DeClerk Osborn - What Will My Music Make Me Be

DeClerk Osborn

What Will My Music Make Me Be
self-released; 2016

​4.0 out of 5

By Jamie Robash

DeClerk Osborn’s debut record What Will My Music Make Me Be is quite a mouthful to say and also quite an earful to hear. The band is fronted by Chris DeClerk and Perry Osborn who are cousins that hail from Arkansas. According to the pair they have “music in their blood” and last summer, they hammered out and recorded thirteen songs and after four months of doing so What Will My Music Make Me Be was finished. The album was recorded at Log Cabin Studios in Tallahassee, FL and also features three other Florida based musician’s; Roosevelt Collier on sacred pedal steel guitar, Rodney Jordan on acoustic and electric bass guitars, and Leon Anderson on percussion.
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What Will My Music Make Me Be opens with the title track, which has to it that catchy quality of the story song that Jimmy Buffet always employed in his best tunes. It’s not as campy as Buffet by any means, in fact it’s very introspective and endearingly personal as DeClerk sings, “What will my music make me be / a waterfall or a rising sun / like a child that’s born to be free / you know you’ll always be the one.”

​The pair go even deeper, reflecting back on life and looking ahead to the end on the poignantly beautiful ballad “Seeds” on which DeClerk imagines having to confront death “Judgement day, your family round / lived a good hard life, time to follow the sound / where only the children play and dance all through the night / It's hard to believe that this day/ I'll be sowing the seeds of my life, right back to the ground.” Death sneaks up again on steely ballad “Two Wheels” where this time the death is of a former idol who DeClerk recounts in perfectly haunting images  “we all wanted to just like you” and later “found Bobby on the seventh floor / under the white sheet / light was shining bright in those hollow eyes / still full of all his dreams.”

But not all of What Will My Music Make Me Be is heartbreaking. There’s the hyped up full on country rocker “Love Her Tonight” which sees the boys letting loose and jamming out. Then there’s the upbeat honky tonkin “Get Healed.” Next on Steely Dan inspired “Eye To Eye” the band once again open up on a raucous jam session full of plenty of steel and a wankin’ solo.

What Will My Music Make Me Be is a rich collection of songs rooted in the countless influences of southern music. If you’re into blues, jazz, country, rock, Americana or are simply a fan of great songwriting and excellent musicianship DeClerk Osborn’s What Will My Music Make Me Be will be a great discovery.

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