David Mallett: The artist in Maine Folk musician gets national honors

When David Mallett began his musical odyssey in 1972, computers were the size of refrigerators and folk music fans networked over cups of coffee, not online.

So the news that Mallett was voted Artist of the Year and his new album, “Artist In Me,” was named the best of 2003 by the members of Folkwax, an Internet-based folk-music fan group, gave Mallett a pleasant kick.

“It’s sort of an online Billboard [magazine] for folk music,” Mallett, 53, said of Folkwax. But the honor certainly pleased him.

“I think it’s pretty cool,” he said in a telephone interview from his Sebec home, where he lives with his family, including children who “are all taller than me now.”

Mallett is one of Maine’s best-known musical exports, regularly touring the country – “They call me up, and I go and play” – and releasing a steady, but not perfunctory, string of solid records over the years. His songs such as “The Garden Song,” which has reached folk standard status, have been recorded by the likes of John Denver, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie.

His songs continue to appeal and be marketable to big-name artists.

“Occasionally, someone will record something,” he said, such as a recent cover by bluegrass-country singer Allison Krauss.

Beyond the personal honors, Mallett is cheered by what the Folkwax award represents, which he believes is music lovers insisting that the folk tradition continue.

“They’re taking back what they want to listen to,” he said, both on the radio and on records.

“Artist in Me,” officially released Dec. 1, “is an all Maine-made album recorded at

a farmhouse in Sebec.” (The album title is not a pun on the state’s abbreviation, by the way.)

Along with Mallett on guitar, and adding some especially fine harmonica playing, the record features Maine musicians Michael Burd on bass and electric guitar, Susan Crippen on fiddle, Ed Dickhaut on drums, Scott Harris on electric guitar, Steve Grover on drums, David Burgess on lap steel, guitars and mandolin and Sonny True on mandolin.

Mallett compares the homespun recording process to the making of a fine micro-brewed beer: It’s done on a small scale, but with high standards.

“And it was certainly nice to sleep in my own bed,” he added.

“I really wanted to do a record,” Mallett said. The last release was 1999’s “Ambition.”

The quality of songs on “The Artist In Me” makes it easy to understand why he was ready to record. There’s not a clunker in the bunch, and each is elevated by understated but punchy arrangements, which match the strong sense of rhythm that marks his tunes.

Mallett’s lyrics at times betray a world-weary view, but the way he sings them – his fine baritone voice attacking the uplifting melodies with gusto – conveys a winsome optimism, a wisdom hard-won, a shake of the head and a chuckle about surviving another hardship and a faith that everything will be all right in the end.

The opening track, “Didn’t Nobody Teach You,” preaches that there’s a time and a place for everything, a “time to smash the windows and then sit back and let the choir sing” – and you get the feeling Mallett has done both.

“Angel Standin’ By” has an infectious refrain that assures that even “When you run outta luck/and you can’t even fix the truck/Someone sends a hundred bucks/There’s an angel standin’ by.”

The love songs “Like Me Without You,” “Red Red Rose” and “Slow Dance” could only have been written by a grown-up, one who understands his lover needs “a romance, and not just a rendez-vous,” and woos her with lines like:

When you’re caught up in sweet surrender

Simple truth is sometimes hard to see

But here between the tough times and the tender

It all comes down to you and me.

And even the obligatory “it’s tough being a touring musician” songs rise above the norm, like in the title track: “Why am I alone even when I’m in a crowd?/It must be the artist in me … Why I make my livin’ being lonely right out loud/Guess it’s just the artist in me.”

In addition to the Folkwax honor, “Artist In Me” made The Associated Press’ list of top records of 2003.

David Mallett performs Saturday, Feb. 7., at the Ladd Center in Wayne. For time and ticket information, call 685-4616 or visit www.davidmallett.com. Tom Groening can be reached at 236-3575 or groening@ midcoast.com.