Northern comfort

David Mallett's Parallel Lives

by Don Fluckinger

With the release of his new Parallel Lives CD on Rounder last month, David Mallett's most recent career phase -- the "return home from Nashville" -- ended.

It had been two and a half years since the gifted singer/songwriter moved back to his hometown of Sebec, Maine, after a decade in Nashville writing songs for Kathy Mattea, Hal Ketchum, and Emmylou Harris. His move to Nashville was in response to his growing popularity of his "Garden Song" and its familiar chorus ("Inch by inch, row by row") recorded by singers like Peter, Paul and Mary as well as John Denver and the Muppets.

While working with top-flight studio musicians, Mallett took a turn toward the twang, especially heard on This Town, his 1993 Vanguard album. But the country-music mold didn't fit. He was a serious songwriter who dealt with real country-living, working-class issues, while the allegedly "real" country singers wanted to talk about jukeboxes, and cheatin' hearts, and other thangs. He wanted to tell stories, pen strong poetry, and make rich metaphors.

Adding to his restless discontent was the fact that he was a Down Easter in the heart of the South. He was a New England folksinger in the land that clung to slavery far too long and enforced segregation while the rest of the country was trying to do what was right. He was an intelligent, complex, songwriting personality in a place where one-dimensional thinking paid off.

In 1995, he got the hell out. Last month, he reclaimed his New England-ness by releasing a stripped-down, live album recorded in the woods of Dublin, New Hampshire, at DelRossi's, a folk club Mallett plays year in and year out. Dublin, too, is the home of Yankee magazine, the de facto capital of New England. It's far from Nashville.

"Country music today is not about the country -- it's more a commercial format, sort of the popular music of the South that has little to do with rural living or working-class values," Mallett says. "I was always aware I was a Northerner down there. There's a real distinct difference between the North and the South, a different way of looking at things. I'm really proud of my Northern roots. I speak in a Northern tongue pretty much, and it's nice to be in an environment that feeds it."

Mallett's family had lived in the central Maine town almost 200 years. It's the area he knows, where he's most comfortable, and where his best music is written.

But Mallett is not bitter about his experiences in Music City, USA. In fact, it advanced his career to the point where for This Town, he recruited an all-star guest list of Nanci Griffith, Kathy Mattea, Hal Ketchum, and Michael Johnson to embellish his sound.

Yet listen close, and you can hear the New Englander buried in the twang. In the title track, he's singing about all the different things going on in Nashville: "rich folks dying right beside the poor," homeless people, college kids in BMWs, caviar beside the beans and bacon at the grocery store. While Garth Brooks glorifies ropin' stuff, Mallett depicts ironic reality, actual human feelings and reactions, the quiet, reflective moments people have. He belongs up here, where the natives enjoy and understand his music.

He's never had what he calls the "powerhouse, rock-and-roll voice" that can compete with the big, country-music studio sound. On Parallel Lives, he returns to the form of his pre-Vanguard albums. No lush production and revved-up guitars, no Grand Ole Opry sheen. The two musicians who accompanied him on the three-day DelRossi's stand, Stephen Sheehan and Mike Burd, were old friends who had played on other Mallett albums. Their understated accompaniment adds depth but does not subtract from Mallett's strongest performance identity -- one man, one stool, one guitar.

"I've been playing solo for six or seven years at all my gigs," Mallett says. "I really got it down to one guy and a guitar, and I didn't want anything to interfere with that. The guys I picked did not [interfere]. They were very supportive without being obvious."

The CD introduces five new songs Mallett had never recorded and 10 others that survey his more than 20 years of songwriting. Here, the "old poet's heart" he self-referentially sings of in his new song "I Picture You" can thrive and grow.

"I listen to a lot of alternative radio and I listen to alternative rock, and it all sounds the same." Mallett says. "I listen to country radio and it all sounds the same. A big part of my move back home was a way of saying, `I refuse to sound like I'm from Texas, I refuse to put on that fake Southern accent,' which that type of music demands you do. I like the way we speak up here."

It's good to have the well-spoken Mallett back in New England.

David Mallett plays at 7 p.m. on December 21 at the Iron Horse, in Northampton. Tickets are $14 in advance, $16 at the door. Call (413) 584-0610.