Despite the two years Michael Eck spent in Austin, the self-described “maximum solo acoustic” music of this Upstate New Yorker lives a piece outside the limits of any Texas city. Okay, you could make a case for a few songs sounding like a louder Townes or recent Joe Ely (most notably the nimble-fingered “The Queen of Rain”), but there are more similarities to folk-rockers Luka Bloom and David Gray, especially if that expatriate pair had been inspired by Steve Earle instead of Mike Scott.
The above is not a complaint, mind you, merely an attempt at an introduction. I’m impressed with anybody who does the just-a-guy-and-his-guitar-vs.-the-world thing and makes it work. And Cowboy Black (with Eck getting help on a few cuts from Kevin Maul’s dobro and Hawaiian guitar) is well beyond a workmanlike effort, thanks to Eck’s huge voice, solid writing, and apparently boundless energy.
His expressive vocals are on display from the album’s first second. Cowboy Black opens with the brief “Songs of Leaving”, an a cappella piece that sounds like that Carter Family classic called — oh man, what’s the name of that? Oh yeah, “No Depression”. The image that kicks off “Modern Boy Blues” — “Carve me a Jesus out of Ivory soap / So I can wash my sins away / Set them afloat on a river of faith” — still has me grinning in appreciation after repeated listens. Equally affecting is the title track’s refrain — “So if this is growing up / How come it feels like growing old,” not to mention one or two lines from any of the other 12 songs.