Overwhelming debut.
Singer-guitarist’s Lincoln Durham’s first cd contains eleven songs. It is easy to categorize them as blues, but that would do Durham wrong.
Influences from country-blues are clearly present because of his many different, mostly old guitars, but his often swinging, logically rounded melodies mix a sizeable quantity of singer-songwriter through that. That is a long way away from the Texas State Youth Fiddle Championship, which he won when he was ten.
Durham is only accompanied by two different guitar players, among whom producer Ray Wylie Hubbard, while drummer Rick Richards firmly holds the songs together.
That results in an intriguing combination: due to the contrast with the drums, Durham’s guitars take centre stage, all the more because of the fact that he plays semi-acoustics or slides with a lot of echo.
It results in a sound that is just as spacious as rich with a lot of room for ambiance. Only three times does he play more traditional electric guitars, which results in a fuller, more compact sound.
That soundscape makes Durham’s lyrics attract full attention. They are full of classical, allegorical symbols, but develop into a highly personal secret language because of his obsessed vocals. He cannot only sing, but also sounds emotional from beginning to end.
Durham has travelled form venue to venue for a number of years and has polished his songs to what they are now: just as unpredictable as logically unfolding songs that compel you to listen to them.
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