Full-bodied acoustic guitar, a warm voice and a poured-out postcard from the road, “Oh Darlin’ (Intro)” opens a song cycle devoted to a rambler’s life, love from a drifter’s point of view and the way life is beautiful if you’ll take it on its terms. With a voice that’s a little worn, a little warm, Brad Tursi pours out the truth of a man who keeps moving, but never forgets those things that define what a good life should be.
With a resonant electric guitar, probably the dark-headed songwriter’s first true love, Parallel Love seeks to find a connection along the way. Conversational, shuffling in places, ruminative in others, there's a bit of pluck, a little B3 steam, a belief where stripping it all back to simple things is as good as it gets.
Tursi didn’t really know he was making a record. A songwriter by trade, a guitar player by passion, he kept almost a musical sketchbook of places, moments and feelings he experienced along the way. And he also kept his heart on a horizon that harkened back to a time when singer/songwriters mined those things to create those genre-defying, life-defining albums.
“A lotta James Taylor,” he concedes when asked what defines his worldview as an artist. “Mudslide Slim & the Blue Horizon, Sweet Baby James, those albums really shaped me. What he does with the details, the way he creates space for people’s lives, his feelings… It’s not just observational, it pulls you inside all those places. You’re there, in the moment, and you’re there in the emotions without ever being told what or how to feel.”