In my view, the last few weeks have been a truly awesome time for new music. A new Willie Nile CD arrived with a few days left in March then, with April barely a week old, this delightful disk appeared. Dirk and Willie share more than an appreciative fan in Ohio and neighboring CD release dates. Both were touched by fame near the three-quarter mark of the last century and both ran away from the business of music for a few years. But both came back because musicians can’t stay away from music and songwriters can’t keep from writing songs.

Thirteen Dirk Hamilton written songs make up Touch and Go. Most are new but not all. “Build a Submarine” first appeared on 1990’s Too Tired to Sleep.  “The Only Thing that Matters” was on 1995’s Yep!. One of the new songs is something Dirk says he started writing in 1971 and finally finished in 2014. I heard that song, “For the Love of a Lady”, live in October of 2014. In my description of that concert I say that Dirk did three songs for the first time in front of an audience but I couldn’t remember any of the names. This was obviously one. I believe the others were “Head on a Neck” and “Mister Moreno” since I recognize both and both appear for the first time on this album.

Touch and Go owes its existence to a chance meeting with a long time fan. Producer and multi-instrumentalist Rob Laufer introduced himself to Dirk at a California house concert and explained that he had been a fan since the 1970s. One thing led to another and this Laufer produced album is the result.

It seems things started with Dirk recording a couple of songs in Laufer’s studio and Laufer subsequently “producing” “Gladiola” by adding several tracks to Dirk’s voice, guitar, and harmonica. In an interview on KPFA radio (available here) Hamilton says he was initially a little uncomfortable with the process as he is used to doing things live in the studio with the band but eventually decided that he liked the sound. I’m glad he did. Yes, magic can sometimes happen when musicians are recorded as a group with each feeding on the playing of the others and that simply can’t happen here but it’s sometimes only a possibility anyway. Rob Laufer is an excellent player as well as producer and he has constructed some really solid underpinnings for Dirk’s tunes. The organ on “Head on a Neck” and the guitar work on “Gladiola” and “Cheers to the Heart” are particularly nice.

“Cheers to the Heart” is a driving rocker and my current favorite tune on the CD. On my first listen the the album, it was somewhere in the middle of this song that I was struck with the thought that it would be right at home on one of the 1970s albums that made me a Dirk Hamilton fan. With that in mind, subsequent listens revealed that this was true of several other tunes on Touch and Go. The voice has aged but it has done so nicely and there are melodies just as well crafted and lyrics just as meaningful as those earlier offerings. Maybe it helps that Laufer is familiar with and an admirer of those early albums. He makes Dirk sound like Dirk.

What Hamilton calls the most important song on the album closes it. “Mister Moreno” was inspired by the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings and Dirk says performing it can sometimes be a real challenge because of the emotions it brings to the surface. Dirk’s lyrics can sometimes be abstract and sometimes openly playful but they are almost always insightful and thought provoking. Sometimes they are crystal clear as are these lines from “Mister Moreno”:

Politicians talk of peace, dining with gunrunners in the plaza
Sharing photos of their families and the missiles they are selling down in Gaza.

Another thing that has remained constant and is reminiscent of the early days is Hamilton’s caring and concern for this planet. That concern is clearly present in several tracks on Touch and Go but it seems a little more accessible than it has been lately and that just might be because of Laufer’s contributions. Dirk and Rob make a good team. Hope they do it again.

Buy this and other Dirk Hamilton CDs here.

I’ve never seen Dirk Hamilton in person with a band. I’ve seen him twice with another guitarist and twice with no one else on stage period. Conversely, I’ve never listened to him without a band. OK, maybe “never” is a stretch but a bold print seldom sure isn’t. I own just about everything Dirk has released and it’s the rare track that doesn’t have at least a few top notch musicians backing him up. That’s not a bad thing. The tunes are served well by the added layers and the folks Dirk chooses to play with always add something to the mix. But listening to solo mono is kind of like a “being there” I can relate to.

Depending on who is counting and how they do it, this could be Dirk’s eighteenth release or maybe “only” his fifteenth or maybe something else. Counting solo studio albums is a lot easier. This is it. Dirk is an excellent performer and a darn good front man but his song writing is what has captured most of his fans. solo mono contains thirteen new songs though they’re not all entirely new to me. The album, released in June of 2012, contains several tunes I’d seen Dirk perform the previous October. I put off ordering solo mono thinking that our paths might cross again in the fall of 2012 and I’d buy it at a show. That didn’t work out so I finally did the mail order thing a few weeks ago and not long after I popped the CD into the player I was struck with “that’s just the way I remember it” thoughts.

As with just about any collection of Dirk Hamilton tunes, the lyrics range from insightful to comical with Hamiltonian wit and romanticism everywhere. At this point I intended to quote examples of wit and insight and the rest but I found myself going around in circles trying to make my selections. Instead, I’m going to cheat big time and just point to the lyrics for the entire album. They’re here. All of Dirks lyrics are on his website; From the “First off let me say that I get sick and I get bored” that opened his first album in 1976 through the “Tommy gun placed on a polka dot gown” that opens this one. I’ve always appreciated the fact that, almost from the moment he and the internet found each other, Dirk has made his lyrics available online. With packageless downloads steadily increasing, that is ever more important and something I wish more artists would do

There is Dirk style social/political commentary — usually oblique and sometimes cryptic — in songs like “Delete Deletions” and “Slow Suicide” and there are genuinely fun songs like “Nobody I Know” and “Jan Jan Janet”. Smack dab in the middle there is a five line splash of silliness in “The Pygmy Forest”. And there are love songs; Several love songs. I don’t like love songs but I like Dirk’s. I don’t know the inspirations behind “She Calls Me Bello”, “Our Sweet Love”, “Unreachable”, and “Kalea” though I’d bet they are real. Dirk’s heart writes quite a few songs for him.

The only instruments on the album are Dirk’s guitar, harmonica, and voice and I confess to having lower expectations because of that. I shouldn’t have because I know, from seeing him live and alone, that many of his tunes work just as well without layers of sound as with. And there is, of course, a certain advantage to having less between ears and lyrics.

It is always a treat to hear new Dirk Hamilton material in any form. I know there will be more stuff with a band (a CD with the Italian boys is already in the works) and I hope there will be more stuff like solo mono.

You can order the CD here or purchase its contents here. You can watch Dirk and Don Evans do a song from the album here and Dirk do a song not from the album (it’s from 1978’s Meet Me at the Crux) at that October, 2011, concert here.