A while back, I had the good fortune to review the debut single from Marc Delgado’s ambitious and imaginative concept album ‘Wildwood Road’. The single in question, ‘The Cautionary Tale of Richard Manuel’ was transportive in how it was able to harken back to a time of classic rock and storytelling that’s long since forgotten. But not juts for its style, the song was able to remarkably tell a conceptual story of Richard Manuel parallelly with Delgado’s own life experience. His singing on the record, achingly emotive, gruff, and evocative serves as the ideal voice for a record of this style.
Much like the single, ‘Wildwood Road’ is a cinematic and poetic piece of good old fashioned folk music that emphasizes the power of storytelling and harmony to tell a story of coming home. If you were to hear it without warning, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s come from the 1970s. The story behind the album is bound to have you intrigued. Although based in Woodstock NY now, the singer-songwriter is originally from California. After working a succession of dead-end jobs, Delgado decided to quit everything.
He got married & moved to the woods, starting to write songs that chronicled his life & his addictions while he was in California. Wildwood Road is a recounting of these painful memories, while also serving as a chronicle that highlights the power of love and healing. Songs like ‘Mary, The Interstate’ are just loaded with emotion and warmth, the kind that’s bound to leave you feeling all kinds of fuzzy inside. Even songs like ‘Conquistador Blues’, that trade in the classic acoustic for a piano backing, have a keenly expressive and emotive feeling to them.
Delgado and his band are bringing Folk Rock back in a major way. They’re in no mood to reinvent the wheel, because why fix something that never broke? They’re purists. The kind of storytellers who rely on easy going melodies and evocative lyricism and delivery to inspire their listeners. If you’re a fan of folk rock, you’ll be more than happy with Delgado’s latest. Tunes for the soul, with an injection of feeling unlike most.
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