No Depression Sessions at Folk Alliance International 2024: Bruce Sudano
Brad Wagner
Posted On April 19, 2024
Bruce Sudano (photo by Amy Waters)
Join us as Bruce Sudano delivers his stellar No Depression Session in the AEA Ribbon Mics room at Folk Alliance International 2024 in Kansas City. Accompanied by lead guitarist Randy Ray Mitchell, Sudano’s set draws two songs from his latest album, Talkin’ Ugly Truth, Tellin’ Pretty Lies, which came out in March, and a country classic he wrote more than 40 years ago about his parents’ divorce.
As Sudano launches into the session with Talkin’ Ugly Truth, Tellin’ Pretty Lies’ “How’d You Get Here,” his lyrics immediately captivate me. The way my music brain is wired, I almost always hear how the sounds sound together. I usually hear sonics for the first half dozen listens before I register the meaning of a single word that has been sung. Sudano’s session proved the exception for me; his storytelling instantly transported me to a world of adolescence in the 1950s and ’60s:
When daddy did the best he could
And mama made the meals
Paved the way for you to move
In Beatle Boots with Cuban heels
Mitchell’s lead guitar provides a perfect counterpoint, sweetening Sudano’s stories. Transitioning into the title track, Sudano weaves a new narrative about a couple of renegades living life in the danger zone, until they ultimately learn their lesson too late for it to matter.
The session concludes with “Starting Over Again,” a standard co-written by Sudano and his late wife, Donna Summer. The song was famously pushed to the top of the country charts by Dolly Parton in 1980, and finds new context when Sudano tells us that he originally wrote it about his own parents’ divorce. The divorce happened when Sudano was in his late 20s, and supposedly well equipped to handle the emotional rollercoaster. But the situation tore him apart regardless.
This No Depression Session at Folk Alliance International 2024 was made possible by AEA Ribbon Mics. Find previous No Depression Sessions at Folk Alliance International 2024 here, and look for more in the coming weeks.
