aaamusic | On 26, Sep 2011

Music Video for ‘Little Scar’ from the album Welding Burns

Praise for Welding Burns

“He is a singer of rare integrity, helped no doubt by having lived the life he writes about before making his debut a decade ago. This is an album to cement his reputation and quietly, unassumingly, he may just be the best of the current crop of Americana singer-songwriters.” Americana-UK

“Seasoned US singer-songwriter Rod Picott carries the weight of blue collar disillusion in acutely observed story-songs. An album for our times.” The Irish Times

 

“This is, quite simply, another blue-collar classic from Maine’s finest songwriter.” Maverick

“…strong melodies and narratives, delivered with a gritty voice fuelled by passion and stained by life.” NetRhythms

“His gritty Springsteen-like voice is scarred by those dusty production line years and countless lonesome hours on the road, washing truck-stop burgers down with bad coffee, all of which is poured into these impressive songs.” Q Magazine

“Picott writes the kind of material that Woody Guthrie once did and Bruce Springsteen should be doing.” R2 Magazine

 

ROD PICOTT

OCTOBER 2011 UK TOUR

“Rod Picott‘s world weary songs glow with both self awareness and humility. The truth of who we are is slippery, hard to contain, and most people have very little interest in it. Nonetheless, it is the work of an artist to find that truth and show it to us in ways that will see it. Welding Burns, Rod’s new collection of songs, is a fine example of an artist doing just that.  The songs on this record reflect the realities of the time we live in, and they contain hard truths. The songs are both beautiful and disturbing, and are the work of an artist who deserves to be heard. I hope he sells a million copies.” Mary Gauthier

 

Rod Picott is back with a beautifully crafted new CD. Welding Burns is a fully realized songwriting marvel with characters so vivid the songs play like intimate three minute noir movies. Picott’s ragged and soulful voice spins songs of loss, desire, rapture and work while pedal steel guitar winds elegantly throughout the album. Welding Burns is an album about scars of the skin and scars of the heart. Three songs; ‘Welding Burns’, ‘Black T-Shirt’ and ‘Rust Belt Fields’ are co-written by Rod’s long-time collaborator Slaid Cleaves. This is Picott’s seventh CD release, including an album of duets with occasional musical duo partner Amanda Shires.

 

Welding Burns was recorded at True Tone Studios in Nashville TN with co-producer, engineer David Henry [Cowboy Junkies, REM]. The recording band features AMA instrumentalist of the year Will Kimbrough [Rodney Crowell] on guitar as well as Alex McCollough on pedal steel, Paul Slivka on bass, Paul Griffith on drums and Amanda Shires on fiddle.

 

BIO

Rod Picott is the songs he sings. Since before Woody Guthrie, songwriters have soaked their public image in sepia tones singing about the working life, but Picott bears the scars of actually living that blue collar life. Rod Picott’s songs are inhabited by sheetrock hangers, drinkers, circus hands, boxers and working girls and he sings about his characters with intimacy. Listening to a Rod Picott album you can smell the gasoline on a mechanics hands and the perfume of lovers in dark corners.

The son of a welder and former Marine, Picott grew up in the small mill town of South Berwick, Maine. His father’s record collection spanned Ray Charles to John Philip Sousa and James Brown. His older brother introduced him to the punk poetry of Lou Reed and Patti Smith. The tall, wiry framed Picott made his living as a sheetrock worker from high school until he released his first CD, Tiger Tom Dixon’s Blues, in 2001. He tours the U.S. in a Jeep Cherokee with a current odometer reading of 244,300 miles and annually in Europe and the UK, playing 120 plus shows yearly. Picott is lauded for his narrative and melodic songwriting, passionate delivery and darkly humorous onstage storytelling. Rod Picott is currently touring in support of Welding Burns.

 

“Rod Picott delivers some of the most hard-hitting, eloquent, authentic depictions of blue collar life to be heard in the USA today.

I put him up there with the best of Springsteen, Steve Earle and Woody Guthrie.” Slaid Cleaves

Rod Picott UK Tour – October 2011

October

Tuesday 11                 York The Duchess

08444 77 1000 / www.theduchessyork.co.uk £10, 7.30pm

Wednesday 12 Kinross Backstage at The Green Hotel

01577 863467 / www.mundellmusic.com £14, 9pm

Thursday 13                Glasgow Woodend Bowling and Tennis Club

01419 591428 or 07804 447511                                              £10, 8pm

Friday 14                    Newcastle Jumpin’ Hot Club @ The Cluny 2

0191 2304474 / www.jumpinhot.com £12, 8pm

Saturday 15                 Elford Elford Village Hall

Nr. Tamworth, Staffs. 01827 383533 / www.elfordhallgarden.org.uk £15, 7.30pm

Monday 17 Sheffield Greystones

0114 266 5599 / www.mygreystones.co.uk £8, 7.45pm

Tuesday 18 Leicester The Musician

0116 251 0080 / www.themusicianpub.co.uk £8, 8pm

Wednesday 19           Nottingham The Maze

0115 947 5650 / www.cosmicamerican.com £10, 7.30pm

Thursday 20                Bristol St. Bonaventure’s

0870 4444 400 / www.crhmusic.com £12, 7.30pm

Saturday 22                 Bedford Holy Moly’s @ Esquires

01234 340120 / www.bedfordesquires.com £TBC, TBC

Sunday 23                   Maidstone House Concert

Thursday 27 Brighton The Prince Albert

01273 730499 / www.myspace.com/theprincealbert £7, 8pm

Friday 28                    Farncombe St. John’s Church Room

Surrey 01483 421520 / http://wegottickets.com/julianlewrymusic £10, 7pm

Saturday 29                 Turners Hill House Concert

West Sussex www.houseconcerts.org.uk / * suggested donation       £15*, 7pm

Sunday 30                   Twickenham TwickFolk @ The Cabbage Patch

020 8991 5461 / www.twickfolk.co.uk £9, 8pm

WWW.RODPICOTT.COM