Ed Wolitl is half-responsible for the best album ever made by a Tampa Bay artist. Carried Away, a 2007 collection by The Ditchflowers—helmed by Woltil and Brian Merrill, both singer/songwriter/guitarists—is the only release I’ve ever called a masterpiece in my decades covering the local music scene.
Woltil has carried on in the intervening 13 years, collaborating with Merrill on an estimable Ditchflowers follow-up, Birds’ Eye (2011), his own solo work and other collaborations. Now he delivers One in My Tree, a superb 12-song collection that may not quite equal Carried Away but belongs in the same conversation.
If we must ascribe a genre to Woltil’s music, it’s power-pop, which roughly dates back to The Beatles and whose foundational elements are catchy hooks, tuneful singing enlivened by bright harmonies, and guitars played with a relatively light touch. (Back in the time of The Beatles, it was called just rock ’n’ roll.)
One in My Tree is a first-rate power-pop effort, but rather than being tethered to the genre, it has stylistic breadth.
One in My Tree is the kind of album for which you’ll want to set aside time to listen to intently—accompanied by a lyric sheet. Woltil has an uncanny knack for writing personal songs that also evoke and comment on world conditions. Which is to say, his words leave ample room for interpretation. The album’s best example of his ability to infuse lyrics with deep meaning is “Fourteen Angels.” Alternating between sections of near-stillness and an insistent mid-tempo groove, the minor-key tune takes the listener on an emotionally wrenching journey. Penned in 2015 in response to the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack in which 14 people were killed, the song nevertheless has a universal resonance.
“This is not gunfire / not a knife, not a baseball bat / bullets are less intimate than that,” Woltil intones, a stanza that has as much relevance now as five years ago. He continues, “Counting the dead / while the politicians chime in once again / risking nothing / If fourteen angels could shout / would we drown them out / with opinion?”
It’s no stretch to apply those words to the Coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration or any number of the world’s ills.
Woltil’s yearning tenor fully inhabits the lyrics, alternating between sorrow, rue, hushed despair, and, at one point, uncharacteristically fraying and falling out of tune, as if singing the words is too much to bear. The song concludes with a dense instrumental crescendo featuring a stirring guitar solo by co-producer Steve Connelly—the album’s loudest and angriest moment.
But don’t get the impression that listening to One in My Tree is like tumbling in a clothes-dryer of woe. There’s a lot of fun and uplift, too. “When We Fall in Love,” “If The Sun Forgets to Shine,” “A Matter of Time,” and, tops among them, “Make Me” (“here at the ledge / one small step means everything”) are top-shelf power-pop numbers. While their themes aren’t all upbeat, these tunes are apt to put a kick in your step and a smile on your face.
One in My Tree incorporates a handful of acoustic ballads, the standout among them being “Do or Die,” a tale of love teetering on the brink. In a voice filled with longing, Woltil sings, “Maybe you failed to notice / we’ve drifted out of focus / If you no longer see me, who am I? / You never take my meaning / I find myself careening / How did it come down to do or die?”
Another exceptional track is the pensive ballad “Migrator,” its elegant, fully wrought melody supported by little more than Woltil’s expertly finger-picked acoustic guitar.
The album closes triumphantly, with the ballad “Give it Away.” Its loping rhythm and sweet melody are like a warm embrace from an old friend. Connelly’s brief pedal steel solo, the album’s instrumental high point, adds just the right rootsy touch. To the strains of an acoustic guitar, accordion, mandolin, and supple drumming, Woltil intones:
Meet me down on the corner at the old cafe
where we’ve smiled and we’ve whiled
so many hours away
Though the time may draw near
When we’ve no more to say
I want to see your face
I’ve got some dreams in my pocket
I want to give away
Bittersweet words, ones that make me think fondly of simple pleasures that, a few months ago, we did without a second thought—and now come fraught with risk.
You can purchase One in My Tree as a download or CD at Bandcamp.
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This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2020.