The third effort by Missoula guitarist/songwriter Aran Buzzas features 10 originals and one cover (“The Wild Rover”), recorded with a host of local talent. Buzzas has a genial baritone voice and sings in a style he calls “homegrown Montana folky tonk.”
He credits classic and outlaw country, and Irish folk music as influences. Witness “The Richest Hell on Earth,” which Buzzas opens on the bouzouki with a bit of Irish flair. He tells the story of a man who comes to America to work in the Butte copper mines, enduring a joyless existence. Fiddler Grace Decker bows triplets in accompaniment.
The title tune, “MacDonald Pass,” is a belt buckle-shiner with a train whistle, and oozy pedal steel from Gibson Hartwell; Caroline Keys sings harmony. On “Waltzing” we hear Decker sawin’ on the fiddle and Sam Nasset adding electric guitar licks.
“‘Til Yellowstone Blows” is a tongue-in-cheek country toe-tapper; it’s Buzzas’s whimsical take on life, knowing Montana sits on the world’s largest caldera that geologists warn could blow at any time.
Travis Yost on bass, Andy Dunnigan on Dobro, and Matt Cornette on banjo round out the first-rate batch of pickers.
To learn more about the Montana musician, visit aranbuzzas.com.
– Mariss McTucker