2/18/2017

Delphinium CD And Its Amazing Blues Power

By Jerry Collins


People who came late into the current music world have created the most memorable works, and many of them have moved on to become well known. All sorts of people, young and old, are creating the most pleasing sounds, age being ethereal in a world ruled by YouTube and online sites. Many were waylaid and came back to music, while others have come into the picture quite late.

A musician who took the longer road and found himself entering the world of recorded music is Dean Maser. He made the rediscovery one night during the open mic of a hootenanny and went on to record Delphinium CD. Those lucky enough to know him listen are in for a treat.

In the spirit of James Taylor and the Depression era song Wandering, Maser has become something of a modern definer of wandering blues minstrelsy. He has followed the footsteps of masters like Bob Dylan, creator of a now accepted standard for wisdom in both music and literature. Plus, he creates a visually oriented kind of music a la Grant Wood with this album.

Delphinium defines his path into a world that has become legendary in America, defined by spiritualism and the great green plains and the distant mountains of the West. This title comes from the Delphinium flower, which grows in the months of June and July, a late blooming flower. Its range, though, is vast, from the mountain valleys down to grassland meadows.

He started out with church music, ukeleles and guitar and the song Kumbayah is deeply imprinted like a bad and unwanted tattoo on his soul. Perhaps it took those years away from music to make him shake of the early influence and come to see a real spirituality in nature and the world. He goes on to say that he really went for the prize in high school and ended up making a 3 record EP that not one person heard.

The artist blogs, too, and it is titled The Good Ancestor, a deep trawling of his musical roots and influences, imagined or otherwise. This is personal music history musicians should know. Thus this artist has fully awakened by taking in everything, and this is something reflected in this first full album.

Maser also plays with a blues band, experienced musicians like himself and they have eclectically influenced new album coming. They call themselves SoulShine, and the album wander the discography of the idiom, from BB King to ZZ Top, from Cash to Dylan, Hendrix and Clapton. Blues fanatics should watch out for the work of this trio.

From Minneapolis to Boston, he went into studios with players from as far as North Dakota and Africa. The stand he is making is for all the things he has learned and unlearned which define his auteur. But then, you can see how all things Blues are there in the album, dating to the first time the first Blues song was played to its patron Old Man River.

Song titles include Heart Be True, Heroes, One Time and Strong Love. Others include the title track, Fall Apart and A Little Older, and you cannot help but notice their strong echoes of tradition. The Blues are all about tradition, about the travails of Biblical Christians and their replication in the American tradition, about love, life and death felt so deeply it opens up a spring of tears.




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