|
|
|
|
photo by Senor McGuire
download image |
 |
THIS WEARY WAY
by Wayne Scott
in stores now
Features Guy Clark,
Dirk Powell,
Tim O'Brien,
Danny Thompson
FULL LIGHT RECORDS
Year: 2005
Produced by Darrell Scott
This Weary Way has been a long time coming----an album of original songs by, my dad -- Wayne Scott. Growing up on a tobacco farm in Crane's Nest, Kentucky in the 30's and 40's, the eleventh of thirteen children, four themes fill his stories - work, family, church and music - in that order. This recording may be a proud and thankful son helping to document his father's lifework - it is both the least and most that I could do.
This recording may be the documenting of one of the most authentic country artists you've never heard. You be the judge. He is 71 now. He doesn't understand why we have done this recording. Maybe you will. If you do, tell him.
- Darrell Scott
|
tracks:
01. It's The Whiskey That Eases The Pain
02. Sunday With My Son
03. The Writer
04. Sinner
05. This Weary Way
06. I Wouldn't Live In Harlan County
07. When It's Raining After Midnite
08. In The Mountains
09. My Last Bottle of Wine
10. Crash On The Highway
11. Since Jesus Came Into My Heart
12. What I Really Need Is You
13. Folsom Prison Blues
Recorded and mixed by Miles Wilkinson
Mixed at Pleasure Palace and Famous Music, Nashville, TN
Mastered by Randy Leroy and Miles Wilkinson /Final Stage Mastering, Nashville, TN
view liner notes
download album cover
|
|
|
|
It was a calling. That’s the only way to describe the spiritual lure that country music had on Wayne Scott as a young boy growing up in the small Kentucky town of Cranes Nest. When he discovered country music, it satisfied his soul in a way that nothing had before or has since. Every Saturday night, he listened to the Grand Ole Opry, and still does. As he grew older he found patron saints—Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Lefty Frizzell—whose songs would reveal the mystery and majesty of the heartbreak and hope found in the musical format that would shape his life.
“My family was slightly musical,” he says. “Everybody could play something, but I think I had a disease of it. I was born to want to play and sing.”
As a teenager he began to write songs, often skipping school or social events to go off into the woods alone where he would write and practice guitar. Never a fan of school, he left home at sixteen and followed an older brother to Michigan.
“I couldn’t take this rural route no more. I went to Michigan to build cars and get rich. I hated that job. I went from there to the steel mills in Indiana before I finally made it out to California.”
Music was always an integral part of his life, but he often kept his talents to himself. He always had a pen handy to jot down song ideas. It was on the West Coast, at 40 years old, that Wayne finally put a band together and began playing in dusty taverns and roadhouses all over California. That’s where his sons, Denny, Dale, Darrell, Don, and David, were indoctrinated in the ways of country music. They played in his band and learned to share their father’s joy in making music. It’s something that stuck with them—they all became professional musicians.
He played the West Coast circuit for almost twenty years and wrote songs the entire time. But he never played his own songs in public. He gave the crowds what they wanted to hear and what he was paid to play—hits the audience knew and could dance to.
Wayne couldn’t shake his need to write songs. It was and is his calling. It’s the thing he was created to do.
“I’ve always compared songwriting to the night one of my sons was born,” he says. “It’s that kind of a high. To write a song and know that it says exactly what I want it to say is the nicest feeling. That’s the best part of music to me. An encore or bright lights or your name in big letters on the marquee doesn’t compare to finishing a song. There’s also this remarkable release. It’s like having a thorn removed from your side.”
Wayne eventually moved back to his hometown. He’d come full circle. As he was settling back into rural life in Kentucky, his son, Darrell Scott, was becoming one of Nashville’s most respected and successful songwriters and musicians.
Darrell, who learned to play guitar in his father’s band, began writing hits for the likes of Garth Brooks, the Dixie Chicks, Brad Paisley, Sara Evans and Patty Loveless. He learned a lot about country music through the great country songs his dad would sing and play around the house. He was almost grown before he realized that some of those songs, mixed in with tunes by Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, were from his dad’s pen.
One year Wayne made his son a songbook with over a hundred original compositions as a Christmas gift. Darrell recognized something special in his father’s music. He wanted his father to record an album, but the elder Scott was reluctant. He was in approaching 70 and thought his time in the spotlight had passed. Darrell knew that his father had tapped into something elemental with his simple, emotionally direct songwriting style. He would not take no for an answer and eventually was able to get his dad in the studio to record the tracks that would become This Weary Way.
Wayne’s debut album is remarkable in so many ways. It’s the introduction of a compelling writer who’s been honing his craft for over six decades. It’s a traditional music masterpiece that harkens back to an era when country and gospel music were intrinsically intertwined. It comes from a man who understands country music, it’s themes and the way it impacts everyday folks. Some of the finest musicians in Nashville, including Guy Clark, Dirk Powell, Tim O'Brien and Danny Thompson, have contributed their time and talent to this project.
This Weary Way is also a labor of love between a father and son.
“It was dream making this album with my son,” says Wayne. “It couldn’t have been a better experience working with him and all those great musicians. Those Nashville pickers, man, they are good. Sometimes we’d go through a song one time and they’d never miss a lick.”
More than anything, this is an album that has been baptized in Wayne’s lifelong love of country music. These songs have been sanctified by his commitment to the rich history and enduring importance of a distinctly American music form.
When Wayne is writing and singing about heartbreak (“It’s The Whiskey That Eases The Pain”), family (“Sunday With My Son”) and spirituality (“Since Jesus Came Into My Life”), he does it was a sincerity that’s real and a conviction that’s unshakable.
Those qualities make his music unmistakably country. Even more importantly they give him the ability to communicate intense feelings of love and loss in ways that resonate with a broad audience. He believes that music serves a higher purpose, that it helps people make it through the tough times. He writes what he believes and he believes in what he writes. That’s the mark of a great songwriter. And Wayne Scott is a great songwriter.
PUBLICITY :
Lotos Nile Media
PO Box 23050 | Nashville, TN 37202
Kissy Black | kissyblack@lotosnile.com
|
|
|
|
|
Wayne Scott
This Weary Way
FLR-0502
UPC: 829372000827
Produced by Darrell Scott
Recorded and mixed by Miles Wilkinson
Mixed at Pleasure Palace and Famous Music, Nashville, TN
Mastered by Randy Leroy at Final Stage Mastering, Nashville, TN
“It’s The Whiskey That Eases The Pain” (duet with Guy Clark) (3:53)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music[BMI] administered by Bug Music
Recorded in Darrell’s living room, Hermitage, TN
“Sunday With My Son” (3:08)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music[BMI] administered by Bug Music
Recorded in Darrell’s living room, Hermitage, TN
“The Writer” (1:29)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music[BMI] administered by Bug Music
Recorded in Darrell’s living room, Hermitage, TN
“Sinner” (2:45)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music [BMI] administered by Bug Music
Recorded at Bedrock Studio, Nashville, TN
“This Weary Way” (4:07)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music[BMI] administered by Bug Music
Recorded in Darrell’s living room, Hermitage, TN
“I Wouldn’t Live In Harlan County” (3:38)
Wayne Scott / Darrell Scott, Harlan County Music [BMI] /
Songs of Ashwood/Famous Music Corp. [ASCAP]
Recorded in Darrell’s living room, Hermitage, TN
|
“When It’s Raining After Midnight” (4:18)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music [BMI] administered by Bug Music
Recorded in Wayne’s living room, Cranes Nest, KY.
“In The Mountains” (2:04)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music [BMI] administered by Bug Music
Recorded at Bedrock Studio, Nashville, TN
“My Last Bottle Of Wine” (3:42)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music [BMI] administered by Bug Music
Recorded at Bedrock Studio, Nashville, TN
“Since Jesus Came Into My Heart” (2:54)
Wayne Scott, Harlan County Music [BMI]
Recorded in Darrell’s living room, Hermitage, TN
“What I Really Need Is You” (3:03)
Wayne Scott / Darrell Scott, Harlan County Music [BMI] /
Songs of Ashwood/Famous Music [ASCAP]
Recorded at Bedrock Studio, Nashville, TN
“Folsom Prison Blues” (3:23)
Johnny Cash, House Of Cash, Inc. [ASCAP]
Recorded live by Miles Wilkinson and Mervin Luke at Douglas Corner Cafe, Nashville, TN
|
This has been a long time coming----an album of original songs by, my dad - Wayne Scott. Growing up on a tobacco farm in Crane's Nest, Kentucky in the 30's and 40's, the eleventh of thirteen children, four themes fill his stories- work, family, church and music-probably in that order. He tells of a sacred tree that he would climb as a boy to escape whatever heat he was in at home, or to reflect on the end of a long workday, or a place to question god and love, or to sing for the first time on his own, away from the fields, the house or porch singing, playing and working with his family- alone in his sacred tree. I imagine that tree to be the place where he put his first poems and songs together-giving voice to what he'd process between Southern Baptist church music and the Grand Ole Opry. I imagine that tree is where he started a dream of being a country music artist.
He was and is a country music artist. He'd sing and write his songs in the closet while working car factories in Dearborn, Michigan through the 50's. He'd sing and write while working steel mills of Gary, Indiana through the 60's or installing chain link fences in Southern California through the 70's- this is time measured in decades, folks.
Five children, all boys, were born from '53 to '68. At times he worked 3 jobs (remember those themes: work, family, church and music?). While music was down the list of priorities, he inspired all of his boys with music. It took me until nearly adulthood to realize those great songs he'd sing at home were not all Hank Williams'- they were his songs influenced by Hank, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. (can you name 3 more influential country artists to be influenced by?)
By the mid 70's, with the boys grown or nearly, he did step out and play music in honky tonks, truck stop bars, bowling alley lounges, mexican restaurants, taverns and dives from Alaska to New Mexico, but mostly Southern California. But, never... never doing his own songs. The bars had become another version of "working for the man"- the car-plant foreman, the steel mill boss, or the nightclub owner- music to keep people drinking and
dancing, by performing country standards and songs of the country radio playlist. My brothers and I played with him at that time. (I was 14- I learned to play lead guitar and pedal steel by playing with him 5 sets a night) His own songs stayed in the closet, for the most part, until now.
This recording may be a proud and thankful son helping to document his father's lifework- it is both the least and most that I could do.
and
This recording may be the documenting of one of the most authentic country artists you've never heard. You be the judge. He is 71 now. He doesn't understand why we have done this recording. Maybe you will. If you do, tell him.
-Darrell Scott
When I was about seven years old. I was going back to school. I came home for lunch. I could make it if I ran fast, both ways and ate fast, I was good at both of them back then. On the way back, I saw this ditch about 4 ft. deep. Nothing in it so I got an idea. I had always heard of ditching school, so I jumped in the ditch. In my state of mind I had to stay there all afternoon. If I came out, Mom could see me from home, neighbors could see me in another direction and the school, yet another. I was pin down. The only thing that happened the whole afternoon. An old lady came looking for her cow, late in the afternoon. She would yell sook heifer, sook heifer. She kept getting louder, and louder and closer. I thought sure she was coming to me. Anyway, she missed about 20 ft. Somehow I finally got to high school. The best part of it was getting back to ditchin school. I would go into the woods there on school property and try my best to write songs. It was so pretty, the wind the birds. I could tell when the class was over, or the ball game was over. I was near and so far away. I was about 30 years old, I figured out I should keep these songs. I started keeping them at about 30.
There’s an old joke that always guided me about my songs. An old maid about as old as I am now. HA! Said when she was allot younger she tried sex one time and decided it wasn’t worth a dam. So she’d just be an old maid. So that was me with my songs. Other than my sons, I didn’t want to bother anybody with them. Since I am not a teacher, I can say it my way. We are full of songs and stories. If we don’t write them, they won’t be written. Don’t go anywhere without your pen. I still carry mine. Don’t be like me and they old maid.
This brings it down to, the biggest dream of it all. Just listen to Darrell and allot of his best friends. I can still see each and everyone of them in the next booth or on their mike. Thanks son and everybody in here.
-Wayne Scott
Tim O’Brien appears courtesy of Sugar Hill Records
Casey Driessen appears courtesy of Sugar Hill Records
Verlon Thompson appears courtesy of VNS Records
Cover and back photos by Senor McGuire
Inside photos by Wayne’s family
“
|
|
|
|
|
Wayne Scott – This Weary Way
“…he definitely knows his way around a lyric and a hook. It may be a labor of love for Darrell to produce this for his 71-year-old dad, but it’s an authentically hard-country listening pleasure for the rest of us.”
Music Row Magazine
“CDs by Neil Young, Lori McKenna, Wayne Scott are the most played CDs in my office and car players right now. Wayne Scott has just released his first album -- at age 71. And it's a pretty damned good chronicle of a way of life that's passing from the American scene. The life of the raw-boned, strong, blue-collar laborer who raises a family to aspire to a better life than he has known and does the best he can. It is not a pretty album, but that's not what country music should always be. It's real, and is what it is.”
CMT Chet Flippo
“This Weary Way envelops over six decades of spirituality, family, heartbreak and triumph. Influenced by legends such as Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams, this recording documents one of the most authentic country artists you've never heard…”
Cybergrass
“Ten seconds into the first tune, "It's the Whiskey That Eases the Pain," I was shouting "oh yeah" at the top of my lungs. I also knew this was hard-edged, tough and real old country/bluegrass music that only comes down the road once in a great while. Wayne has written some superlative tunes which have been creatively arranged and enhanced by all the great back-up boys.” Thanks again for the inspired music.”
D. Higgs, Bluegrass Breakdown
“…a tremendous disc of pure country and gospel”
The City Paper
“Nearly all of the baker's dozen tunes would probably have sounded right at home at the Grand Ole Opry 60 years ago. Highlights here include a duet with Guy Clark on "It's the Whiskey That Eases the Pain" and the one non-original, a killer version of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" recorded live in Nashville. But all these songs provide a soundtrack to the hardscrabble life of a real country man.”
Chicago Sun Times
“Wayne Scott’s first CD delivers a lifetime worth of music in one helping…This Weary Way shows that it’s never too late to record a great CD.”
Vintage Guitar Magazine
“Wayne Scott’s This Weary Way is the best new Hank Williams record I’ve heard since Williams died on New Years Eve, 1952…The gospel tunes, too, are simply perfection. If there is any justice in this world, Scott’s songs will come to be embraced by future generations of country & western fans like “Stairway to Heaven” is by rock fans, and “This Land is Your Land” is by hippies and left-wingers everywhere.”
Senior Spectrum
"THIS WEARY WAY is a classic, worth the wait.”
Savvy Insider
“…you can just feel the natural talent, warmth, and wonderful livid-in quality in Wayne’s voice. The pace and style is back porch rocking chair as the sun goes down…A satisfying record.”
Americana UK
“Honk if Hank Williams ever made you cry. Honk at anyone who gets between you and a copy of This Weary Way by Wayne Scott (as in Darrell Scott’s father). I thought I was listening to some lost Hank Williams basement tapes until I heard Guy Clark join in on the opening track of “It’s The Whiskey That Eases the Pain”. Then I realized - this is something very special. Wayne Scott’s voice and songs (both national treasures) remind us of a time when music was pure in sound and soulful as a misty mountain holler.”
Huntsman Networks
“..a spiritual set of old-style country music delivered in Scott’s authoritative baritone, which falls somewhere between Johnny Cash and Guy Clark…”
The Houston Chronicle
“This album is a stunner, …“I Wouldn’t Live in Harlan County,” which sounds about a hundred years old, is as bitter (and shatteringly moving) a remembrance of the old home place as could be expressed in a song. It is a knife to the heart. It is a song Hank himself would have been proud to write. Having gone that far, let’s pull out all the stops and put it this way: It’s one of the finest country songs anybody anywhere has ever written. And what the hell, let’s mince no more words: This Weary Way is a stone masterpiece.”
Bluegrass Works
“This is the REAL deal..accept no substitutes. It may have all this time for Wayne to make his debut with his own songs but cherish each one, they are gems!!!”
Country Music Facts & News
“Scott's long years provide an unusually rich history from which to draw…Scott's music is a piece with his early influences and his early growth as a songwriter, yet they remain unyellowed in their exposition of the universal subjects of faith, family, work and libation. After carrying around his songwriting catalog in private for so many years, Scott may be surprised at how strongly others take to his tunes.”
Angry Country
"imagine the music that would’ve been lost if no one had ever recorded Johnny Cash. It’s no exaggeration to say that the world almost experienced an equivalent loss when Wayne Scott’s songs were unrecorded and largely unheard until the 2005 release of Scott’s first album, This Weary Way, as Scott reaches the age of 71.”
Music Spectrum
“It's a doozy with a nice mournful, poetic feel that all y'all fans of Robert Earl Keen or Kris Kristofferson will probably love. For me, the standout track was "Sundays With My Son," a very Clark-like weeper about an absentee dad whose big regrets include writing songs instead of playing with his kids... But hey, when the songs turn out this nice, I think the world will understand. This album is definitely worth checking out!”
Joe Sixpack’s Record Riot
Arresting honky-tonk and folk-country debut by 71-year-old rookie * * * * (4 of 5 stars)
At 71, Wayne Scott is a few years older than most debut artists. But given that every such artist has the front part of their life to write their coming-out, Scott's long years provide an unusually rich history from which to draw. He played country standards and radio hits in West Coast honky-tonks and truck stops, but all the time writing original material that was mainly kept to himself…the elder Scott dips into a vast reservoir of material, and sings it with a life full of experience. After carrying around his songwriting catalog in private for so many years, Scott may be surprised at how strongly others take to his tunes.
FolkAlley
“WAYNE SCOTT / THIS WEARY WAY. Original tunes by SCOTT and there are some outstanding compositions in this collection. Accompaniment includes, steel guitar in the tradition of Don Helms, mandolin, accordion, djembe, acoustic guitar, upright bass, resonator guitar & upright bass. The sound is roots country. 13 tunes. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.”
Honky Tonkin Music
“When an artist releases their first CD at age 71, you can be sure of two things. 1) He's got a few life experiences to write about and 2) He's probably not doing it for the chicks. In Wayne Scott's new CD, This Weary Way, the pure intentions shine through. It's remarkable in it's simplicity and depth. It's obvious that the soul in the writing and performances is hard-earned. The production, by son Darrell Scott, one of the top singer/songwriters working today, never hits a wrong note. He calls on players like Guy Clark, Tim O'Brien and Danny Thompson to make the production fit the music and songs perfectly. The only question now, is if Wayne Scott is this good at 71, how much better will he be at 81?”
Big Howdy
“This is Americana music at it’s best; written because it had to be, played because it needed to be heard and performed with an amazingly humble talent. This album had to be made because this talent, held back for 71 years, could be held back no longer. What I can say to Wayne Scott, however, is thank you for the gift of your songs. You are more of a teacher than you realize.”
Kynd Music
PO Box 40100
Nashville, TN 37204
615-385-0001
John Condon
www.waynescottmusic.com
www.darrellscott.com
www.kingeasyrecords.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
