Album Review – Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms – “Gold in Your Pocket”

#510 (Traditional Country) with some #512 (Western) and #518 (Old-Time) on the Country DDS.

An uncompromising and excruciating search for the purest and most unadulterated form of traditional country will take you through the strip-malled streets of east Nashville, the hills of Kentucky, the hollers of West Virginia, the cattle ranches down in Texas, and out to the Streets of Bakersfield. But if you’re distinguishing and dedicated enough, eventually you will end up in the Pacific Northwest, where living on an island off the coast of Washington State like some sort of fabled hermit is an underground country legend.

Singer, songwriter, and mandolin maestro Caleb Klauder, and his strong singing and guitar-playing partner Reeb Willms, are the venerable local legends of square dances, country revivals, and fais do-do’s from Portland to the Canadian border. When the right opportunities present themselves, they can also be seen in parts back east where musicians from the world of bluegrass, old-time, and true traditional country hold them in an esteem second to few. Wherever Caleb & Reeb play, the connection with the audience is immediate, and fast fans are made.

Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms are the kind of folks who would play for five hours even if people weren’t feeding them dollars and drink tickets. It’s just what they do. And their catalog of old-time, country, and early bluegrass and Cajun songs is as thick as the callouses on their fretting fingers. They live to play and they play to live, with absolutely no pretense, no premeditated calculations about how their careers will be perceived in the public or any of that nonsense. It’s just all about the music.

The pair isn’t the most prolific when it comes to studio output. Their last album was released in 2016. But recently Free Dirt Records coaxed them into standing in front of microphones for a few hours with both the revered Chris Scruggs in Nashville, and legendary Joel Savoy in Louisiana. Gold In Your Pocket is the auspicious result.

Featuring mostly new, original songs from the pair and incredibly tasty musical accompaniment, the approach of Gold In Your Pocket is delightfully simple. Just take songs that express real emotions, never make a song the audience can’t dance to, add some stellar steel guitar sounds from Rusty Blake to give it just enough kick, put some brushes on snare in the background, and you have songs and music invulnerable to trend or style that can be enjoyed by a curiously wide audience when given the right opportunity.

You could call it “throwback” country if you will, but it’s the natural blending of classic American roots genres that makes this music feel both immediately familiar and patently unique, and timeless. Sensing the mood in the room at the moment in these United States, Gold In Your Pocket takes a purposefully positive approach for the most part. Even when it sings the blues, it does so to inspire a positive mood.

The passing of a valued person never sounded so rosy as it does in the opening song “He Gone.” The title track tries to convince us that our fortunes for the future can always be positive, especially if that’s the perspective you choose. The title of “Sad Songs” might seem like it bucks this positive trend, but as most true country music fans will attest, sad songs can results in some of the most positive outcomes of all.

Sing me a sad song to make me happy, and good ol’ country weeper, that’s for me.
Take me a bar with a jukebox, and play the song called ‘Misery Loves Company.’

It’s fair to warn that while some of the first half of the album feels like it includes the weaker songs of the set, the second half of Gold In Your Pocket contains the best nuggets, so hang with it. Reeb’s performance of Dean Johnson’s “Faraway Skies” is sublime, and includes one of the greatest fiddle solos supplied by Joel Savoy you will ever experience. Caleb’s “Chained By Desire” is a quietly genius song not to go overlooked. And “T & J’s Lullaby” to end the album is extra sweet.

Unadulterated, and absent of ego, Caleb Klauder and Reed Willms offer an interpretation of country music that is as close to the pure essence of the art form as can be found in the age of smart phones and Artificial Intelligence. You might have to dig and labor to unearth it, but what you’ll discover is precious in the passages of Gold In Your Pocket.

8.1/10

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