W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

The Rose City Band – Sol Y Sombra

2025, after 24 days in existence has finally gotten off the schneid. There have been quite a few interesting album releases thus far this year but in all honesty, none have moved me. Up until today, I hadn’t heard anything which dropped in the month of January which stirred the “hmmm, that could be a top album for the year” kind of embers. Now don’t get me wrong, the hundreds of singles that have been released thus far this year show great promise for albums to come. But as far as actual LP’s which have been released during the first 24 days of the year are concerned, The Rose City Band’s Sol Y Sombras is the first one thus far to tickle my fancy.

Ever since their eponymous debut album burst upon the scene in 2019, Rose City has maintained a warm spot in my heart. Sol Y Sombras follows a tried and true formula for the band while avoiding the trap of being formulaic. Clearly, front and center, when you think of Rose City is the songwriting and singing of Ripley Johnson. Johnson is clearly steeped in the tradition of cosmic country that I grew up with from the mid and late 70’s. But his influences go way beyond the Flying Burrito/New Riders camp which were the roux for my personal cosmicana gumbo. Riley’s deep dive into the musical genre over the years has more than likely taken him to such artists and albums such as D.R. Hooker’s 1972 The Truth, Forever Amber’s obscure 1969 classic, The Love Cycle and Jimmy Carter & The Dallas County Green’s seminal (yet largely unknown) Summer Brings The Sunshine album from 1977 to name just a few.

So you couple this encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the genre (which makes for some astoundlingly good song writing) with some of the best pedal steel playing this side of Bakersfield courtesy of Barry Walker Jr. and you get pretty much a perfect storm. Walker, a Nashville, TN native who currently resides in Portland, OR approaches the pedal steel a bit differently than other more prominant pickers have in the past. His approach to the pedal steel is to use it, not as a means for added texture to the music but instead to add actual fire and brimstone to the listening experience. (Make sure you crank up the volume on track number two “Open Road” and you’ll see what I mean).

From the opening guitar strums on opening track “Lights On The Way”, and for the next 40 or so minutes, Rose City takes you on a road trip through the dessert night, careening down an empty two lane highway with the converatble top down, the night sky above consumed with stars everywhere. Things do slow down a bit on “Evergreen” as if the road trip took a brief pit stop to hand roll some mellow sativa. But the feeling of chilling in the quiet and solitude of the empty dessert remains nonetheless.

All in all, what we get from Sol Y Sombra is 42 minutes of sweet sultry dusty tumbleweed infused country music which hits all the right spots for us cosmic country afficianados.