“If I don’t sing my songs who was going to? And so it really comes down to I have to do that. So I do. It didn’t start that way, but the songs are the things that sort of drove me to this. The power of those songs are the things that give me the strength to stand up on stage and perform.” Darrell Scott, poet, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and musician extraordinaire stands on the FORT COLLINS ARMORY stage NOVEMBER 10, 2018.
Scott has written over 300 songs to date and he started songwriting as a preteen and never stopped. As Darrell explains his relationship with a song, “You know, it’s really the process of writing that song itself that I love. It’s extremely focused and then contrasted with extremely open to whatever comes in. The process is just a wild ride of unbelievable, honing in on something. At the same time having a distance so that you’re open and free to the next rockets coming around, about the song that you would have never expected.
He adds, “So it’s not just grabbing a song and rustling it to the ground. It’s more like letting the songs sort of reveal itself. And I love that process because it has a mysterious quality to it, you know, where you can’t explain where it’s coming from. It runs the chance of being a sort of a stiff sort of brain song versus something more creative, artistic and unexpected. I like unexpected things. If it gets too technical or too conscious of the rhyming and all that stuff, Then you might just chase away the inspiration right out the door. The special songs are the ones that come along and surprise me.
Darrell teaches songwriting workshops and guides others in the art and craft of songwriting. He led the Folk Fest Songwriting school at Planet Bluegrass this year. Scott has been nominated for four Grammy’s and countless artists sing his songs. His most trusted advice is, “Songwriting is an opportunity to help our kind of inner workings, what’s going on with us, how we feel about things. The best way to do that is to tell the absolute truth. And so that’s what I encourage my students and workshops to do is, to tell the truth that we need. That period the world needs truth-telling in song.”
Darrell’s latest release is a tribute.
“My dad passed away a few years ago. He would love it. He’s the one who you know showed me what Hank Williams was. It was inescapable, you know growing up with my dad. It was Hank Williams and Johnny Cash and kind of nothing else. It’s also a great listening training ground for good roots music you just get you kind of can’t beat it. It’s not going to get any better than that.”
Scott is working on two new albums. They’re both very different from each other. He grew up on Hank Williams and knows the entire catalog because his dad was a huge fan. So one of the projects is playing Hank, Darrell style. “I’ve chosen very obscure stuff and I’m giving them an electric treatment. Not a country treatment, but more like a blues thing really. I just these songs are just part of me and the treatments I have for them, you know are just my own take on this kind of this stuff.” The second project is original tunes played with his jazz and fusion band. So what to expect when he plays Colorado ought to be a bit bluesy, folk, country, fusion, if there is that sort of thing.
Darrell lives on a farm outside of Nashville, sits with the silence, and spends his days keeping up his homeland. He has always been drawn to nature and the landscapes in Colorado. As he prepares to return in November he reflects on what he treasures here, “Well, I was probably 13 or so. We went on vacation to Colorado and it’s always just sparked my imagination. It’s the mountains that just does that for me And it’s the people who are drawn to the mountains. Coming to Colorado is always I wouldn’t say a homecoming because I never lived there but it goes way back for me. Love Colorado any time of year.”
Darrell has overcome his fear of the stage which was a big obstacle in his career and he had to work very hard to be in the spotlight. He always loved music and the expression, he says “I’ve had to work at being comfortable on stage where it’s just me and I’m the one talking on one singing have you know folks are listening and looking at me that wasn’t a natural thing to do I had to develop that.” How did he do it? He did it a lot and a lot and a lot and a lot and a lot and that’s the only way he got over it. Scott makes the analogy, “it’s no different than making a loaf of bread. You know, the more loaves of bread you make I think the better you will get at making bread. You know and you just have to repeat it over and over there’s nothing short of doing that that will help the person who feels really uncomfortable about it, you know, and then here’s the funny thing is you might still feel uncomfortable after doing it 25 years.”
The mystical poet practices his craft in writing and overcomes his fears because the song he shares needs a life and needs to be shared so someone else can experience it. The song isn’t for him to keep, “I don’t need to be the person up on you know, that everyone’s looking at on stage and I don’t have whatever that is that needs that to happen. But I do have that I want people to know these songs and so the songs take over for me.”
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