Paul Masson

Got a new country-folk sound for everyone to check out. His name is Paul Masson and he is out of Baltimore, MD. I asked him how he fell into the country-folk genre and his answer was fairly poignant:
"I'd say that the simplicity has a lot to do with a desire to capture the space that music can create when left to it's most basic components. And in the case of folk and country that leaves you with a singer, an acoustic guitar, drums, a bass, and a pedal steel guitar. Obviously more instruments could be included, but those were the ones that I heard in my head when I was writing these songs at my home. My favorite records all have this space as well. John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band is very sparse, but so powerful, Neil Young's "Harvest" leaves a lot to the imagination and almost the entire Hank Williams Sr. catalogue has that feel to it as well. I think music is often drowned in the idea of bigger this and that, and this record was made with the mindset that it was not going to sound like today's radio. I wanted it to have a more timeless feel, and I think after a lot of work we got it."
Simplicity and space definitely works on "My Girl Baltimore" a ballad about his love-affair with his home town where Masson's stark voice is complimented nicely with J. Tom Hnatow's (of These United States) pedal-steele. Check the song out at his myspace.