4.0 out of 5 stars
Back to the old ways, September 10, 2006
This review is from: Traces of the Old Road (Audio CD)
James Lee Stanley went 'au natural' for his "Traces Of The Old Road" album. He bailed out on the synthesizers that textured most of his previous albums and stuck to primarily acoustic instruments here. The final result is, easily, one of his best. As if to stress the stripping of his music down to skins and steel strings, he drops a pair of Bob Dylan songs on "Traces of The Old Road" that emphasizes the importance of being singer-songwriter earnest. Of those, his reading of "You Go Your Way, I'll Go Mine" is pitch perfect. (The other cover, "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," opens the album and sets its tone.)
On his originals (Stanley single-handedly wrote all the other compositions here, a departure form his usual collaborations), he stresses the lyrics on top of gentle acoustic performances. Of these, my two favorites are "Last Day of Summer" for its evocation of the change of seasons, and "Anywhere Love Goes," a sweet love song that closes the CD on a tender note. As I have posted on reviews of James' other albums, he may just be one of the best singer-songwriters you've never heard.
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