(translated from Italian) David Newbould sees his songs as the result of his movements: he’s wrong, as the biography of the musician, Canada Toronto, it really is a symbol of wandering, typical of some imaginary North American markets. As soon as an adult he moved to New York, chasing the dreams of rock’n’roll that age, then discovers the songwriters and tradition, moving to Austin, ideal place to know and be known in the circuit, and finally from 2009 finds home in Nashville, home to the industry that counts on the square and the best musicians, with whom he begins to compete. We’d found out from The Long Way Home, a live album that brought together some unpublished and the best parts of the previous albums published in Texas, before the actual onset of the study, which today is the ideal result with Tennessee, perhaps the album of the final maturation of Newbould.

Indeed, it is a convincing product of Americana, where power ballads and a certain scent of heartland rock meet with the campaign alternative country, putting together the music of Ryan Adams with hard skin storyteller to Chris Knight. Taste of dust and road, Confederate guitars, sound roots but with an eye for melody and those “average times” that have often made the fortune of the genre. It begins with Always Coming Home by strong rural accent (would look good in a work of Lyle Lovett) and immediately borders on the timbre of Stradaioli Don’t Give Me your Heart : Newbould’s style is unmistakable for Family Tree, we understand now from where his inspiration comes, without this we are faced with a clone with no personality. Quite the contrary, the production of Ben Strano (worked, incidentally, with Chris Knight and Dan Baird, the latter present in sessions in a couple of episodes) seems to me to be successful in order not to slow down too much the thrust of the songwriting of Newbould. A bit ‘sad and romantic ballads, dominated by clear pedal steel Dan Dugmore (James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt), more brazen when it comes to turning up the volume of the guitars and unleash a decisive step rock.

In the first case point out especially the duets with Rose Falcon (also co-author), and with the host Kalisa Ewing, including a sweet Drifting Wayward and the desolate Down for Your Love. In the second case goes into the chair sound more perky, which takes advantage of the growing voice of Newbould, maybe not as exceptional extension, yet expressive in its voltage Lucinda (the power ballad most beautiful of the disc) and You’re With Me and Don’t Give Up on Love. Finally, among the subtleties of Tennessee it is worth mentioning the long ride It Can Always Be Worse, a country rock epic that starts with a vague mention of The Weight and ends from the parts of Joe Ely more passionate, with fiddle, steel and guitars dueling. A nice name to remember in the long list of outsiders of this 2013.