Travis McKeveny was an outstanding songwriter.

That’s the first thing to know. The next is that he was surrounded by family and friends who treasured his presence in their lives, including a couple of close pals from the Long Island scene whose work I’ve reviewed, Pete Mancini and Bryan Gallo.

By September 2021, McKeveny had released two full-length indie-folk albums—Last Year’s Leaves (2012) and October Porches And Second Hand Fears (2018)—and had a third written. He was preparing to head into the studio to record it when he died suddenly, at just 35.

During his lifetime, Travis often played out solo, just him and his acoustic, but in the process of developing his third album, he had assembled a full band to back him: The Famous Doctor Scanlon Band, led by his father Gerry McKeveny. It was the latter group that came together in the wake of Travis’s passing to take on a genuine labor of love: recording and releasing that unrealized third album, From Dublin To Duluth.

The resulting album of 11 originals, all but one written by Travis, feels like a cohesive whole, even with four different singers taking lead vocals at various points. Each tune features clever storytelling and vibrant characters, the work of a writer who could have ended up a novelist if he hadn’t devoted himself to making music. The band consists of Travis’s father Gerry on vocals and guitars, Pete Mancini on vocals and guitars, Joe Caggiano on keyboards and guitar, Dave March on bass and John Rienzi on drums, joined on a couple of tracks each by guests Cassandra House (vocals), Damian Pacheco (trumpet), Chris Scarnato (sax), and Joe DeVassy (trombone).

The Famous Doctor Scanlon Band’s most common musical point of reference, heard strongly in the first couple of tunes, is The Band, i.e. hearty, rustic, soulful Americana. Opener “The Shoe Did” is a somber tune liberally sprinkled with British slang, while “4th Of May,” a co-write with Caggiano, delivers a character study of a restless friend who’s always moving on.

Caggiano’s electric piano features on “Fat City,” a gritty, atmospheric character study about a boxer with an attitude bigger than his talent, before the band leans into country-folk on “I’d Live On A Train,” the story of a railway aficionado who’s constantly running away from attachments and responsibilities (“And all the ground I gain / Well, it won’t weigh me down none”).

Mancini takes the lead vocal for “Sligo Girl,” a lilting, gorgeous story-song about pursuing an Irish singer, and the r&b flavored “Sloane,” featuring the horn section on a tune about a pair of singers who are infatuated but know they have different dreams. It’s touching, charming and heartfelt; “I know there are some real kind people in the world” goes the principal refrain. In between, Gerry leads his original “It’s All Over (But The Letting Go), a song about the pain of longing for things and people you can’t have that’s both on point and deeply poignant.

In contrast with its brightly-lit subject matter, “Ferris Wheel” is dark, somber and atmospheric, a plea for connection from one fatalistic carny to another (“To share in the sorrow and the laughter / On the way up or on the way down / After all, tell me, which is which?”). Gerry sings lead on it, joined by House for one verse. House then joins Mancini for a duet vocal on the swinging, sassy, celebratory r&b number “Get Into Trouble,” co-written by Travis and Gerry. (Sample: “In my mind’s eye there’s your smile / The kind that says ‘It’s been awhile.’/ The kind no other kind of smile replaces.”) Then “Bittersweet Somethings” offers an upbeat, jangly number with a bit of a Brit-pop Del Amitri feel, as the narrator asks a potential romantic partner to go deeper and get to the real stuff.

For the album closer “Open All Night,” recorder/mixer Ken Wallace and the band were able to rescue the lead vocal from Travis’s demo of the song and work up their arrangement around it. It’s a beautiful tune about a conversation with a tired and burdened waitress at an all-night diner, one of those chance encounters with a stranger that seems to leave both parties feeling just a little bit more hopeful.

The songs on From Dublin To Duluth are superb, full of Travis McKeveny’s craft and heart and hard-won wisdom. Making it could not have been easy, but in the end it’s an album fueled by and full of love, and a beautiful way to say goodbye.

Rating: A

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