Georgia-born singer-songwriter Levi Lowrey can boast a fairly distinguished musical pedigree. He is the great great grandson of Gid Tanner, fiddler extraordinaire and leader of Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers, a phenomenally innovative Depression-era string band who were among the very first hillbilly outfits to issue commercial recordings. Though a gifted old-time fiddler in his own right, Lowrey heads in an entirely different direction on his debut full-length I Confess I Was A Fool, an album of finely sketched portraits in song that recall the hard-bitten but deeply introspective work of outlaw country figureheads like Guy Clark and Kris Kristofferson. Lowrey’s characterizations are unfailingly insightful, whether he is evoking the manifold uncertainties facing a pair of newlywed teenagers on “Hold On Tight,” or the pains of a no- longer-young man coming to terms with his fear of commitment on “The Problem With Freedom.” Songwriting this strong requires little in the way of ostentatious production techniques, and the sound of I Confess I Was A Fool is restrained almost to the point of minimalism.