Take the time to hear what Dusty Wright has to say

 By Henry Lipput

You would have been mistaken if you thought the title song on Dusty Wright’s 2018 album Gliding Towards Oblivion would be about the affects that humanity was having on our planet and where we‘re headed if nothing is done. But it really wasn’t. However, with his cover of Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” last year it became abundantly clear where his concerns lie as the song was presented as a tribute to those fighting climate change.

On his serious and extremely tuneful new album, Can Anyone Hear Me? (Pet Rock/Bandcamp), Wright goes all in on writing protest songs about (among other things) climate change, gun violence, and child abuse. (“Awareness“ songs might be a better way to describe them because what he’s protesting is our lack of awareness and action on these issues.) 

Because some of the songs, like the opening track “Rain Rain” (a hopeful song despite having been written on a rainy, dreary day in March during a NYC lockdown) are not obviously part of the protest genre, I’m reminded of what Dylan said to the Royal Albert Hall audience during his 1966 tour of England: “They’re all protest songs.” 

Wright, in a voice that recalls the late, great Harry Chapin, plays acoustic and electric guitars, eBow, mellotron, harmonica, and percussion on the new album. He is joined by singers and musicians who are very much in tune with him and his words.  They give Can Anyone Hear Me? an early Americana vibe not unlike post-motorcycle crash Dylan albums like John Wesley Harding.

One of the most striking songs on Can Anyone Hear Me? is “Book Of Tears” a song Wright has said came about after the horrific mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. He seems to be asking: If there’s a Book Of Love, why shouldn’t there be a Book Of Tears? “I found this book/With so many names/The pages were all filled with pain/Who has read/The Book Of Tears?”

“It Makes No Sense” is also about gun violence, especially as it concerns the young victims and it’s also about the hunger children face in the richest country in the world. On “Broken Birds” Wright sings of “fractured wings” and “shattered dreams” as he addresses child abuse and the terrible harm it does to a child’s future. He hopes they can find the strength to hold on to their dreams and try to fly.

The full band “Can Anyone Hear Me?,” with its Byrds-like jangle, is a plea for recognition for those who are ignored or feared because of their economic status, color, or what country they‘re arrived from. “You can buy more guns/And build more walls/But the hate in your heart/Will be the end of us all.”

Far be it from me to tell someone how to put together a track listing, but the joyful, hopeful, rocking “New Year Bliss” should have been the last song on Can Anyone Hear Me? Written and recorded when things in this country looked especially bleak and now (with a vaccine and a new resident in the White House) it looks like what was once a dream is now a reality. With birds singing and applause at the end, it’s a wonderful wish for a new beginning.

Next time: There are no fools like the New Fools.