“River Town”
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Every time he steps on stage, Dallas Burrow dedicates a portion of his set to telling a story about his dad. The New Braunfels native has music in his blood, and he likes to share some of that history. One of his favorite stories to tell is about a night in Nashville in the early 70s, when Burrow’s father, Mike Burrow, was hosting Richard Dobson, John Lomax III, and Townes Van Zandt at a pub he ran with his siblings on Elliston Place near the old Exit/In. After a late night shutting down the bar, the foursome hit an after party, where Van Zandt insisted they all become blood brothers to ensure they’d be forever cosmically linked. Everyone agreed, and perhaps through some mystical, intangible power that often propels so much music, Van Zandt’s style has been transfused into Burrow more than any other artist. After telling the story around that night in Nashville, Burrow can’t help but play at least one Townes song during his sets. As he began writing his stellar new LP, Blood Brothers, Burrow’s friend and producer, Jonathan Tyler, encouraged him to finally turn that touching tribute to his dad into a song. That stirring track became the guiding light and philosophy of his 2023 album of the same name, which is to pay homage to his musical roots, while honoring his familial duties as a husband and father.
On the searching, emotive title track, heavy and bold guitar notes interact with a loosely strummed acoustic riff and a star-gazing pedal steel line that give the song an infectious melody. Burrow, in his deep, Cash-like baritone, sings, “Daddy had a scar you wouldn’t believe, like a story he kept up his sleeve/ Sixteen years it took to hear that tale.” While Burrow does a lovely and poetic job setting up the story, it’s the next line that flips the perspective from his father’s world to that of his own: “He said it never would have happened if it weren’t for the booze.” Burrow, on “Blood Brothers,” examines his father’s history, but the true power in the song lies in the effortless translation of his dad’s tale in his own voice. As a four year sober songwriter, Burrow brings a clarity to the song that wasn’t available to him before he got clean. “In the past few years, after spending a lot of my twenties traveling around, being a nomad, I got married and had a son, and my son is now six years old. I got sober. I’m just a different person,” he explains.
In this context, Blood Brothers takes on a different meaning. It suggests that Burrow’s relationship to his lineage and familial history isn’t only related to the past, but bridges generations and guides the world he’s built with his own family. Reaching back into history–even covering one of his dad’s own tunes on the record–Burrow looks forward with pride and excitement. “On this record, I wanted to tell the story of my musical roots, starting with my dad and his influence as a songwriter and the artists he raised me on: Townes, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, and Willis Alan Ramsey,” he explains. “I also wanted to tell the story of my own personal journey and reframe for myself what it means to be a singer-songwriter.” Burrow realized there’s another way; you don’t need to be a night owl boozehound to be an amazing songwriter. There are plenty of ways to tell your story in the daylight. “From my perspective in this day and age, you don't have to sacrifice your whole life and your body, living hard in order to create good music and be a real artist. On Blood Brothers, I'm paying homage to tradition while at the same time embracing what is also important to me in my life as a family man, a present father modeling a healthier lifestyle for my son.”
Even if Dallas Burrow hasn’t always been a positive, forward-looking songwriter, he clearly demonstrates his energetic progression in “Blood Brothers.” Take “Out My Window,” the fourth song and another standout from the album; the honky tonk-blues flavored number cruises along with a slick Stax-inspired horn section and a Wurlitzer piano that conjures the heyday of Muscle Shoals, with Burrow employing his best Dr. John voice, as he sings, “Look out my window and what do I see?/ Things are even stranger than they look on TV/ I’ve got to believe things are gonna be alright/ When my children lay their heads down at night.” This is an anthem for optimists, the musical embodiment of putting good energy into the world in hopes of receiving it in return.
These are stories that are deeply personal to Dallas and his life as a husband and father, yet he sings with a relatability and universality that turns these diary entries into relatable anthems. This is an album for anyone looking for a little bit of hope during these downtrodden times, for people struggling but not buried, willing to pick themselves back up.
Burrow felt his own faith in music revived last year while playing Luckenbach for the first time, the famous venue outside of Fredericksburg, Texas. It’s a rite of passage for Lone Star musicians, so it was a special night for Burrow. Towards the end of his set, he invited his dad on stage to perform a song together. With his wife and son in the crowd and his father beside him on stage, the moment was so special, he had to concentrate all his energy on getting through the song. During a spare moment, though, he managed to look towards his father and say with a big grin, “Man…how cool is this?” For Burrow, it was the literal representation of Blood Brothers right in front of his eyes: His musical influence on stage next to him, and his present and future singing along from the audience.
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