Guy Clark - Dublin Blues (30th Anniversary) [Blue]

Guy Clark's Dublin Blues turns 30 with this remastered anniversary edition, pressed on 140-gram blue vinyl with a bonus track and a digital download card.

Released in 1995, the album found the Texas songwriter at his most unadorned. By then Clark was already revered by his peers as a writer's writer, and Dublin Blues stripped things back to the essentials: his weathered voice, acoustic guitars and a small circle of trusted players. Producer Miles Wilkinson kept it close and warm, with Sam Bush on mandolin, Darrell Scott moving between guitar and dobro, and harmony vocals from Emmylou Harris and Nanci Griffith.

The title track opens with a longing so plainspoken it hurts, a man in Dublin wishing he were back in Austin. "Stuff That Works," written with Rodney Crowell, is a quiet manifesto for loving the worn and the reliable, and "The Cape" tells of a kid who leaps off the garage roof believing he can fly, a small parable about faith that has outlived its era. "The Randall Knife" closes on a devastating memory of his father.

Thirty years on, these songs still sound like advice from an old friend at the kitchen table. For anyone who loves Townes Van Zandt or Steve Earle, this one belongs on the shelf.