Rod McCormack: Fingerprints

As a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer, Australia native Rod McCormack didn’t need a solo album to make him one of roots music’s most important players. With credits involving work in all the above categories with artists that qualify as household names, his resume now includes an astonishing all-acoustic debut album on which songcraft, musicianship, vocalizing, and soulfulness are of the highest order. Largely addressing intimate feelings of love and devotion, the thoughtful tunes are propelled by affecting, languorous performances reminiscent of James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James—and wouldn’t you know it, McCormack has backed JT in the studio before. The title track, a lovely fiddle and guitar devotional, features Aussie country superstar Gina Jeffreys (McCormack’s spouse) in a dreamy duet with her hubby; Claire Lynch sits in twice, on the easygoing shuffle “It Was Love” and most mesmerizingly on the pastoral, tenderly picked “Wherever You Go.” Of all Rod McCormack’s many achievements, here, at this perilous moment in time, he delivers the most important one: a fully realized appeal to love fiercely, with commitment that recognizes the power of passionate devotion as being central to survival. Nothing less will do.