Last year, I had the pleasure of reviewing Georgia-based guitar adventurer Shane Parish‘s Repertoire album, a set of fourteen short acoustic instrumentals, all taken from the 20th Century book of standards. For Solo at Cafe OTO, a live release, Shane switched to the same Squier Telecaster he uses for the Bill Orcutt Quartet shows (this was recorded while on tour with the band), just with the A and D strings back in place. The six tracks here are all reimaginings of ballads by artists ranging from Anne Briggs and Shirley Collins to David Lynch.
Unsurprisingly, each song here is given a heavy brush of Shane’s musical character, and each song smacks of technique and artistic nous. Unlike Repertoire, where the average track length is around two minutes, most of these songs hit over five minutes, with the final song I’m Goin’ Away clocking up seven. The latter is a John Jacob Niles number that finds its rhythm at leisure, with jolly, tumbling treble notes offsetting the more hesitant lower strings. Things get a bit gnarlier around two minutes in, with some sharper notes and subtle bends bringing in a touch of anxiety.
As something of a companion piece, Shane also tackles Niles’ Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot, a song that originally contained very similar vocal content to I’m Goin’ Away. Here, Shane plays it a touch darker, with lower notes and more intensity through the top strings. Both tunes are ace and justify close listening to detect similarities and points of difference.
On songs like Sycamore Trees, some of the jagged edges more akin to the looser Bill Orcutt Quartet numbers (Shane originally transcribed Bill’s playing on Music for Four Guitars) come across, especially by the halfway point, where Shane gets nuts down the fretboard, before bringing it back to sparser playing with nervy thumbed bass strings. The fact that this song is a take on a David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti piece written for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me makes sense as it develops and plays out.
In a manner similar to Bill Orcutt’s abstract take on American standards on A History of Every One, the original versions of the compositions on Solo at Cafe OTO aren’t immediately apparent, but it matters not and, if anything, gives the music a greater sense of freedom and means the listener can just let the notes, moods and tempos wash over them.
The only negative is that I wasn’t there to hear it live because it is totally great, and I’m going to listen to it a shit-load of times.
Solo at Cafe OTO (July 1st, 2025) Red Eft Records
Pre-order via Bandcamp: https://shaneparish.bandcamp.com/album/solo-at-cafe-oto