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Net Rhythms—July 2000
www.netrhythms.co.uk
With a name like Darryl Purpose you know you’re going to have to stop and listen. The same with Chuck Prophet, but that’s another review. Great names guys! Traveler’s Code, his second album for Tangible, is superficially a sunny and melodious collection of songs, which had me instantly back to the early ‘70s and James Taylor, Don McLean and Harry Chapin. There are many similarities and if you like them you’ll like Purpose without going any further. However, his songs are strongly narrative, and there’s often a twist in the tail, like Chapin, so that you’re quickly enthralled by his stories. The lovely waltz-time, ‘Ring On My Hand’, a duet with Lucy Kaplansky, is sure to become one of the great standard love songs. You’ll be smitten.
Purpose has only been playing the US circuit for three years. Publicity notes tell us that he was once recognized as the world’s top blackjack player. As a peace marcher, he crossed the US over nine months, then continued to Russia for a historic walk across the Russian heartland, which culminated in the first-ever outdoor stadium rock concert in the former Soviet Union, featuring Bonnie Raitt, Santana, James Taylor, and Purpose’s band, Collective Vision. Maybe the marching is over in the literal sense but the troubadour is out there, playing finger style guitar and communicating his songs, capturing audiences wherever he goes.
There is a pejorative term, ‘singer-songwritery’, to describe much of the emotionally sensitive, angst-ridden, windswept-conscience fare served up in small music clubs around the country. Don’t think you are getting any of that with Purpose. It’s delivered as a highly listenable package, beautifully produced with quality musical accompaniment, but within the words there are honest convictions and humor, and a sense of life’s purpose (of course). The Travelers’ Code (Follow the Light) gives us the answer, but I won’t tell you what it is. Buy the album! —Sue Cavendish |
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