Duncan Walters
Duncan Walters Proudly Announces Guardian
The Follow Up to His Critically Acclaimed Debut Northern Rain
Album Drops on May 2007 with National Distribution
"Occasionally there is an artist who re-establishes and re-enacts
the innocence, integrity and simple joy that sometimes seems so lost [in country music]. Duncan Walters is one of those artists."
- Doug Floyd, Altcountrytab.com
Guardian, the second album by singer/songwriter Duncan Walters, displays the same passion and impressive musicianship that made his 2003 debut, Northern Rain, a critical favorite. Walters combines elements drawn from the worlds of singer/songwriter, folk, country, Cajun and honky tonk for an undeniably modern sound that's built on a bedrock of tradition. Like its predecessor, Guardian was produced by Walters and tracked live in the studio with his regular Austin, Texas sidekicks: B. B. Morse (Willie Nelson, John Arthur Martinez, Merle Haggard) on stand up and electric bass, Phillip Stevens on the Telecaster and Kevin Hall and Ron Irwin on drums. Guest players included five time Grammy winner Flaco Jimenez on accordion, Tommy Spurlock (The Band, George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Flying Burrito Brothers) on pedal steel and Bobby Flores (Ray Price, Willie Nelson, Doug Sahm) on fiddle and mandolin. All the players contributed their talents to the arrangements and the result is a real time, down home album. It's marked by Walters' sharp guitar work, first-rate melodies and his restrained baritone, a voice that recalls the weathered tones of Merle Haggard and Guy Clark.
The songs on Guardian retain the warmth, texture and live feel of Walters' debut, but the new songs dig deeper into the heartache and sorrows of everyday existence, shining a little bit of light into even life's darkest corners. "Guardian of the Sky" is a slow, bluesy meditation on mortality and aging that finds comfort in the love of children and family. Walters delivers an aching, slightly ironic vocal complimented by Spurlock's weeping pedal steel and the understated twang of Stevens' guitar. "Spin," the album's most poignant love song, explores the inconsolable wound of jealousy and the insecurity and self-doubt it breeds. Walters almost whispers the distressing lyric as Stevens showers the background with shimmering fills as delicate as teardrops. "Greyhound" is an old fashion drinking song driven by Stevens' clanging guitar, bouncy Tejano meets Cajun accordion work by Flaco Jimenez and a lyric that details the hazards life in a post 9/11 world. "Crystal White Girl" is a raucous, edgy honky tonk rocker with a snarling vocal and abrasive guitar work that could be about a drug addled female or maybe methamphetamine itself. "Dancing Girl" and "Standing in the Sun" are seductive songs about love and redemption full of cryptic images that spin subtle webs of mystery. "Talk Radio/Fly Away" has a jaunty beat and soaring pedal steel guitar that provide a startling contrast to the song's restrained anger. It's an anti-war song that laments the loss of innocent life and the lies those left behind often tell themselves to get through the day. The songs on Guardian aren't always an easy listen, but their telling insight and innate musicality stir up the kind of profound emotions that can't be faked. Walters may not be for everyone, but those who listen with an open heart will discover an artist of rare compassion with an important, affecting message.
Duncan Walters started life in a small town in Southern Ohio near the Kentucky border, but grew up in the Green Mountains of New England. His parent had moved to Ohio from Georgia, where his mother taught school. He picked up the guitar in grammar school and, by the time he was in high school, was focused on the works of Townes van Zandt, Guy Clark, Ray Wiley Hubbard and other Texas mavericks - years before he made Texas his second home.
Northern Rain was recorded live in the studio, in glorious analogue sound, with only a few overdubs. Most of the tracks went live from the studio board to the mix down CD, with no computer intervention or editing. Walters used the same technique during the production of Guardian. "We used computers as little as possible. Not to be different, it's just what I like."
J.Poet - San Francisco Weekly
