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Whatzup—Ft. Wayne, IN—September 20, 2001
A gander at the gruff and scruffy visage of Darryl Purpose leaves the impression that this is a man more apt to be huffing lumber on a construction site rather than coaxing finger-picked arpeggios out of an acoustic guitar. When Purpose pipes up, his smooth croon calls to mind the easy going folk style of either James Taylor or David Wilcox, depending on one’s preferred vintage.
A former professional blackjack player, Purpose has learned a bit about the shifting fortunes of folks on the outside edges of conventional society. His latest album, A Crooked Line, reads like a travelogue along those edges. With the aid of co-writers Ellis Paul, Robert Morgan Fisher and Paul Zollo, Purpose turns out narratives inhabited by a colorful cast of wandering dreamers (“There Oughta Be A Highway”), disenfranchised second-generation immigrants (“A Crooked Line”) and shell-shocked battered lovers (“Late For Dinner”).
Purpose displays a knack for subtle twists that add depth to ordinary imagery. On the surface, “California (Rutherford Hayes in the Morning)” reads like an historic narrative of Reconstruction-era wonders: the first telephone, The Panama Canal, the first presidential visit to what was still the farthest reaches of U.S. territory. But a few simple lines about First Lady Lucy Hayes with her “children rolling Easter eggs,” and “her lemonade as golden as the sunset on the White House lawn” signal the end of a bucolic age and the dawning of the industrial times to come. What’s more, the simple line “come to California” tagged on to this historic “discovery” conjures up a century’s worth of hopes, dreams and disappointments associated with that mythical land.
The heart-wrenching “Bryant Street” (written with Ellis Paul and featuring the Turtle Island String Quartet) is alone worth the price of admission here. Purpose is a savvy storyteller who never slips too far toward the sentimental or the cynical. —David Todoran |
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