Paul Burch – East To West

In the past five years, multi-instrumentalist Paul Burch has served as musical consultant for the PBS series The Appalachians and released two albums — one of which, Last Of My Kind, was not only among the most seamless efforts of 2001, but likely the only record ever written as a soundtrack to a novel (Tony Earley’s Jim The Boy). On those projects, Burch expanded on a previously created personal world of specifically grounded setting — not only of place, but of time — and in these cases he attains his most convincing clarity.

On East To West, Burch reaches out and away (without admitting he’s reaching) for the approbation of famed British DJ John Peel, bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, and former Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler, whose London studio played home to the bulk of these sessions. Between the bookends of “Montreal” and “Cante Hondo”, Knopfler stops by to play (in curiously unrecognizable fashion) on “Before The Bells”, and Burch returns to Nashville to duet with Stanley on brother Carter’s “Little Glass Of Wine”.

Then there’s the peculiar “John Peel”, a rather immodest recounting of Burch’s single night in the late DJ’s company. The three-minute folk tale designates Peel as “the king of rock ‘n’ roll” (don’t tell Elvis) and expounds his practically worldwide influence. Yet by song’s end, Burch steers clear of that original ambition in favor of concluding on an at best unfocused and at worst disingenuous personal note: “I played a song I wrote…I didn’t think he was listening…the very next week he played me on his show.”

Sure, a man can be judged by the company he keeps, but Paul Burch is talented enough to stand on its own two feet. They’re just not planted firmly enough here.