Robby Hecht

For his third album, singer/songwriter Robby Hecht chose to put his own name on it, as if to say this is the album that best represents him. Anyone who’s grown up on confessional singer/songwriters from James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Joni Mitchell to honest storytellers like Bruce Springsteen, Damien Jurado, and Townes Van Zandt will surely hear a familiar honesty in songs like “New York City,” “The Sea and the Shore” (an Amy Speace cowrite), “The Light Is Gone,” and even in the way Hecht approaches the Gillian Welch/David Rawlings song “Hard Times.” He ventures near his personal demons with insights into bi-polar disorder for “Feeling It Now,” while he and Rose Cousins sing of what alcohol does to relationships in “Soon I Was Sleeping.” Recorded in Nashville, this album employs high-end local talent, such as guitarist Will Kimbrough, fiddler Casey Driessen, woodwind player Jeff Coffin, and k.d. lang’s road band, all reigned in by producer Lex Price. Robby Hecht turns out to be a worthwhile glimpse at the real Robby Hecht.