Singer/Songwriter Americana (#570.15) on the Nation DDS.
It’s that bleary-eyed and road-worn recklessness discovered on so most of the information of the Nineteen Seventies, and in most of the songs from people like John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, and Man Clark that give them that cool attract that escapes most music of at present. Current tense performers and songwriters can try to seize that spirit. However GPS, the Web, and iPhones make getting misplaced on the earth and shedding one’s self tough to unimaginable.
Nonetheless, within the 12 songs of Leon Majcen’s new album Making A Livin’ (Not A Killin’), he will get about as shut as one can get to conveying that feeling of life on the open street. Clearly taken from his personal travelogues as an up-and-coming touring musician, these songs are dispatches and ruminations from remote locations scribbled on the again of quick meals napkins shoved in a glove compartment. It’s an album about musicians overcome with wanderlust, and the ladies they go away behind.
Leon Majcen tried to do the precise factor. Raised by Bosnian Struggle refugees in Florida the place he began performing as a songwriter in highschool, he went off to school in New York Metropolis. Nevertheless it quickly turned obvious that the large metropolis, and a straight and slim path was not precisely the precise trajectory for younger Leon. He ended up again in Florida engaged on the docks earlier than ending up in Nashville as an aspiring songwriter.
The factor about all these songwriting heroes is that they have a manner of tempting you within the improper course with regards to dwelling a secure life. As Majcen sings at one level, “Sleeping in a Automobile is Enjoyable Till You Gotta Pee.” So most of the subsequent era is selecting experiences over issues. And whether or not vagabond homelessness comes from alternative or a requisite to the trail you select, there’s a poetic magnificence to the approach to life, in the event you select to see it.
You do miss a few of the prophetic insights on life, and the social commentary on this album that typically got here with the very best of the fabric of your favourite songwriter’s favourite songwriters. On what formally is Majcen’s second full-length report in 2025, he continues to focus extra on songs that come from his personal lived experiences versus that deep character examine of others, or talking about societal ills, together with some that tempt younger souls to wander, or find yourself unhoused.
However what Making A Livin’ (Not A Killin’) does accomplish is tracing the arc that comes with a teenager’s realization of what actually issues in life. The opening tune “Don’t Go away The Mild On” is about leaving love behind, each because of the name of the open street, and a way of selflessness or inadequacy of not with the ability to give another person the steadiness they want.
The fifth tune on the album “I’ve Discovered My Love At this time” isn’t a standard love tune. It’s about Majcen realizing that the real love in his life, and what offers him the best sense of success is music. “You’re the one reality hidden in my lies,” he sings. However the final lesson of life on the street typically is that what you’ve been looking for the entire time is love, and never of a guitar or a tune. This comes via within the verses of the album’s last songs, “Considering ‘Bout Love” and “Lady & Canine.”
You do surprise if Leon allowed a bit extra time within the the oven for a few of these songs, we’d get some extra of that road-worn knowledge out of them than we do. Nevertheless it’s the simple, laid again disposition of Making a Livin’ produced by Patrick Lyons that has lots of people discovering favor with it. Leon reinvigorates the spirit of the hobo poet, singing what he lives, dwelling what he sings, and experiencing a degree of freedom all of us want we had the flexibility or braveness to pursue.
8.1/10
– – – – – – – – –
