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CDNOW—December 2001
Darryl Purpose might be a folk music progressive, or a roots-rocking singer-songwriter, or a traditional acoustic troubadour—or all of the above. His 2001 album A Crooked Line, a splendid sampler of his diverse, engaging songcraft, may prove the final option to be the most apt.
Warm acoustic tones surround Purpose’s gently emphatic melody “Bryant St.,” which features Ellis Paul on guitar and string player Darryl S. on cello, while “Late For Dinner” conjures up a haunting Western scenario, abetted by Dan Tyack’s distant pedal-steel cry, Dave Carter’s stalking banjo, and Tracy Grammer’s ghostly harmony vocals. Carter composition “The River, Where She Sleeps” is the album’s sole cover, a rhapsodic, delightfully wordy tune accented by harmonica, violas, vibes, and Paul’s guitar. (Purpose and Paul also co-wrote the mountain-ous “I Lost A Day To The Rain.”)
Yet Purpose is at his best on his serene melody “California (Rutherford Hayes In The Morning),” which tunefully outlines Hayes’ Reconstruction-era term, with his footnote as the first President to visit the Golden State—to the accompaniment of acoustic guitar, cello, pedal steel, violin, and Grammer’s vocals. Similarly, the humming, up-tempo “Koreatown” is a running monologue that offers a kaleidoscopic, Purpose-ful depiction of his Los Angeles home, with lines like “They’re building a subway here/And the city’s sinking.”
Purpose closes out the album with the inspiring “I Can Get There From Here,” which finds him backed by a string quartet, in a clever arrangement by Danny Seidenberg which ranges from neoclassical to Afro-Cuban.
So even though one learns that it’s best to stick to the straight and narrow, Darryl Purpose shows the kind of happy discoveries that are possible while following A Crooked Line. —Drew Wheeler,CDNOW Senior Editor, Folk
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