Premier Guitar features affiliate links to help support our content. We may earn a commission on any affiliated purchases.

CD Review: Steve Dawson - "Nightshade"

Featuring stirring performances from a host of superb guitarists (including Kelly Joe Phelps, Bruce Cockburn, Bill Frisell, and Bob Brozman), the album is both an aural delight and an inspiring collection of edgy songs.

Steve Dawson
Nightshade
Black Hen Music


In 2008, Steve Dawson gained national attention for producing Things About Comin’ My Way, a tribute to the Mississippi Sheiks—the pioneering string band founded by the Chatmon brothers in 1930. Featuring stirring performances from a host of superb guitarists (including Kelly Joe Phelps, Bruce Cockburn, Bill Frisell, and Bob Brozman), the album is both an aural delight and an inspiring collection of edgy songs.

Now with Nightshade, the Vancouver-based Dawson proves he has his own story to tell. His songs offer a compelling blend of tight grooves and dark, haunted lyrics, but it’s the guitar playing that stops me in my tracks. Whether he’s fretting gritty solos, playing burning bottleneck blues, laying down wicked Weissenborn licks, or soaring on pedal steel, his timing, tone, and dynamics are impeccable. While always serving the ensemble, Dawson’s multi-faceted picking plays the starring role in this 12-song collection.

If you dig Greg Leisz’s pedal steel, you’ll smile as Dawson sonically conjures a Lava Lamp on “We Still Won the War.” If your thing is early Kelly Joe Phelps or Ben Harper, you’ll hear echoes of their sweetly stinging bar work in “Fairweather Friends,” “Darker Still,” and the album’s title track. Throughout Nightshade, Dawson also draws on Steve Cropper, Leo Kottke, Dominos-era Eric Clapton, and the more pensive side of Jimi Hendrix to create a soulful guitar orchestra.

It’s almost over, but there’s still time to win! Enter Stompboxtober Day 30 for your shot at today’s pedal from SoloDallas!

Read MoreShow less
Is Reading Sheet Music Required to Be a Good Guitarist?
- YouTube

Does the guitar’s design encourage sonic exploration more than sight reading?


Read MoreShow less

Developed specifically for Tyler Bryant, the Black Magick Reverb TB is the high-power version of Supro's flagship 1x12 combo amplifier.

Read MoreShow less

“I’m a fan of the riff,” says Jerry Cantrell. “I’m always collecting ideas, and you never know when they’re going to come, or what they’re going to turn into

Photo by Jon Carver

The 6-string wielding songwriter has often gotten flack for reverberating his classic band’s sound in his solo work. But as time, and his latest, tells, that’s not only a strength, but what both he and loyal listeners want.

The guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jerry Cantrell, who is best known for helming Alice in Chains, one of the most influential bands in hard-rock history, is an affable, courteous conversationalist. He’ll apologize, for instance, when he’s been on a PR mission all afternoon and needs to eat something. “I’m sorry. I’m starving. I’m going to make a BLT while we finish this interview,” he says on a recent Zoom call.

“That’s bacon frying, by the way,” he adds, in case his interviewer was wondering about the sizzling sound in the background.

Read MoreShow less