Darrell Scott gets to do it his way (or his way, or his way)
by Jewly Hight
Darrell Scott holds the enviable distinction of having a bunch of musical options and appearing to genuinely enjoy them all. Any given week, he could be out playing theaters and festivals on the singer-songwriter-folk-newgrass circuit, solo or backed by an acoustic or electric combo. Or writing for an album of his, or co-writing an album not of his, or both. Or playing an acoustic stringed instrument or three on a session. Or leading somebody's road band. (He's had to turn down band leader gigs with Joan Baez and Alison Krauss and Robert Plant.)
It makes sense, then, that Scott would have two consecutive nights at the Station Inn to do what he does—the first amplified and the second unplugged. "Even those two nights are not gonna capture the whole deal, nor does it need to," he says.
Scott wasn't exactly green when he moved to Nashville in the early '90s. He'd already played in his family's country band, in a Canadian country outfit and in the Boston honky-tonk and singer-songwriter scenes, co-written with Guy Clark and recorded a never-released album with Norbert Putnam. But playing sessions—at least after an initial credit card-dependent year—was the first thing to work for him here. And he was OK with that.
"What I always wanted to do was just write songs and put out my own records," he says. "And even if it took playing on beer commercials or Eggo [commercials], which I did, or sessions or demos...I always knew what I was actually going to do was put out my own records."
"I walked into town with a $300 acoustic guitar," Scott says. So it's a bit of a mystery how an electric and pedal steel player without any serious acoustic gear came to be known as an acoustic guy. "I think, because I could fool around on mandolin, I could fool around on dobro, I could fool around on banjo," Scott says. "So I think because I could quasi-get around on all those, I became, to some people, someone to call, because they didn't have to call two or three people."
Switching instruments was all right with him, too: "You'd think I have some grand plan about it, but I haven't. I've just kind of taken one step at a time, and really gone through doors that were open. I'm not much of a 'bang my head against the door wishing someone would let me in' [person]. That's why, for example, when the acoustic world said, 'Hey, come this way,' then it was like 'OK, hey Telecaster, go hang up in the closet,' and I'll walk that way."
Scott did start making his own "simple little records," as he calls them; first for Sugar Hill, then for his own label, Full Light. And it was after that that commercial country acts like the Dixie Chicks and Travis Tritt started noticing his songs. On his first album alone, they and others found earthy gravity—in "Heartbreak Town" and "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive"—and bluesy good humor—in "It's a Great Day to Be Alive" and plenty he's written since. Again, cool with him.
"The truth is, I was always writing what I felt like at any given time," Scott says. "And if that translated to well-known country acts recording it, or if it just transferred to me recording them or more independent artist-people recording them or nobody recording them, it didn't really exactly matter to me."
These days, everyone knows he can play and write desirable songs, and he hasn't abandoned all that. But he's also doing more of his own touring and making albums he wants to make—most recently 2008's covers set Modern Hymns. People are paying attention to all that, too.
"I'm very aware of how fortunate I am in that doing what looks like, I guess, whatever I want to do, following the creative impulse, has allowed me to also have money enough to raise kids and put out records," he says.
But if he had to choose? "It would probably be the singer-songwriter doing my own stuff, if I needed to narrow it down and basically someone said, 'You have to just do one thing, so what is it?' But of course no one's doing that, nor would they."
Email music@nashvillescene.com.
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