“Dirtroad Mandolin” is DLC’s new album, and it is hitting all the significant online distribution outlets.

Why a new collection of originals? Recently, after producing an album for up-and-coming Texas singer/songwriter Morgan Lindley, DLC was inspired to dip into his own growing backlog of songs. But he wanted to keep the set as simple and organic, and acoustic, as possible; no matter how tempted he was to add piano or pedal steel or digital orchestral sweetening. Although there is a lot of variety in the results, on songs ranging from a laidback Bluegrass waltz to spry dancehall Western Swing numbers to the driving countrified Southern Rock that has been such a huge element in his body of work for many years, the primary instrumentation includes a simplified drum kit (bass, snare, hi-hat and one ride/crash cymbal), acoustic/electric bass guitar, and two acoustic 6-string guitars — with dobro, mandolin, fiddle and banjo to give the individual songs their own unique flavors. The only person on the CD besides DLC is his wife, Sharon, who provides backup vocals on several songs.

“After playing what someone else wanted for so long,” he says, “and playing it their way, I decided before I started it that this set was going to be what I want. The way I want to play it. Will everyone like it? Of course not. Is it perfect? Nope. Is it pretty good? I think so!”

The first radio single from “Dirtroad Mandolin”, released mainly to internet radio stations across Europe, was “They Caught Geronimo”, and DLC was very satisfied with how it has done. “I’m not out to compete with the big boys at the top of the mainstream charts,” he says. “And I deliberately stayed as far away from the modern sound of what they’re calling ‘country music’ as possible. Playing all those fills and leads on acoustic guitar took a lot of practice, too; just to get a sound that’s as energetic as it would be on electric guitars. It was almost like taking up a new instrument — and I recorded a dozen or so cover songs before starting the new album just learning how to work with that sound. But I think the results on ‘Dirtroad Mandolin’ are worth all that practice time.”