It’s been 23 years since Dan Fogelberg released his Souvenirs, so it’s probably okay for Scott Joss to use the title. Not that there’s any resemblance between Fogelberg’s heavily-produced, angelic-choir folk-rock and Joss’ spare California country. The fiddler in Dwight Yoakam’s touring band, Joss has the same throwback mentality, and echoes of Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and Marty Robbins roll through Souvenirs.
Like Yoakam, Joss bases his music on cleanly picked guitar, sweetly crooning lap and pedal steel, and the surging sound of a B-3 organ — not such a surprise, since the record is co-produced by Yoakam producer/guitarist Pete Anderson.
All those connections sometimes make Joss come off too much like Dwight Jr.; still, he has enough individuality not to get locked into a clone closet. Part of that is his voice, which recalls John Anderson with its deep tone and ability to dip into the lower, grumbling registers.
Souvenirs is filled with low-key, sparsely constructed numbers that tread on the touchstone elements of classic country: the saving graces and pitfalls of love, the hardscrabble existence of working-class folks, loneliness, despair, hope. But Joss isn’t mired in the past; he updates the genre with numbers such as “Mary Got A Baby”, which states that 15-year-old Mary thought it was love, but “it was Mary’s balloon that got busted.” Still, there’s a distinctly cornpone element to material such as “Workin’ Girl”: “She’s a workin’ girl, she’s a joy to the world/The children’s salvation and a credit to the nation.”
Joss wrote only one of the 11 songs here, but he has picked material from some fine writers, including Jim Lauderdale, Kevin Welch and Kostas. Further distancing himself from Yoakam, he chooses material that’s not based in cynicism.