Dan Montgomery - Smoke and Mirrors (A Phonographic Memory) (2020)

An ode to a drug dealer? That’s the audacious, overarching concept of the new album by Dan Montgomery. As the Memphis-based son of Pennsauken, N.J., explains in the liner notes, the relationship that began in a Camden rowhouse in 1982 between the then-teenaged Montgomery and the adult trafficker transcended their drug connection and had a profound impact on the musician’s life.

Beginning with the scene-setting “The Winter of the Summer of Super Freak,” Montgomery tells this story in song without romanticizing any of it. Numbers such as “Hard Time” and “Prison Rodeo” paint flesh-and-blood portraits of his ex-con connection, helping to explain how he could become a sage and father figure to an impressionable teen.

The second half of the album focuses on the relationship’s effect on Montgomery. “So many things I learned from you,” he sings on the title song. Like the advice he gets in “The Right Time,” when Montgomery was hesitant about making his first foray into the music life: “Opportunity hardly ever knocks ... stop waiting for the right time.”

The music is wonderfully varied, ranging from roots-rock and psychedelic-tinged hard rock to country and blues, with some Tex-Mex and Cajun spice, helping each number stand on its own as well as serve the overall narrative.

Over the horn-accented Memphis R&B groove of the finale, “Missed Him,” Montgomery sings, “I just wanted to say I made it out OK.” Yes he did, and in a career of consistently stellar work, this is the crowning achievement.