Reid Parsons – Back To Back
Self-Release – 2025
10 tracks; 45 minutes
Born and raised in Vermont in a family with diverse musical interests, this is Reid’s debut album, though she has previously released an EP and several singles. Reid wrote all bar one of the songs here, arranged and produced the album, handles the lead vocal and plays occasional acoustic guitar and piano, aided by a rhythm section of Russ Lawton on drums and Luke Fox on bass, Steve Simollardes and Ian Mack on electric guitar, Derek Price on keys, Danica Cunningham on fiddle, Emily Taubi on cello, Brett Lanier on pedal steel, Connor Young on trumpet and Avery Cooper on sax and flute. As the line-up suggests, this is not really a blues album, the mainly gentle music more in the Americana/singer-songwriter vein.
Reid has a relaxed style of singing that brings a wistful tone to many of the songs here. The title track opens, Reid’s lyrics counterpointed by trumpet and strings, a song about a relationship being maintained while the lovers are separated by distance. “Get Out Of Bed” has a brass accompaniment that adds a jazz element and sweeping Hammond that brings in gospel to a song which seems to be about depression.”Lightbulb” has pedal steel and strings, a country-inflected song about that ‘lightbulb moment’ in a developing relationship while “Heavy Load” is a tender ballad about sharing life’s burdens or, as the old saying goes, “a problem shared is a problem halved”. Scheduled as a vinyl album, ‘Side A’ concludes with “Show Me You Love Me”, the jagged rhythm of a more uptempo tune, complete with some scat singing and solid trumpet and sax work.
“Holiday” returns to a more introspective style, flute featured on this one, another song in more of a pop vein. The sole cover is Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire”, played at similar pace to the original, pedal steel prominent in the music. Reid switches into French for part of the lyrics to “Figure It Out”, hence her reference in the accompanying notes to ‘The French Song’! It’s another introspective ballad with fiddle and piano featured and a strong trumpet solo in the later part of the song as Reid concludes that the pair may never resolve their issues. Pedal steel underpins Reid’s vocals on a song about routines and boredom entitled “Same Old” on the cover but clearly the song has an additional word in the title when you hear it! The album concludes with “Where Are You Now”, another introspective tune with mournful cello and pedal steel.
“Making this record has been the most meaningful thing I’ve done in my life” says Reid in the accompanying biographical notes and the songs are clearly deeply felt and expressed, the lyrics well crafted and seemingly deeply personal. The record is well produced and the instrumentation varied and well played. However, there is little or no blues here, the music mainly at a tangent to the main interests of the readers of a blues magazine.
