CHRIS DARROW

CHRIS DARROW

UNDER MY OWN DISGUISE

(2009)

Everloving Records

In possession of a formidable background that spans myriad genres far and wide, Chris Darrow has led a life in music that has been wild, undiluted, and kinetic in scope.  Much has been written about his days in Kaleidoscope as an architect of Psychedelic/World Beat music.  Whether as an integral pioneer of Country-Rock or an in-demand session man, Darrow also has been well documented for his work with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Leonard Cohen, Ben Harper, and numerous others.  Lesser known are  Darrow’s own buried treasures as a solo artist.   Darrow’s understated presence on record reveals a composer, arranger, and producer whose songs and sound eclipse any attempt to put up fences against the winds of spirit.  Like the sky, mountains, desert and ocean, the music of Chris Darrow is expansive - a place of refuge where the soul knows no boundaries - where the true nature of a recording artist is both enigmatic and understood from the inside-out. 

Uncovering a pair of handcrafted masterpieces from 1973 and ‘74, Everloving Records has reissued the second and third studio albums by the artist together as one package.  Taking bucolic trails that look familiar yet haven’t been traveled, venturing past scenery that comes alive and enters the consciousness of the seeker, both Chris Darrow and Under My Own Disguise are infused with cross pollinations in music that through the years have become a Darrow trademark.  To hear these two records is to know what’s beyond the contemporary Americana music du jour - to understand what roots music truly is just as Darrow understood what it is and what it was from the vantage point of the early 1970s - and to hear the artform not from the hands of a constrained revivalist but rather an inventor insofar the effect on the listener isn’t one of “roots music,” but rather evolutionary.

Recorded in its entirety at Trident Studios in London with some of Britain’s finest session players, Chris Darrow is governed by rich shades of Celtic mysticism, yet it’s also informed by the American and non-Anglo roots that make up Darrow’s foundation, along with the strong soul of Country-Blues and Rock holding sway at regular intervals. 

A custom blend of American southwest and Southern-inspired Rock in “Albuquerque Rainbow” opens the record.  Injecting his own vision with stylistic nods to the Allman Brothers, “Albuquerque Rainbow” travels through the downpour of loss and heartache onto a rainbow colored highway of second chances with a message from above to “go on back to the one you love.”  Like a postcard whose picture is infinitely new and only hints at profound regrets, giving no indication of sad tomorrows that may appear in the writing on the flipside – and Darrow definitely is an artist who likes to show both sides of anything - “Albuquerque Rainbow” bears only oblique traces of where Chris Darrow is headed.

A precursor to the merging of Reggae with other styles that groups such as the hugely successful Sublime popularized in the ‘90s, “Take Good Care Of Yourself” is a genre-merging expedition where New Orleans falls in love with Jamaica.  The laid back Cajun color of “Take Good Care Of Yourself” ambles along in contrast to the lyric’s bittersweet goodbye that seems to act as the outcome of Albuquerque Rainbow’s try-again essence.  “I believe our sorrow has a home/And as we weep for our old friends who have gone/Pale and wan we look/Our faces are like stone/Take good care of yourself/That’s all you’ll ever own” accepts the tragic yet wants to move onward, just as the record does musically. 

The self-possession of Chris Darrow is derived from darkness and the desire for changes.  With a suitcase spilling out the dying of one life, Chris Darrow leaves the familiar and transitions into the next world, in a Rock-era dream, on a jet airplane across an ocean for distant horizons.  Rough hewn and elegant, Chris Darrow is anchored by the magnetism of Stonehenge, the power of a grand isle, and on more than one occasion, the calling of Darrow’s songs in the stoicism of perpetual clouds penetrated by the cold phosphorescence of sunlight shining on verdant topography amid the ancient stone of so many lives, sorrows, and redemptive time passages.  Distinctly American in a number of pictures taken by the songs, Chris Darrow’s international undertones give it a culture not indigenous to any one particular place. The exotic blends are substantial, but their colors are distilled through the diffuse light of where the record was made.

If the contentedness of major key tonalities on Chris Darrow’s first two songs, “Albuquerque Rainbow” and “Take Good Care Of Yourself,” are augmented by sentimental charm inherent in their lyrics, there’s little to hide a certain moodiness that hangs in the air on other tracks.  The melancholy “We Don’t Talk Of Lovin’ Anymore” reflects the damp isolation of the British Isles.  Its Celtic and Gypsy arrangement cries out with momentum amid the hills and ocean. With its intricate layers of mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, guitar, and violin, the instrumental interplay that builds through the latter half of “We Don’t Talk Of Lovin’ Anymore” can be heard by a paramour of dark Anglo-Folk styles as an equally original, sophisticated parallel to Led Zeppelin’s “The Battle Of Evermore.”  The emotional next-of-kin to “We Don’t Talk of Lovin’ Anymore” may be several tracks down the way in “Faded Love.”  With almost folk-of-the-orient instrumentation, Darrow’s emotive, morose vocal falls uncharacteristically low in mood by contrast to the artist’s predilection for depth sans depression.  “A rose will wither and fade/When taken out of the earth/From whence it came/Yet the thorns will remain/And draw blood all the same/A faded love, like a thorn/Stings with pain.”  Such is the heaviness of Chris Darrow, the artist, that the music nor its romanticism can’t ever sink into lugubrious quicksand. 

“To Which Cross Do I Cling” and the Robert Johnson worthy “Whipping Boy,” the latter being pivotal to the inception of Ben Harper’s career as the first single from his debut album, are two understated and largely unheralded Blues Rock classics that give Chris Darrow a dynamic edge.  They break up the emotional tone of the record with a solid authority and advantage thereof that Blues as a style often enjoys over other genres.  That edge first reveals itself in the mid tempo bluegrass & rock mixture of “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down,” which has Blues at its core as well.  Lyrically, the edge expresses itself in portentous themes of cause & effect and redemption.  Darrow rarely paints those themes straight out of the tube.  They reappear in different disguises depending on the song.  Like “Jailhouse Tattoo” from Darrow’s unsung classic of 2001 entitled Slide On In, “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down” illustrates incarceration and a woman on the outside in lines of hard sentiment such as “Where were you last Saturday night/While I was lying in jail/Walking the streets with another man/Wouldn’t even go my bail,” whereas both “Whipping Boy” and “To Which Cross Do I Cling” explore women in other ways:  “Well, you can squeeze me where I want you to/You can tease me well I like that too/But don’t you lead me I won’t follow you/Listen here I don’t fear/I don’t want to be your whipping boy.”  If “Whipping Boy” walks a tightrope between temptation for a woman and not falling off the ledge on the other side, “To Which Cross Do I Cling” is more reflective but nonetheless dark with sinuous anticipation: “A dog might bite the hand that feeds it/A girl might fight the man who needs her/One bite of the apple/Made poor Adam fall.”  As a masterwork of oil-on-canvas for the ears, Chris Darrow blends emotional, stylistic and orchestral colors as rare composites that result in less obvious subtleties, where one color or emotion bleeds into others.

1974’s Under My Own Disguise embodies some of the same multi-genre and emotional sculpting as its predecessor, Chris Darrow, but the effect isn’t quite as dark.  Under My Own Disguise is offset by a more consistently southern musical palette and a stronger rhythm & blues influence.  With half the record having been recorded in London and the other half at Ike Turner’s studio in Los Angeles, the power of the U.K.’s many legends and musical offerings more prominent on Chris Darrow are somewhat tempered by distance for Under My Own Disguise.  Under My Own Disguise comes off overall as a more relaxed outing, pouring Cajun, Bluegrass, Caribbean, and Django-esque Jazz into the mix to create an overall brighter vibration.

The opener on Chris Darrow, “Albuquerque Rainbow,” with its Southern-American leanings, is a not-so-coincidental sign of where Darrow is destined to arrive on Disguise, but the difference is that “Albuquerque Rainbow” didn’t know then what Under My Own Disguise as a whole knows now.  Even if there are strong hints of the truth in “Take Good Care Of Yourself” from Chris Darrow, any optimism and generosity of spirit on Under My Own Disguise seems more bittersweet, or more of a reflection borne out of resignation as sung in “Maybe It’s Just As Well.”  Lyrics such as “We will go on as well/Without each other anymore/Life will go on as well/For all concerned/Trying much too hard to win/Tired out too much to give/Maybe it’s just as well” find closure whereas the sentiments in “Take Good Care Of Yourself” and “We Don’t Talk Of Lovin’ Anymore” from Chris Darrow are made of turmoil not entirely settled. 

The irony exists in that such closure doesn’t free Disguise from being haunted by the past.  It doesn’t liberate the record from all sense of anxiousness.  Darrow shows deftness in his ability to juxtapose a sanguine, laid back sound with a certain uneasiness percolating just below the surface in “Another Sundown.”  Marimba, congas, pedal steel, even the vocal delivery give “Another Sundown” a gentle, warm island feel, but the lyrics tell another story:  “Another sundown has come/A restless night awaits me/Sleep won’t take me/For another sundown has come.”  Under My Own Disguise also proves Darrow hasn’t lost his sense of passion and romance for women.  There’s no attempt to hide the intensity in “Wherever You Are.”  Steady momentum from the drums and acoustic guitar provide the backdrop for obsession: “Wherever you are/I’ll always be with you/Wherever you are/I’ll always care/Wherever you are/You know I’ll feel for you/Even though my life may not be there.”  But the most poignant track on Disguise is “A Masquerader.”  How many times has a guy been in a relationship with a woman he was sure he knew inside and out in unadulterated form, only to find she’s done an about face and shown her true colors?  Where another artist might approach the subject with anger and revenge, Darrow’s emotion is one of profound sadness, hurt and disillusionment, but the tone has an effect of strength, not hopelessness, on the listener who has experienced that reality in their life:  “Get what you want/See what you get/Unmask the face/I’d soon forget/The one you wore/Making me cry/Get back the one that’s/Under your own disguise.”

The audience receives something from Chris Darrow and Under My Own Disguise that no longer can be found on records by major artists of today.  That something is variety; and the varietal bonds shared by the two discs are manifold.  Where there’s a marked difference between them, there’s just as much a relation that can be felt even if the distinction isn’t black & white.  That observation can be summed up by Darrow himself in the lyrics to “To Which Cross Do I Cling” from Chris Darrow:  “Where there’s a dark side there’s a light/Where there’s a wrong side there’s a right/But there’s something to be said/Somewhere between the lines.”

-- Greg Debonne

For more information on the artist, click any of the graphic images on this page.