Made with Evan Brubaker in Tacoma, Washington
Featuring the Twisted Studs: Evan Brubaker...harmony and back up vocals
Jeff Leonard...Bass
Dan Salini...fiddle, lap steel, pedal steel, mandolin, viola
Colby Sander...lead guitar
Darin Watkins...drums
Doug Wintch...guitar, vocals, harmonica, accordion
Review: Singin On The Job, Doug Wintch
(LuDella Records)
By David Eskelsen
For Intermountain Acoustic Musician Magazine
There’s only one thing missing from Doug Wintch’s journeyman new album for “handymen; and the not-so-handy” ... Liner notes!
I know, I know. In today’s world, you gotta go to the artist website to get the lyrics and notes on the songs, and that’s easy enough. Doug’s got a great website, which offers a full preview of his great new album, Singin’ On The Job. Doug’s bottom-line job as a carpenter has often come into his songwriting, but he wades in deep here, drawing out a surprising range of emotions and experiences that would be easily recognizable to the many men and women who ply this trade.
For us not-so-handy, this group of songs runs the full range of human experience, from laugh-out-loud funny, to quirky, a short history lesson, to the intriguing and profound. It’s an album good for a road trip or to play as you're working that latest home improvement project.
Doug opens this show with Sheetrock, a cleverly hilarious take on the “relative” hazards of being the handyman in the family. While stretching the truth a bit (perhaps), I suspect Doug is not too far off the mark here. (I confess I once called out to Doug in desperation for help when our new refrigerator turned out to be an inch too wide for the kitchen space. Thanks again, Doug. It was, after all, just a piece o’ sheetrock!)
There are real gems here, with the plain-spoken view of the American working man told with the skill of a gifted songwriter. There are few songwriters anywhere that can match Doug with a clever turn of phrase or a biting double entendre. But in his hands, like his trusty framing hammer, it’s a tool to be used with skill; not a gimmick. The song always comes first.
You have to love T.H. D’peau, with its nod to a certain retailer. It champions do-it-yourself home improvement coupled with a can-do attitude. Who would have thought a chorus about remodeling a bathroom could be so catchy and infectious? (Maybe it’s time for a re-do of that upstairs bathroom in our house.)
There’s also a genuine tall tale in Skip-a-Rope-and-a-Clamp. The images Doug evokes here are as vivid to me as those Disney cartoons from my childhood about Paul Bunyan, Babe, the blue ox and John Henry.
In the best folk tradition, Doug honors a fellow craftsman in the historical ode, Chippy McNish. Songs that teach about and honor historic figures are a personal favorite, and this is one of several such songs Doug has made up out of the history that the schoolbooks never picked up. This one is first-rate, with each verse skillfully setting up and further illuminating the engaging chorus. It’s a touching, inspiring tale of the unsung companion without whom our hero would never have made it back.
A gifted storyteller, Doug saves the best for last. Frank, the Fighting Seabee joins the best of those songs that immortalize the grit, honor and humility of the Greatest Generation. This generation of men and women—who where children of the Great Depression, did their duty at home and abroad in World War II, then returned home to quietly build lives with independence, hard work and a sense of purpose tempered by a terrible war—cannot be honored too much. The simplicity of Doug’s treatment here gets to the essence of all there is to admire in the ordinary people who stood up to meet a destiny they did not seek, which changed the course of history to the benefit of all the generations that followed.
I won’t describe what happens here. I’ll just say my first hearing of this song caused me to weep. They were tears of gratitude for the subject of the song and all his fellows; and tears for the beauty and economy of the telling.
Nicely done, Doug; very nicely done.
“Singin' on the Job.” Doug Wintch -- This is something of a concept album for the beloved Salt Lake City-based singer/songwriter, revealed by its subtitle, "Songs for Carpenters, Handymen, and the Not-So-Handy!" Wintch is a carpenter himself, so he knows the territory well.
These songs range from humorous to tear-jerking -- the first represented cleverly by his homage to a certain national home-remodeling chain, "T.H. D'peau" (sound it out), to the touching salute to the Greatest Generation, "Frank the Fighting Seebee."
Got a loved one who is a home-improvement guru who also appreciates a dose of humor and strong storytelling? This is the one.
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