Third Coast Music ~ John Conquest ~ Texas USA

No idea who Tom Petersen is but he's a clever, not to say, well-read, bastard. Covering "Just Let Me Dream" (Rose Rock 2004) in Victory Review, he said, "The fancy term for Dillon's kind of writing is mythopoeia." The word was coined in the 30's by JRR Tolkien to describe the process of integrating mythological themes and archetypes into fiction, and a clear example on the Oklahoma-born, Seattle-based Dillon's second album is 'Last Town on the Line' - discovering that her great-grandfather had been a Missouri-Pacific trainman, she got to wondering if he ever met hoboing Woody Guthrie. The later is also invoked on 'No Goodbyes', "I left my home in a yellow Rambler American/following the footsteps of Woody and Jack Kerouac," which also quotes Townes Van Zandt. Come to think, 'Snowin' On Raton' could well be seen as a key to Dillon's concise and intelligent songs that open with a lament for America's lost innocence and, via trains and depots, driving into a storm, dancing in the desert, a murder ballad/ghost story, renewing neglected friendships, a hymn to Portland (OR) and the faint hopes of an aging rock star, closes with falling petals and a guttering candle. Delivered in a clear and lovely voice that one commentator compared, not without reason as they share a gentle precision, to Eva Cassidy's, Dillon once again defies easy categorization - if only Americana meant something, life would be so much easier - but I guess avant-garde folk comes close.