ALBUM REVIEW: Daryl Mosley Highlights Lessons from the Past on ‘A Life Well Lived’
Henry Carrigan
Posted On July 20, 2023
Daryl Mosley spins reliably comforting stories about various facets of daily life. On his third album, A Life Well Lived, his songs cast a look back at the ways we’re shaped by people and places as well as by the lessons our families, friends, and others have taught us. The songs are simple and unadorned, and the straight-ahead lyrics evoke what Mosley considers a simpler approach to life.
“Mayberry State of Mind” opens with phrases from “The Fishing Song,” the theme song from The Andy Griffith Show. The upbeat number, with mandolin notes winding around guitar runs, tells the story of a factory worker who feels like a number but who wistfully dreams of a “friendly game of checkers and a slice of apple pie” and of turning the “volume down on living.”
The album opens with the somber title track, in which the singer strings together lessons his grandfather has taught him such as “use the road less traveled when you can” and “try to find the good in your fellow man.” The song is filled with such cliches, but nostalgia depends on such empty phrases since they evoke a time often considered to be less complex.
Daryl Mosley (photo by Candy Seaton)
Ronnie Booth of the Booth Brothers joins Mosley for rousing jazz-inflected Southern gospel number “Big God,” which sonically recalls the pop hit “Put Your Hand in the Hand,” first recorded by Anne Murray. The scampering “We Need More of That” is more of the same with a twist: When the singer sees someone saying “yes sir” or “come see us,” he recognizes the way life used to be and wishes there could be more of those old ways.
The front porch picking ballad “Hillbilly Graham” tells the story of a country preacher. One day church folks say Hillbilly should be ashamed because “he’s been out talking about Jesus when he looks like he’s been left out in the rain.” Like Mrs. Harper in Tom T. Hall’s “Harper Valley PTA,” which this song resembles musically and thematically, old Hillbilly leans back in his chair and asks where it’s written in Scripture that he shall “wear a suit and tie.” The album closes with the meditative melodies and harmonies of “Thankful,” which Mosley wrote with Rick Lang.
A Life Well Lived is filled with songs well written and well sung, ideal those who like their bluegrass plain and simple and who long for the simpler times Mosely evokes on the album.
Daryl Mosley’s A Life Well Lived is out July 21 on Pinecastle Records.
