Quality Americana

Darrell Scott is scheduled to take the main stage on the final day of the 38th annual Old Settler’s Music Festival in Dale, Texas.

“They always throw a good festival,” Scott said. “They know what they’re doing, and the Austin area folks know to come out and partake.”

We spoke with the multi-instrumentalist and songwriter about his legendary career and the standout album Jaroso that was performed in a forgotten church in remote Southern Colorado.

Jaroso, Colorado

Mark Dudrow’s historic property sits just a few miles north of the New Mexico border. The songs performed in Jaroso are a combination of original works and covers from his father, Hoyt Axton, Mickey Newbury, Malcolm Holcomb and Merle Haggard.

“What I wanted to do with Jaroso was sort of make it feel like the listener was right there,” Scott said. “I didn’t want there to be a separation.”

Scott performed to about fifty people in the forgotten Catholic church once used by the local Spanish community without any speakers to project the sound.

“In essence I was trying to make it a field recording like the old folk recordings and blues recordings,” Scott said, “like you just captured somebody doing something on their front porch or in a jail cell, or in this case an abandoned, derelict country-catholic church from a hundred years ago.”

The album artwork shows the condition of the church in the 1980’s.

“Since that photograph that’s on the cover, it turned into a place where goats lived,” Scott said. “It had gone ramshackled just like people let their barns go.”

Dudrow purchased the property to restore the condition, and soon offered a performance opportunity to Scott. They spread the date privately through word of mouth as the venue had a small capacity, and he planned out a dynamic setlist with various instruments for the live album. 

The performance was a unique opportunity to engage with an audience without the stage lights and microphones between the performer and listener. The audience also provided a wonderful choir for the recording.

“I wanted a recording that didn’t have the ta-da,” Scott said. “The people listening, singing along, you hear them moving in their chairs, all of that was natural just the way that it was and we captured it.”

The opening track “There’s a Stone Around My Belly” shows the symbiosis between the crowd and the performer with a wonderful “Hallelujah” chorus. Scott placed microphones on the audience as well for this modern field recording.

“I just thought that would be a good way to roll into the show is to have them singing along,” Scott said. “If you don’t know any better, you’re like ‘dang I feel like I’m right in the middle of this thing’ as a listener you know. You would definitely be transported to that space in essence, in the imagination.”

Growing Up in a Family Band

Scott was born in Kentucky where his family lineage traces back generations. His father moved the family to Northern Indiana to take work in the steel mill, and eventually they moved out to California for his teenage years. 

“The music thing was always there but it wasn’t how he made his living,” Scott said about his father. “He had five boys and the music thing just didn’t pay. He wouldn’t know how to make it pay, you know? Music would be what you do in the living room.”

 All of the family played instruments, and his father was a songwriter in the little spare time between working in the mills and other odd jobs like delivering furnace oil and working in construction.

“It was just second nature to grab an instrument, and sing a harmony and things like that,” Scott said. ”It’s all I’ve ever done. I was even playing music while I was going to college.”

The California educational system offered free college at that time, and his parents wanted to be in the Golden State to have that opportunity for the children.

“At the time I did try, but I wasn’t a very good student,” Scott said. “I just couldn’t keep up with it. I was playing gigs, you know, and not doing homework.” 

Several years later Scott completed his English degree at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.

“That helped with my songwriting a lot,” Scott said. 

He spent almost a decade in Boston before finding a home in Tennessee just outside of Music City where he’s been for the past thirty years. His work was quickly noticed in Nashville, and many other artists have re-recorded songs from his catalog.

“Most of the success I’ve had as a songwriter came from my recordings first,” Scott said. “I wasn’t just pitching songs, I was in a game of writing songs that I felt that I needed to write. Something was stirring in me to try and solve something, and songwriting is often where I have gone to try to solve stuff that I was working with in my personal life.”

From Tent Revivals to the Penitentiary

Scott started out in the family band that played churches, hospitals, schools and even penitentiaries.

“It was kind of frightening, you know, it’s those iron bars and the gates that shut behind you and all that,” Scott said. “I was with my dad in the first prison I played, basically taking a church service to the prisoners. Our preacher would go in there and preach and we would bring in the music. I’m sure I was seven or eight years old doing that kind of stuff.”

They often performed at ” a lot of places in essence to play for free, but to bring music to folks who don’t get music otherwise,” Scott said. “The music was always a thread through all of our childhood.”

Scott’s father taught him the songwriting craft, and the family band focused on country and gospel music.

“He just loved music, and loved songs,” Scott said. “I was exposed to the songwriter side of country music like Hank Williams and Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash and on and on. A full-tilt education of country music. I had big ears to pay attention to the music that was going on for some reason.”

A Unique Approach to the Banjo

“Fiddler Jones” shows the banjo technique Scott offers, one that comes from the mind of a guitarist first. The original work has a wonderful solo and old-time feel.

“I’m not trying to play it like a guitar, that’s just how it turns out,” Scott said. “One of my favorite banjo players was Jerry Garcia, and one of the reasons why is because he was a guitar player first and foremost. To me no one else played banjo like Garcia. My theory is that he came from the guitar point of view as opposed to full-tilt bluegrass banjo. There’s something in it that a close listener will say ‘hey that’s not regular banjo, there’s something going on there. What is it?’”

Scott’s unique phrasing comes out on the mandolin and dobro as well, and his heartfelt and subtle style was quickly picked up by Guy Clark, Steve Earle, Robert Plant and others for studio sessions.

“Those are probably the highlights,” Scott said, “I’ve been open to a lot of those influences.”

A Special Song for Colorado

One of the standouts on the album is a wonderful unrecorded work from a country legend.

“I heard Merle Haggard do it, and he did too,” Scott said about the beautiful piece his father used to sing. “Haggard has passed, and so has my dad, but I have this song.” 

It was a perfect moment to show the connection from all of the memories of performing and writing with his late father, and for the sincere atmosphere of the night. They also included a religious themed work by Mickey Newbury.

“Those records were like gold mines of great songs,” Scott said about “Saint Cecilia.”  It was an important choice not only to represent the patron saint of music, but to also share songs that have been in the family since the early days.

“I’ve known the song and played it for forty years,” Scott said. “When I was sixteen I used to play that song.”

On Life’s Other Side

Scott also included a heartfelt, self-penned gospel song that was written while visiting his father.

“I believe it was the last time I was visiting my dad at his cabin in Kentucky,” Scott said. “He cooked breakfast, and when my dad cooked breakfast, you’re to be at the table like when the gravy hits the table you know, that’s just how it goes, and so I’m sitting at the table and I hear this song coming on inside myself, so I actually leave the breakfast table and go start working on this song.” 

Scott returned to breakfast and the memory has stuck with him since his father’s passing. It was a perfect subject matter for the church, and one of the most beautiful works on the album. The choir really gets your heart strings working.

Response

It’s wonderful to hear Scott talk about the atmospheric quality he envisioned for Jaroso, and maybe a divine influence helped put together his ideas for the track listing as it truly gives a window into the special moments with his family band and a retrospective of his catalog and the influences that shaped his career as an artist.

“I think it’s a very honest record,” Scott said. “You can’t get more honest than an audience and a person playing music with nothing in between them, and having people react and recording their reaction. That makes a very particular kind of atmosphere and mood for a recording and that’s what we were able to achieve.”

The work written in his fathers cabin and the Haggard song Scott played with his father all those years ago is so special. The choir helped give us one of the most tear filled listening experiences we’ve had in ages.

“Live records are just their own thing. They’re different than studio focused records,” Scott said. “Putting musicians on the spot is a good thing, you get something from them that you may not get if you had a chance to fix something later.”

We’d like to say Jaroso is Scott’s crowning achievement as a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. There’s a destiny type of feeling you sense when listening to him perform in Jaroso, and it beautifully represents his story. 

“There’s a sweetness to it,” Scott said. “There’s a disarming quality to it. It’s not trying to hit a home run, it’s just trying to play it like it used to be. Just a song and an audience.”

Support the Artist

Support Darrell Scott by streaming and purchasing Jaroso on Bandcamp.

More information about Darrell Scott can be found here.

Photo provided by Scott Simontacchi.

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