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On A Crooked Line, Purpose joins up with the Carter/Grammer team on four of the tracks and with another talented folk performer, Ellis Paul, for another three. In addition, he has enlisted the help of a talented pedal steel and dobro player, Dan Tyack. Help on drums and bass comes from Todd Gray and Keith Lowe, and then Doug Wintch and Evan Brubaker provide some guitar and farfisa work. This time out, Purpose is showing more interest in string work, which he gets from Tracy Grammer and several others. The work with Carter/Grammer and Ellis Paul is particularly effective, with Dave Carter encouraging a tighter, more rolling style of lyrical content and Ellis Paul encouraging some darker edges and a more rolling style of melody. Of course, collaborations can only lead to suppositions, but based on Purpose’s earlier work, these seem to be fair. In any case, the collaborations work and the talents of all concerned mesh well.
A Crooked Line is actually quite a straight-forward affair of good music. With an emphasis on acoustic instrumentation and solid songwriting, it makes itself a classic example of what good folk music really is. It has about as much chance of finding itself at the top of the Billboard charts as a Dodge Neon has of winning the Indy 500, but if that fazes Darryl Purpose and the other players on this disc, they certainly don’t indicate it. So Darryl Purpose will now set out to promote this latest effort (his fourth), driving a crooked line from one venue to the next, and wherever two or more are gathered.… And that, friends, is what folk music really is. —Marty Fullington
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