Album Notes

***** (Five Stars)
www.CTRLALTCOUNTRY.be

"His most compelling album yet."
Montreal Gazette

Truth & Fiction is the fourth CD from soulful singer-songwriter Rob Lutes. Recorded in an intimate studio in Montreal during the first week in September 2008 with noted roots producer David Goodrich (Chris Smither, Jeffrey Foucault), the CD contains 11 new Lutes tunes and a cover of Warren Zevon’s Mutineer.

“The process was so creative this time,” Lutes says. “David put us all in a great space to let these songs come to life, where it feels like the music just really supports the lyrics. That’s always the goal for me.”

The ability to encapsulate universal ideas and questions, albeit subtle ones in his lyrics, has become a hallmark of Lutes’ songs.

“Most songwriters are doing the same thing—trying to address some of the larger questions of life. It’s just a matter of how you come at it. I like to find the tree-lined back road - the metaphorical road I guess - to get to the reality that we share as people. That's the idea of this CD's title. These songs are works of creativity for me but my own philosophical truth is buried in these songs and stories."

The impressive group of musicians with Lutes on this release include noted singer-songwriter Annabelle Chvostek (Wailin Jennys) on vocals, percussionist Geoff Arsenault (Ray Bonneville, David Myles), Montreal-based jazz giant Morgan Moore on bass, Olivier Demers (Vent du Nord) on violin and Lutes’ gifted sideman Rob MacDonald on resophonic and electric guitars. Goodrich himself saddles up a few instruments to round out the sound that envelops Lutes’ own rhythmic fingerstyle guitar as never before.