your cardiologist after this one.
In short, Small Town Dreamer is a stunning collection, one that’s as emotional as your favorite movie and as real as the calluses on a workingman’s hands.