This CD puts Digital Boy artist Bryan Masters onstage in his regular gig with longtime musical co-consipirator Dennis Hardin. The Buddha boys recorded their June '07 concert at Cabaret Old Town in Wichita, Kansas, offering up 18 of Masters' songs (10 previously unreleased).
In addition to their time-honored duet act, Dennis and Bryan are joined by local rhythm kings John Probst on bass and Steve Hatfield on drums. The addition is stunning, with the rhythm section remapping the potential of each song. Barney Byard and Shalen Scheltgen bring the backing vocals for the show-closing "Grace" and one awesome bonus track.
"What you're holding in your hands is an instrument of truth.
Its primary creators, Bryan Masters and Dennis Hardin, channel music with uncommon accuracy, clarity and an elegant simplicity that allows the keen knowing of Masters' ear, eye and heart to illuminate the familiar and render it in a light that allows the listener to see the disappointments, sorrows, triumphs and joys of their lives and the lives others for the first time.
In Masters' world, we are one, joined by both our shared and singular experiences, the ache of oncoming forgiveness behind "Heart Shaped Hole," the soothing sentiment within "September 14, 1966," the celebratory bop of "Goodbye Kiss" and the emotionally tugging but unsentimental catalogue of loss and losing, "Good Man Down." Hardin's flavorful guitar licks add important but unobtrusive dimensions to Masters' songs, as evidenced on tracks such as "Two Flattop Guitars," "Neighbors" and "Most of July," where he lends a sense of lyricism and soul akin to David Lindley's work with Jackson Browne.
Joined by the ace rhythm section of John Probst (bass) and Steve Hatfield (drums) as well as backing vocalists Barney Byard and Shalen Scheltgen, Masters and Hardin take the listener on a journey through the peaks and valleys of the human experience, leaving us occasionally sad but ultimately elevated for knowing that someone out there has been through the same thing. So listen up to the laid back sounds of Back Porch Buddha, to the inherent happiness of "When You Smile," to the folktastic "Small Town Kids," to the spiritual but earthbound "One Candle/Grace," to each of the songs that they and their band of merrymakers have gifted us with on this caring journey through and about the ever-changing and ever-fragile human condition.
What you are holding in your hands is an instrument of truth and a portrait of unspeakable beauty. Enjoy the ride."
Jedd Beaudoin
Wichita, KS 6-12-07
