To Live In Two Worlds, Vol. 2
Thomm Jutz
To Live in Two Worlds, Vol. 2
Mountain Home Music
Released in September, Volume 2 of To Live In Two Worlds continues the musical arc singer-songwriter Thomm Jutz began with Volume 1, released in March of 2020. A self-professed “chronicler of emotions,” German-born Jutz (now a naturalized citizen) leverages both his unique multi-cultural perspective and a prodigious songwriting ability (nominated multiple times for IBMA Songwriter of the Year) to immerse the listener into 13 lyrical stories. The topics range widely, from the Nashville flood of 2010 (“The Flood of 2010,” as both an ensemble and a solo recording), the burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral (“Pieta”), harmonica legend DeFord Bailey, (“Evening Prayer Blues Revisited”), the struggle of a Black cotton farmer in the years after the Civil War (“Emancipation Blues”), and a cowboy homage to departed friend (“Adios Boys”), and from the spiritual (“Suffering’s Gonna Find You” and “No One Knows”) to the tragic (“New River Gorge” and “In This House”).
Writing with a variety of collaborators—Jon Weisberger, Charley Stefl, Tammy Rogers (who receives co-author credit on 6 tunes), Milan Miller, Sierra Hull, Mark Fain, Julie Lee, Jefferson Ross, and Tim Stafford—and performing with a stellar group of artists (Mark Fain, Mike Compton, Justin Moses, and Tammy Rogers), Jutz celebrates the lives and emotions of the famous and not-so-famous, laying them bare with a surgeon’s skill.
REVIEWED BY Chris Thiessen
