Johnny Nash's Classic, I Can See Clearly Now, Gets the Rusty Reid Treatment

Seattle-based singer/songwriter Rusty Reid and I have crossed paths plenty of times over the years, and it's always a pleasure to welcome him back to our pages. In fact, it actually wasn't long ago that Rusty and I were chatting about his latest album, Lone Stardust (Masterworks of Texas Songwriters).

A nineteen-track collection of cover songs - each written by a songwriter with a link to Texas - Lone Stardust is a record that really deserves your time and attention. And so, today, I'd like to introduce you to track three: Rusty's take on Johnny Nash's 1972 classic, I Can See Clearly Now.

Now, don’t get me wrong…I love a good cover song. But as I've said before, there’s always an inherent risk in pulling one off successfully. Rusty's approach? Don't mess too much with a classic. "I tried to keep the magic of the original and blend in my own voice and guitar work to make it my own," he says. Mission accomplished!

Keeping the song's honest, authentic joy firmly front and centre, it's clear that Rusty understands what made the tune so appealing in the first place. Sure, he's made some subtle changes to the bridge and injected the track with his 1966 Gibson ES-330, but what Rusty just gets that few others do is that putting your own stamp on a song doesn't always mean reinventing it.

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