He wanted to preserve those moments, however repetitious or fragmented they might be, before the opportunity vanished forever. In fact, Traffic FictionāBurtās third album on Oh Boy Records and an unexpected musical reinvention rooted in his new and idiosyncratic version of classic soulāalso preserves their relationship by committing another key piece of it to tape. The soul that animates so many of these 14 tracks? That was the music shared by grandfather and grandson.
Burtās California childhood was not easy. His parents split when he was young, so he would often shuttle between their houses in Sacramento and the Bay Area. He was a bit of a wild child, too. From time to time, though, he would accompany his father to work at a plant nursery, riding shotgun in a 1975 Cadillac Seville as they listened to The Delfonics and Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. Those drives were his sanctuary, that music their blessed score.
But as Burt became a musician himself, he was a peripatetic troubadour, tapping into American folk and blues partly as a matter of necessityāitās not sensible to busk, after all, with some sophisticated band at your back. Bits of those other roots and compositional ambitions finally emerged on 2021ās You, Yeah, You, the vivid result of Burtās first proper studio sessions. On Traffic Fiction, they are in full bloom, from the sweet country-soul surrealism of the title track to the skywriting rock of ā2 For Tha Show,ā Burt as urgent and commanding as heās ever been. Traffic Fiction is the sound of Burt confidently bending a sentimental past to his present will.
To get to this new alchemy of soul, dub, and more than a little punk, Burt returned to the basicsāself-recording in sequestered silence. During a Canadian tour, he set aside a few days to stay in a friendās spare apartment and write, renting enough instruments from the affordable gear emporium Long & McQuade to build a makeshift studio for his GarageBand demos. The title track soon emerged, its effortless magnetism prompted by a poem heād written about stupid city congestion and a piece by saxophonist and singer Gary Bartz.
Burt recognized he had found the sound of the next album, so he booked another rural cabin in Canada for 9 days and rented more guitars, basses, and the same keyboard heād bought during the You, Yeah, You sessions. For the better part of a lifetime, Burt had told himself he didnāt have the chops to sing like those childhood heroes from the Cadillac days. But now, as he built his one-man-band demos before returning to Nashvilleās The Bomb Shelter to work with a trusted band of pals and esteemed producer Andrija Tokic, his versions of those sounds poured out in circumspect love songs and joyous tunes of existential reckoning. His grandfather was dying. The world was struggling with a pandemic and the specter of a third world war. But Burt gave himself permission to have fun and be funny, to let these songs lift him and, eventually, maybe others, too.
Traffic Fiction indeed feels like a buoy amid these turbulent times, something that pulls us above the wreckage. The love-or-something-like-it songs are crucial. With its rocksteady motion, rainbow keys, and slippery riff, āWings for a Butterflyā is Burtās honeyed plea to at least try a relationship out. Like The Beatles rebottled in Muscle Shoals, the brilliant āTo Be a Riverā crescendos in a litany of all the things Burt knows he can be for someoneāāyour favorite word, a letter you read.ā It is pure infatuation.
Even ostensible breakup songs luxuriate in the wonder of existence. āSantiagoā recounts an overseas tryst that ended too soon, Burt jubilantly narrating moments of mirth and lust over go-go keyboards and a beat so simple and propulsive The Ramones would have loved it. And during āPiece of Me,ā Burt turns the sting of ending it into an anthem of wishful thinking alongside sashaying organs and rail-grinding guitar. Maybe one more chance is all he needs? āYou like me better when Iām in pain,ā he sings slyly. āWell, baby, just look at me now.ā Amid these warped jewels of psychedelic soul, youāll find yourself pulling for Burt, hoping the world can come to its senses on his behalf.
Burt first earned notice for his imaginative and trenchant social protest songs, where heād capture some corrosive element of American lifeāunchecked capitalism, unwavering racism, so onāin a compelling snapshot. Traffic Fiction isnāt that kind of album, necessarily, though his defiance hasnāt disappeared. Referencing his ancestral homeland of Promised Land, South Carolina, āAll Things Rightā scorns apathy and bureaucracy, the way we strand each other via our own pursuits. āIāll never be free/but I can pretend,ā he snaps with verve during the verse of āKids in the Yard,ā a mighty theme of self-empowerment. Burt finds the joy even here, pushing past problems rather than succumbing to obstacles.
And isnāt that a crucial role of music, especially nowāto show us how to handle our burdens with aplomb and vision, to model the behavior of persevering with Ć©lan? At three points during Traffic Fiction, Burt interweaves bits of those recorded conversations with his late grandfather, Tommy. They talk about Stevie Wonder, Burtās career and the fatigue it can bring, and, finally, the sense that heās carrying on a family tradition through these records. Itās a reminder not only of what Burt experienced while making Traffic Fiction but also of what he overcame. He found strength in the soul of his youth, and, for that, heās never sounded stronger.
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