Reviews for Steve Dawson

"Bluesy, inventive, and highly charged, Steve Dawson’s fifth solo release is a feast of acoustic, electric, slide, National steel, 12-string, baritone, Weissenborn, and pedal steel guitars."

Steve Dawson’s guitar squawks the opening of his fifth solo release with an urgency that is sustained throughout the album. The Canadian string virtuoso and two-time Juno award winner is both performer and producer here.

Although well-known in Canada, Steve Dawson has yet to make a real dent in the American music scene. Considering how everyone here seems to continually drool and cum all over themselves for Americana pop, you'd think they'd all be swarming around Dawson like flies on sherbet. Oh well, once again the folks in Canada get bonus points for producing and recognizing real talent.

A mere few months into this year has already determined a successful 2011 for Vancouver-based producer and recording artist, Steve Dawson.

Canadian blues-roots veteran Steve Dawson has wrapped work on his fifth solo album Nightshade, due out April 19 through Black Hen.

Over the past decade or so Steve Dawson has become such an indelible fixture on the Canadian musical landscape that it’s tempting to take him for granted. One of the drawbacks of being so talented is that Dawson makes everything he does sound so effortless.

Some have dubbed Dawson the "T Bone Burnett of Canada." This lofty praise may actually sell the multi-talented Dawson short. Like Burnett, he is a marvelour producer, but Dawson is a more extraordinarily versatile, expressive string man and as capable a songwriter. With Dawson, it's like getting the combination of T Bone and string man Buddy Miller in one package.

Don't know if Steve Dawson has always been so hot a commodity, but he certainly is now. Between sitting in, producing, writing, engineering, and then gathering impressive as hell tribute concerts, he also manages to put out solo releases like Nightshade.

Stepping away from all his wonderful production work for anyone rootsy in Canada, Dawson amps it up a bit this time and comes in like a turned up singer/songwriter with a roots bent and a wider appeal. Solidly fun listening date that falls just to the right of outsider music and seems open to being a good time for all.

“Telescope” was a tremendous effort by Steve Dawson, and is an album that still finds its way into my CD player every month or so. I was surprised to learn that ey came out with a new album, “Nightshade”, that looks to top even the lofty example of the aforementioned title.

Multi-instrumentalist Steve Dawson is the man behind Vancouver’s Black Hen Music and four of this year’s Juno-nominated folk musicians. His cohesive fifth solo album showcases his excellent bluesy guitar-playing (acoustic, electric and slide), over which he tells dark stories in an easy, welcoming tone.

It’s sometimes hard to pinpoint Steve Dawson through the smooth fabric of his music; now on his fifth Black Hen solo record, this sideman, producer, record label owner and gifted multi-instrumentalist has so adeptly woven the threads of multiple musical interests into his records that they sound like addendums to his productions for other people.

After hearing several of the past few releases from Black Hen Music from artists like Jim Byrnes, the Sojourners, and the wonderful Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Project, all of which were guided and supported by producer/guitarist Steve Dawson, I was curious about his own recordings.

Putting a new Steve Dawson album on the stereo is like having an old friend come over to visit: never a dull moment, and drinks are certainly in order. Though that is true with Nightshade, Dawson’s fifth solo album, you should be wary of his unassuming voice, stellar cast of musicians and all-around good-guy charm: Nightshade has a bit of a dark streak going on.

Steve Dawson’s fifth solo release leaves little doubt why he’s the local roots scene’s producer of choice: Nightshade is a gorgeously subtle recording, full of intimate shadings and nuanced details.

One magazine has referred to Steve Dawson as "the T-Bone Burnett of Canada." I tend to think of him more as a Canadian version of Ry Cooder. And I love Ry Cooder.
Whatever comparisons are made, this might be one of the best albums coming out this year from a singer-songwriter unfamiliar to a lot of Americans.

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It used to be called a ‘studio tan’, that milky pallor that emphasizes the white skin of working musicians. In another era, they might have be mistaken for aristocracy but in this world, they’re just starving artists who don’t get enough vitamin D. Musicians aren’t inherently evil or drawn to the dark side.

Back in 1999, a friend who knows my taste in music introduced me to a duo called Zubot and Dawson. Their first album, Strang, established their distinctive sound—a unique blend of Steve Dawson’s Weissenborn lap guitar and Jesse Zubot’s violin. I was hooked!

Steve Dawson's pedal steel guitar flourishes outside the country genre, and much like jazz, sets a mood you can’t relinquish.

Played horizontally, the pedal steel is a variation of slide guitar, with a series of foot pedals and knee levers that raise or lower the pitch of the individual ten strings. It was a staple of many a Western swing or country band for decades.

Steve Dawson hails now from Vancouver, B.C. which is not exactly pedal steel guitar territory, however a number of years ago he received a grant from the Canada Council For The Arts to study pedal steel with Greg Leisz one of the foremost players of said instrument.

Of the two new albums this Vancouver based musician/producer/songwriter will release this year, this one is completely instrumental and completely experimental. Dawson recently learned the pedal steel guitar and decided that he wanted to make an album to showcase it and also take it out of its country genre while doing new things with the instrument.

Although still virtually unknown in the United States, Steve Dawson is already a much sought after producer, player, and songwriter in Canada. This is one of two albums Dawson is releasing in 2008. Telescope is an album of tracks he recorded to showcase his newly acquired skills on the pedal steel guitar.

Although widely respected and rather successful in Canada where he resides, Steve Dawson remains relatively unknown in the United States. This fact will undoubtedly change over time. Telescope is the companion album to Dawson's recently released Waiting For the Lights To Come Up...mainly because both were recorded during the same time period...but that is where the similarities end.

If an artist is going to make an instrumental album and expect people to listen to it as something other than background music, it had better be darn interesting. Thank god Steve Dawson was aware of that when making this album. Telescope is full of sonic subtleties in the mix that encourage (if not demand) close and repeated listens.

Steve Dawson's Telescope is the funky, jazzy counterpart to Waiting For The Lights To Come Up, the first of two albums recorded simultaneously. The Vancouver folk guru left all the experimental alt-country jazz jingles for this spontaneous, mash-up of a record.

Though used sparingly throughout a spectrum of musical genres, the pedal steel guitar has found itself by and large attached to the country, western and roots genres. Leave it to award-winning Canadian producer and guitarist Steve Dawson to plunge the pedal steel front and centre as the lead in the world of jazz and rock music.

Steve Dawson plays a mean guitar, in this case several guitars actually, from pedal steel, to acoustic to baritone and slide guitar, and even adds in banjo, ukulele and a few other instruments as he puts out a wonderful new instrumental album Telescope.

A colour photograph of a Baldwin Fun Machine—a cheesy electronic organ much favoured by pop ironists—decorates the inside cover of Steve Dawson's all-instrumental Telescope. But the real focus of the prolific bandleader and producer's second release this year, after February's song-oriented Waiting for the Lights to Come Up, is a machine that's hardly any fun at all.

For a city-dweller—Dawson hails from Vancouver, BC—this record is thoroughly rustic. Spare, honest arrangements frame a series of generally well-crafted songs throughout this, Dawson’s second solo release (and first of two expected to drop this year).

Stealing the show with a pedal steel guitar – who would’ve thunk?

Here's your tax dollar going to great use. Vancouver's Dawson, already one of the country's best multi-instrumentalists and producers, received a Canada Council grant to learn the pedal steel in 2005. He was tutored by the renowned Greg Leisz and the results are in this all-instrumental disc. Instead of country, it's made up of all sorts of inventive and epic playing.

Steve Dawson is, of course, the prolific Vancouver producer, musician and composer who's become a veritable one-man roots music factory the last few years. This latest solo offering, recorded at the same and with the same crack band as last February's Waiting for the Lights to Come Up, is his study of the steel guitar and Dawson credits American steel master Greg Leitz for teaching him.

For a city-dweller—Dawson hails from Vancouver, BC—this record is thoroughly rustic. Spare, honest arrangements frame a series of generally well-crafted songs throughout this, Dawson’s second solo release (and first of two expected to drop this year).

In his Vancouver recording studio known as the Henhouse, Steve Dawson sits down behind an instrument that's played with the hands, knees and feet. It's a pedal steel guitar, and as Dawson confidently finds his way around the instrument's strings, levers and pedals, its unmistakable high lonesome wail fills the room.

The Vancouver guitar master doesn't include here the subtle electronic flourishes that showed up on " We Belong to the Gold Coast" (2006) Instead, Dawson goes on a tour of American musical genres. On " Fire Somewhere" , it is back to blues basics, bending strings and deploying power cords with quite authority.

Steve Dawson's Henhouse
By Amanda Ash

Played horizontally, the pedal steel is a variation of slide guitar, with a series of foot pedals and knee levers that raise or lower the pitch of the individual ten strings. It was a staple of many a Western swing or country band for decades.

This is one of two recordings Steve Dawson put together a band to record, both being released this year.

The last song on Steve Dawson’s first of two albums to be released this year Waiting For The Lights To Come Up is called ‘Swinging In A Hammock,’ which just about aptly sums up the feel of this album.

Here’s a neat little record, from Black Hen Records. Steve Dawson’s new album is due on February 5, and it reveals yet another solid Canadian singer-songwriter. I don’t know what they put in the water up there, but whatever it is, it’s working.

Vancouver guitarist Steve Dawson doesn't recall ever having a burning desire to start a record label -- he's been too busy between extended stays on the road with fiddler Jesse Zubot and gaining valuable studio experience.

Is there a harder-working musician in Canada than Steve Dawson? This multi-tasking renaissance man runs an independent record label (Black Hen), is an in-demand, award-winning producer (Kelly Joe Phelps, Jenny Whiteley) and session musician, and a prolific artist in his own right.

For Steve Dawson, learning the pedal steel couldn’t have been more exciting. With this newfound instrument, Vancouver’s folk/blues guru churned out enough material for two albums, the first being Waiting For The Lights To Come Up.

Vancouver will never rival Nashville in terms of sheer density of musicians per square kilometre, but it is—as Steve Earle once famously said of the capital of country music—a guitar town. Our city is home to a variety of six-string specialists, some acclaimed and others obscure, and of the former the most well-rounded might well be Steve Dawson.

Steve Dawson doesn't want for work - the Vancouver producer and string-thing sideman keeps busy with projects galore. This year, he has his own albums to do, starting with the dashing roots music of Waiting for the Lights to Come Up, with Telescope still to come.

Canadian export Steve Dawson has ably demonstrated that there are few (if any) instruments that he isn’t capable of

Like Colin Linden, Steve Dawson is a protean talent and triple threat as a songwriter, musician and producer.

Waiting for the Lights to Come Up showcases all three talents in abundance. It's the four-time Juno winner's third solo release since 2001 (he released three others with Jesse Zubot). And it's one of two he will be releasing in 2008.

As if running his label Black Hen Music wasn't enough, Steve Dawson (the one from Vancouver, Canada, not to be confused with the one from Idaho) decided to record two albums worth of material in one year. Most of the songs were recorded in the same sessions using the same musicians, and the first of the pair of albums, Waiting For the Lights to Come Up, is scheduled to be released February 5th.

The first of two Steve Dawson releases slated to come out this year, Waiting for the Lights to Come Up is the third solo record from this Vancouver-based multi-instrumentalist/slide guitar master/producer/record label exec/general overachiever.

In regard to most successful musicians, a work ethic is practically immeasurable. Quality and quantity often interchange with critics and fans alike overemphasizing the latter and its “importance” toward an artist’s reputation. There are some artists like Scott Walker who release one album every ten years or so, maintaining a prolific status without showing any signs of selling out.

Vancouver musician Steve Dawson is probably best known for his work as half of the duo Zubot and Dawson who did a stint backing up Kelly Joe Phelps. He is also a successful studio musician and producer.

Dynamically rich and tasteful would be a great way to begin explaining how this new CD from Steve Dawson sounds. Having paid his dues as a producer for years in various Canadian recording studios, Steve has been actively releasing solo projects for well over 10 years. His attention to detail and craftsmanship as a songwriter and producer really shine on this new album.

An award-winning producer, indefatigable musician, songwriter and maestro of all things strung and fretted, Steve Dawson proves yet again to be every bit as accomplished in front of the boards as behind with Waiting for the Lights to Come Up, a treasure trove of dusty, weathered roots gold, rendered in both tough (check out the feverish, frightful slow-burn growl of Fire Somewhere) and tender tone

Waiting for the Lights to Come Up

Black Hen Music

Genre: roots

Mood: down-home and laidback

Good for: porch parties and barbecues east of Main

Story: one of two albums Dawson will release this year. The Vancouver-based singer/ songwriter/producer has worked with Jim Byrnes, Kelly Joe Phelps, Jenny Whiteley, and more. He was the Dawson half of neo-bluegrass duo Zubot and Dawson

The born-and-raised Vancouverite is a whiz on the guitar -- be it acoustic, electric, pedal steel, or slide. He can sing strongly and he writes a mean melody. He is a powerhouse of efficiency, using his recent time in the recording studio to record not one, but two very different albums. And he still manages to tour, play on other people's albums, and be a dad to his toddler of a daughter.

Steve Dawson loves the old, the funky and the weird.

The Vancouver guitarist/singer/ songwriter -- best known as half of Juno-winning Zubot and Dawson -- collects vintage Hawaiian music 78s. And antique pump organs. And he adores the sound of el-cheapo Silvertone electric guitars, popularized by Sears in the 1950s and '60s.

When Vancouver musician Steve Dawson decided to record a new solo album this year, he had a couple of ideas for the overall sound. The first was for a record of roots songs, featuring Dawson’s singing; the second was for an instrumental album tapping into his current fascination with the pedal steel guitar.

Steve Dawson already showed up for a Sunday morning coffee, and I gave you some broad strokes about his upcoming release, Waiting for the Lights to Come Up. Dawson's solo work has always been received well by critics, but with the addition of a stellar band and a desire to write songs for them, Dawson might finally get some exposure.

Dawson's ensemble evokes the band's best

This album feels like two projects mashed together. Ten tracks are instrumental, five are songs. The songs are bluesy and urgent. Dawson's dry voice is a nicely expressive instrument in these. His writing is wry and knowing. The instrumentals, an intriguing lot, are mostly tone poems featuring Dawson on what he calls "guitars and guitar like things" plus loops and sonic textures.

Steve Dawson is easily comparable to Daniel Lanois.
While both are musical geniuses, the bulk of their
brilliance is usually hidden under the names of other
artists through songwriting credits, production and
engineering. Lanois has certainly released a fine
collection of solo albums, but his production work with
U2 and Peter Gabriel among others has garnered him

Ranging from rustic roots rock to a more humid slack key instrumental guitar sound, Vancouver, Canada based Steve Dawson proves masterful at mixing guitar sounds, new and vintage on his 2005 CD. We Belong To The Gold Coast features fifteen track of acoustic guitars, keyboards and light percussion with several tracks featuring Dawson’s vocals, which remind of The Band’s Robbie Robertson.

Between his non stop work as a producer (Jim Byrnes, Jenny Whiteley), collaborative musician (Zubot and Dawson, Great Uncles of the Revolution) and sideman, (Kelly Joe Phelps, Gil Scott- Heron, David Lindley), it's a wonder Steve Dawson has any fresh material to cultivate.

Five of the 15 tracks on this latest disc from the multi-instrumentalist, man-of-many-bands, Steve Dawson, have vocals from he himself. The fella has quite a nice voice by the way. The rest as you guessed are instrumentals. However the full warmth and essence of the disc can be summed up almost entirely by one track alone. Head straight to number 11.

One of the most innovative resonator guitar stylists in North America, Vancouver-based Steve Dawson, has plenty on his plate. The 33-year-old has been composing, recording, and touring with long-time partner, fiddler Jesse Zubot, in the Juno award winning ensemble Zubot and Dawson, and also with the avant-garde folk outfit The Great Uncles of the Revolution.

An absolutely masterful reduction of ancient and modern guitar-based folk, blues and country music forms, rendered with great panache by Vancouver-based, Juno-award winning slide guitar whiz Dawson, We Belong to the Gold Coast is an oblique tribute to the Hawaiian slack-string guitar and steel guitar style from which this instrumental wizard derives much inspiration.

Quite simply one of a handful of steel-string guitar players who can create magic, Steve Dawson is well known for his work in various Juno Award-winning bands, playing everything from folk to blues to avante-garde. Turns out he's also a pretty fine singer, with a knack for panning the kind of unhurried folk/pop a la Ry Cooder and David Lindley that once ruled in southern California.

"On Bug Parade, Steve's fine fingerpicking guitar work is front and center... Dawson demonstrates his prodigious slide skills on several cuts, notably "Peddlar and his Wife" and coaxes some fascinating, sitarlike sounds from his Weissenborn on "Into My Room". His clean, rhythmic playing clearly owes something to Leo Kottke...

Steve Dawson could never be accused of shirking his homework when it comes to expanding his musical horizons.

The Vancouver musician, producer, record label founder and songwriter was an acknowledged expert on most of the stringed family when he decided a few years back to pursue the pedal steel guitar -- a deceptively challenging instrument and one of the few that he hadn't already mastered.

Recorded at both Vancouver’s the Factory Studios and in his home studio the Henhouse, Steve Dawson’s second release this year is a pedal steel-infused instrumental ride through this prolific B.C. songwriter’s musical mind.

Vancouver-based singer-songwriter Steve Dawson wears many hats and wears all of them very well. He’s a much sought after studio musician, a studio owner, record producer and owner of roots-centred Black Hen Records (about to celebrate its 10th anniversary with 38 releases to date). To one-and-a-half-year-old Casey, he’s just plain dad.

Humble beginnings

Steve Dawson is a simple man, with two distinct musical passions – multi–instrumentalism and seeking out amazing playing partners.