Fortune Street (Corazong 255 097)

Fortune Street is Boston troubadour Alastair Moock's fifth record and second on CoraZong Records. Comprising nine original tunes and one traditional cover, the album is Moock's most intimate and mature to date. Two of the tracks were recorded solo; the other eight feature the stripped down roots ensemble of David Goodrich, Lou Ulrich, and Michael Piehl (all former members of the seminal Boston rock band Groovasaurus), joined by guests Kris Delmhorst, Michael Dinallo (The Mercy Brothers) and Sean Staples (The Resophonics).

Fortune Street was produced by David Goodrich (Chris Smither, Peter Mulvey, Jeffrey Foucault) and recorded in just five days at Signature Sounds Studios in rural Pomfret, Connecticut. Moock and the three main players worked fourteen-to-sixteen-hour days during that time, living in a house adjacent to the studio. “It was the most fun I've had making an album,” says Moock. “We woke up in the mornings and recorded in our pajamas, took turns cooking between takes, and drank and recorded ‘til we burned out at night.” Most of the recording was done live with a minimum of overdubs and very little cross-cutting between takes, an approach producer Goodrich regularly employs on his sessions. “Goody is basically a jazz guy,” says Moock. “That's where he started, and that's how he comes at producing — he believes in capturing a performance rather than using the studio to manufacture songs. And that's exactly how I wanted to make this record.”

Tonally, Fortune Street ranges from earthy electric blues and 70s era soul to Appalachian ballad and lush folk-rock. Says Moock, “I've never been interested in making an album that's just twelve variations on the same tune; the most satisfying records for me are the ones that wander from the path.” Fortune Street may roam a bit musically, but it seems to know exactly where it's headed. Several things hold it together: Moock's unique, rasping vocals; Goodrich's sophisticatedly melodic guitar lines; a drum-tight rhythm section; and, above all, the writing.

Moock has already garnered many accolades for his writing. His songs have won top honors in contests at the Falcon Ridge, Sisters, and Great Waters folk festivals, among others, and The Washington Post calls “every song a gem.” But he has never seemed as comfortable in his own skin as he does here.

Nowhere is that more evident than on the album's two historical ballads, Cloudsplitter and Woody's Lament. Based on the Russell Banks novel of the same name, Cloudsplitter is a modal, mountain-type folk ballad (recorded live, solo, and in one take) about the controversial American abolitionist John Brown. Condensing Banks' 800-page book to eleven verses, Moock gives a hauntingly visceral account of Brown's violent pursuit of justice while also turning his lens on contemporary America, the lingering effects of slavery, and the legacy of John Brown.

Moock's other historical ballad, Woody's Lament, assumes the voice of America's original folk poet, speaking from beyond the grave to defend the tough choices he made in his life. The song imagines the internal conflict of a great man struggling to balance his competing obligations to family and history. Goodrich builds the track slowly, adding one instrument at a time and creating a momentum that mirrors the inevitability of Guthrie's path. In the end, it's an empathetic but not completely forgiving look at someone who Moock cites as his personal hero. “Woody Guthrie is the reason I'm a songwriter,” says Moock. “I read [Guthrie's autobiography] Bound for Glory in high school and never looked back. But I've also always thought of him as a complex guy. I think he probably sacrificied an awful lot personally to become who he became publicly... This song's not just about Woody though,” he adds. “I've always been fascinated by the way greatness demands sacrifice.”

The opening track on Fortune Street is also the title track, and it marks some new musical territory for Moock. Written in an open E tuning, the song has the wide, sweeping feeling of a mid-career Dylan epic like Shelter From the Storm. But Goodrich's guitar and electric piano parts nod to a different sound from that era: that of Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper. The smooth, unhurried landscape of the production provides the right backdrop for Moock's densely packed lyrics, which examine states of togetherness and aloneness and — a theme running throughout the album — the roles of chance and choice in our lives.

The other tune on the album that takes its musical cues from the soul era, as well as from early rock ‘n roll, is God Saw Fit to Make Tears. Sam Cooke would be proud of this production, anchored by CoraZong labelmate (and producer of Moock's last album) Michael Dinallo on rhythm guitar. The lyrics edge toward abstraction here as Moock stitches together some of the album's strongest lines: “Everybody is living just this side of the drain / You're either parched in the desert or you're drowned in the rain / You ride the rails for a while, you keep your hands close to your sides / But God saw fit to make tears so go on and cry.” “I worked backwards from the title [which is the tag line] on that one,” says Moock. “I heard someone say it in the middle of an interview on NPR. The talking heads were going back and forth about something and suddenly this beautiful phrase popped out. I don't know who said it or what they meant by it, but I turned the car around, went home, and started writing... Sometimes inspiration comes from weird places.”

There are four tunes on the album that fit broadly into the category of blues — two moody and modal, two playful and upbeat. One of the former is the album's only cover, a rendition of the traditional tune Delia. In the liner notes, Moock credits his version to a succession of earlier versions, first by Willie McTell and then by David Bromberg. “I first heard Bromberg do that song when I was a teenager,” says Moock. “Something about it really stuck in my craw — it's just beautifully written and haunting as hell... I always try to put at least one cover tune on my records and I thought a ballad would fit this group of songs. This album is all about telling stories.” Asked why he likes to include covers, Moock responds, “I'm a folk singer. I'm working in a tradition.”

The three original blues tunes on the album showcase the kind of lyrical acrobatics for which Moock has become best known as a writer. Take these lines from Own Way to Heaven: “You're talking in your sleep and you're sleeping when you're walking / You're wishful when you're waking and you're waiting for a sign / Open up the door, can't you hear the future knocking / It's saying better live because you're running out of time.” Through the use of close rhyme, quick rhythms, tongue twisting alliteration, and double meaning, Moock creates a kind of swirling current of language that pulls the listener in.

A heavy dose of wit is another trademark of Moock's writing. That streak is refined here in one of the funniest songs he's ever recorded. The alternating ups and downs of love have been well documented in the history of song, but perhaps never in as quick succession as in the Yin Yang Blues: “I changed the locks on my front door / ‘Cause I can't take you anymore / This afternoon I'm gonna make a second key / And ask you to come spend your life with me.” In Swing That Axe, Moock uses that dry humor to reflect on his own career: “My mother says you got to make some choice my son / You got to find something better to do / You're broke because folk doesn't pay, that's the facts / Come on baby, swing that axe.”

Finally, there are two tunes on the album that might best be categorized as reflections on life-changing events. The first is Roll On [Song for Anne Marie], the story of a woman who finally leaves a bad marriage and the life she's known for years. The fact that Moock claims to have made up the main character makes it no less a tribute to the millions of women who've made the same choice. “It takes a lot of courage to leave a bad relationship, especially if you're a middle-aged woman in this culture,” says Moock. “I've known and observed a lot of people in that situation — people who've made the choice to leave and people who haven't — and I guess I wanted to pay tribute to them in some way.” Joined by songbird Kris Delmhorst on the choruses and featuring some of Goodrich's lushest production, the tune is one of the album's standouts.

Fishing Tales, the closing track, is an ode to Moock's soon-to-be-born child (or, as it turns out, children — Moock became the father of twin girls in December ‘06). Recorded solo and highlighting Moock's nimble fingerpicking style, the song is a different breed from the typical child-tribute song. “It's about a very specific time in a person's life,” says Moock, “that nine-month window before you have your first kid, when you know your life is about to change but it hasn't yet. It's that moment when Wyle E. Coyote runs off the cliff and is suspended there in the air before he starts to fall... Wait, that probably sounds bad... It's about anticipation,” he concludes, smiling.

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