In Kentucky-born D. Boone Pittman’s “The Gardener”, we hear one of the most personal of ballads as the song draws on memory and meaning. It’s rooted in storytelling, and Pittman’s warm baritone carries a delicate, pleasurable wrench to the item. The song unfolds as a letter to the past that is tethered to simple, sacred moments spent in his grandmother’s garden. What began as a memorial for Pittman’s wife gradually manifests as a vivid remembering of childhood summers, stringing beans with gospel music coursing through the Kentucky sunshine.
The song’s charm is in its tenderness. Pittman’s vocalization recalls Randy Travis or Alan Jackson; however, Pittman’s calm authority allows his vocal tonality to carry each lyric with clarity and lucid emotion. And in the absence of artistic intrigue adorned to each chord and intricate guitar work, the story breathes and offers enough necromancy for one to remember how to find distance to see themselves within the song.
With a beautifully filmed video captured on location at Stonehedge Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, "The Gardener" is more than a song; it is a time capsule. There are family members throughout, adding authenticity to a visual that covers our collective experience of growing up, losing people we love, and trying our best to hold on to the wonderful things they planted in us. "The Gardener" is a great reminder that, sometimes, the deepest growth happens in the quietest places.
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