No Depression

I’m not often drawn to wholly instrumental popular music albums, but this one—Steve Dawson’s eighth CD—pulled me in quickly. Fusing elements of classical, jazz, country, and folk, he plays slide and fingerstyle guitar and ukulele on the all-originals collection, which finds him performing in duos, trios, and quartets that incorporate violin, viola, cello, trombone, French horn, clarinet, mandolin, and harmonica (the latter from the one and only Charlie McCoy). Dawson’s influences reportedly range from Doc Watson and Chet Atkins to Ry Cooder and Van Dyke Parks, and the list of progenitors makes sense, given the richly textured songs on Lucky Hand, all of which are loaded with surprising twists and turns, and consistently engaging.