by Nick DeRiso
It takes a complex, genre-bending singer to fend off the distracting brilliance of fabled guitar-playing Danny Gatton.
Maine-based Steve Erwin, who made his name playing around Washington, D.C., pulls it off on the newly re-released Was It Like This. Originally recorded in December 1988 with Gatton, the album is best described by the guitarist himself – who likened his playing to “redneck jazz.”
The opener “Sweet Boy,” a tangy amalgam of rockabilly, country, swing and blues, sets the album’s framework.
Erwin and Gatton intertwine at times, then push back like boxers. Erwin experiments with the lyric by changing the tempo, rocking back and forth at an easy gait and then speeding past Gatton. The guitarist’s biting retorts display both a speedy agility and a flinty intelligence.
“Oh Howard” then finds Erwin sharing a dark morality tale, which he smartly contrasts with Gatton’s lively pompadoured rock riff.
That Erwin can play to a tie is its own kind of victory. Still, there’s no getting away from the prodigious skill, and the tragic end, associated with Gatton. Known in life as “the Humbler,” he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 49 in 1994. This history gives emotional heft to both the majestically uncomplicated “In Fall,” as well as the brutally honest “Walkin’ This Road.”
“In Fall,” with an intimate contribution from Gatton, takes an autumnal look back at a lost love. Surrounded by the cold embrace of bare tree limbs and crunchy underbrush, Erwin’s desolation is all but complete: “In a moment, it seems like it never has been,” Erwin sings. “Do you remember when? Was it like this, my friend? No, never again.” That rustic melancholy is given new shadings by Gatton’s shyly introspective musings. His solo mimics the percussive density of a jazz pianist, yet retains this artful simplicity.
“Walkin’ This Road,” a mash-up of gospel bluegrass, R&B and blues, has Erwin trying to move on from life’s struggles. He tells himself to take it one day at a time, and that each step pushes him further away from bad times. Walking the righteous path isn’t easy, though, and Erwin admits that, too: “Life may well be sacred, but it’s a heavy load,” he sings. “This never knowing makes a weary road.”
Gatton, dead just six years later after a difficult period on a major label, must have perfectly understood the sentiment. In fact, there is much to suggest that an ongoing collaboration with Erwin might have been good for both. They share a penchant for melding styles, and a sympathetic world view.
Later, Erwin sings: “The girl I adore on that distant shore leaves a hole where my heart should be. I have had enough adventure; that’s not what I dream of. All that I want for Christmas is an uncomplicated love.” Gatton, who encircles the lyric with a reverb-drenched romanticism, seemed to similarly struggle with untangling life’s intricate distractions. Legendarily reluctant to tour, Gatton remained something of a local legend around southern Maryland, recording only a handful of solo albums to go with a series of sought-after sideman gigs like this one.
Erwin closes with “Born a Tourist,” which moves along like a dimly lit subway. There are periods of loud, clanging motion interrupted by a series of brief, illuminating stops. Erwin catches glimpses of the way things might have been, how they ought to be, but can’t quite achieve a vista.
There’s an irony to this twilight journey: “Sleeping on the last seat, on the last train going backward,” Erwin laments. Then Gatton picks up the storyline with an extended instrumental passage. Bassist John Previti, who played with Gatton for almost 20 years, and drummer Harold Howland quickly establish a propulsive foundation for a final display of musical scope and feeling.
In this dazzling moment on Was It Like This, Gatton seems so very alive. He just wanted to play the music, to be himself. Same with Erwin, who adds: “I came into this Earth in a Hawaiian shirt, and I’ll probably leave that way.”
The sad part is, together they could have left so very much more.
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