Dirk and Amelia Powell

On Wake, his first solo album since 2020, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and singer Dirk Powell paints a masterpiece. With support from Rhiannon Giddens, Darrell Scott, and Powell’s daughter and musical collaborator, Amelia, Powell draws from a colorful palette of sound, to capture in broad flourishes the many scenes of joy, sadness, celebration, and love evoked in the wake of a full life. To wake is to awaken to newness every morning when love is fresh, but also to leave behind others and other parts of life.

The album opens with an aubade, “Étoiles Cachées,” a waltz that is sonically reminiscent of the Band’s “Theme from the Last Waltz.” Powell’s lilting dance celebrates the coming of the dawn, simultaneously lamenting two lovers who must separate with that same sunrise. Stately piano chords flow under spiraling fiddles on the slowly unfurling jig “Tomorrow We Sail,” an ode to the promise and uncertainty of adventure that ends in a crescendo of harmony vocals and instrumentation. The final refrain mimics the siren’s call of the sea. – No Depression

“Dirk Powell is a badass. To the bone. He is, in addition to being the greatest old-time banjo player alive, a graduate student of both mountain and Cajun fiddle styles, and diatonic button accordion. He is a singer, songwriter, producer, recording engineer and, all in all, an artist of unique vision and unbending integrity. As far as I can tell there is no genre of American roots music that Dirk doesn’t understand, no primordial mode he can’t master, no polyrhythmic code he can’t crack.” – Steve Earle