But then that's the point. Starting with four defiantly hammered-out flattened-fifth chords, the tolling of a bell not quite concurrent with that of St John the Divine, Welch sets out her particular stall from the first line of the first track "Revelator."
"Darling, remember, when you come to me/I'm the pretender and not what I'm supposed to be/But who could know if I'm a traitor?/Time's a revelator." They come to detonate the received notions of country - and indeed those of alt.country (which is now no alt) - within its very epicentre. Wandering around, surf parties, dismissals of white wedding gowns - "leaving the valley and fucking out of sight" she intones demurely in her indeterminate Southern accent - an LA-born offspring of Carol Burnett's old musical director, an attendant of Berklee. "Every word seen in the data/Every day is getting straighter." How distorted is this data to begin with? How much history has she received? How much of it is received?
At the song's climax Rawlings thrashes out some bitonal, aggressively-struck chords, the intimately-miked thwack of fingernail against nylon recorded as closely as Carthy on "Out of the Cut" or Bailey on "Aida."
"My First Lover" continues this not-quite-in-focus lamenting. Recalling an old failed partner and her reluctance to don said "white wedding gown" Welch drifts inexplicably into Steve Miller's "Quicksilver Girl" - itself as much of a virtual "folk song" as anything here.
But this is not the callous aspic-worship of Wynton Marsalis. Nor does it parallel the gratuitous cynicism of Garth Brooks, armed with his MBA.
A pair of comparatively straight love songs follow, but still not traditional. "Dear Someone" is on the face of it as convention as any Patsy Cline ballad (if the latter could be said to be "conventional") but the singer seems to be now revelling in her roving solitude, now anxious at her seeming lack of anchor, human or otherwise. Then there's "Red Clay Halo" the only song here whose lyrics have turned up on Welch websites, all about a poor lass who can't get a guy as she has to walk through red clay (why?) to attend the dance. Her gown will only become golden in the afterlife with a red clay halo around her head. This is not comfy Opry fare.
Next is the first part of a duologue "April the 14th" ostensibly a recollection of Welch visiting a no-budget outdoor festival with a "five-band bill and a two-dollar show ... no one turned up from the local press." The event passes as the sun sets and the sky becomes red. But the song is topped and tailed with seemingly random interjections of disasters which also occurred on April the 14th; the Titanic (the iceberg coming at it like Casey Jones), the Oklahoma dustbowl evacuation and the assassination of Lincoln ("the Great Emancipator took a bullet in the head"). She whispers "hey!" in the fadeout. A warning or a sob?
And then it's the epicentre of this album - which has to be listened to in full and in sequence - "I Want To Sing That Rock And Roll" recorded live at the Opry. Only 2:47 long. Exhausted with travelling and with her guitar, and with "everyone making a noise, so big and loud it's been drowning me out" she wants either to join or to subvert/destroy. The Opry audience whoops its approval of Rawlings' Scotty Moore licks in the middle. It's only when you realise that the track is extracted from the artfully engineered film "Down from the Mountain" that you understand that the audience is one which has seen "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" So they're all conspiring.
After that, a meditation on the consequences of wanting to sing that rock and roll. "Elvis Presley Blues." In the chorus it's unclear whether Welch is singing "I was thinking that night about Elvis - the day that he died" or "did he die?" She ponders his sexuality - "he grabbed his wand in the other hand and shook it like a hurricane ... and he shook it like a holy roller with his soul at stake." At the end of his life, "in long decline" he thinks "how happy John Henry was ... beating his steam drill and he dropped down dead." Welch climaxes with a murmured "bless my soul, what's wrong with me?" A tribute which Freddie Starr will never sing.
Back to "Ruination Day" which picks up from where "April the 14th" left off, but with the chords no longer pensive but askew and disjointed, as with the lyrics. "It was not December and it was not May/Was 14th of April that his ruination day/That's the day that his ruination day." Data is scrambled, the flattened fifths never resolved. Icebergs, bullets, dustbowls and Casey Jones merge into one final divine apocalypse. It is the product of a mind which has turned indeterminate. This is profoundly disturbing listening, the Dorian mode impaled upon John Henry's spear.
The symmetry of the album then resolves with "Everything Is Free" which returns to the "do what I want" ethos of "Dear Someone." The song is apparently about Napster - "gonna do it anyway, even if it doesn't pay - I can get a tip job, gas up the car, try to make a little change down at the bar; or I can get a straight job - I've done it before/Never mind working hard, it's who I'm working for." It's a means, not a purpose. It's defiant. It says fuck you far more fervently than Eminem taking the piss out of Steve Berman (not to deny the worth of the latter).
"Every day I wake up humming a song, but I don't need to run around, I just stay home and sing a little love song, my love and myself/If there's something that you wanna hear, you can sing it yourself - no one's gotta listen to the words in my head." A degree of distance/separation from commerce/the listener/the world which is almost on a par with that of AMM. What is there in MY uselessness, she asks, to cause YOU distress?
And finally to the closer, the unparalleled, unbeatable 14-minute masterpiece "I Dream A Highway" which sums up everything that's come before, attempts to explain it and moves music forward. Barely using three chords, but with every conceivable harmonic, acoustic and temporal variation there could ever be. Once again the protagonist is on the move through place and time. The mental highway is delineated by "a winding ribbon with a band of gold" and a "silver vision" which variously comes and rests, blesses and convalesces her soul.
It starts at the Grand Old Opry - "John (Henry, presumably)'s kicking out the footlights/The Grand Old Opry's got a brand new band/Lord let me die here with a hammer in my hand." In other words, she is here to demolish and destroy the citadel of conservatism. Referring back to Presley, she then plans to "move down into Memphis and thank the hatchet man who forked my tongue/I'll lie in wait until the wagons come" only to find that the "getaway kid" has sent her "an empty wagon full of rattling bones" (from the April 14th concert? From the dustbowl?). Then the revelation itself - "Which lover are you, Jack of Diamonds?/Now you be Emmylou and I'll be Gram." But this itself is a red herring. The confession ensues. "I don't know who I am."
And then it hits you. Underline it, Gillian.
"I'm an indisguisable shade of twilight/Any second now I'm gonna turn myself on/In the blue display of the cool cathode ray."
And you realise that this astonishing piece of music is beyond even a reverie, not the reverie of the dying Charles Foster Kane trying to make a personal sense of his life, but the imagined, implanted reverie we recognise from Blade Runner. It is the American equivalent of Tricky's "Aftermath." A replicant trying to learn and assimilate an alien cultural vocabulary. Bowie's imagined Sinatra gabble at the end of "Low." An alien trying to find its mother, its womb.
Explicitly referred to in the next stanza: "Sunday morning at the diner/Hollywood trembles on the verge of tears/I watch the waitress for a thousand years/Saw a wheel inside a wheel/Heard a call within a call." The cops shooting roses at ET instead of bullets. And, like ET, it awakens from the apparent dead: "Step into the light, poor Lazarus. Don't lie alone behind the window shade. Let me see the mark death made" as the song itself continues to wind down in speed almost imperceptibly, now down to funereal tempo winding the call around the circular spin of its own wheel.
There is no resolution. In the final verse Welch proclaims "what will sustain us through the winter? Where did last year's lessons go? Walk me out into the rain and snow." And the chords continue to occur less frequently. The space becomes more vast. The piece ends (if it can be said to end) with a few basic notes, deliciously hovering on the brink of non-existence (cf. Morton Feldman's Coptic Light, the closing minutes of John Stevens and Evan Parker's The Longest Night Vol 2). It fades, but like the end of Escalator Over The Hill, could theoretically continue forever.
And time resolves upon itself. When I started the preparatory notes for this piece in October 2001, I was still in Oxford and in grief. Perhaps it has required six months for me to bring a piece to a successful conclusion. I now feel differently about many things than I did then, and new light has availed itself upon my threshold.
I can but say that anyone wishing to listen to "Original Pirate Material" should first hear this. The parallels are remarkable; the same leitmotifs obsessively returned to, the same template of hopelessness and conventionality endlessly subverted (for "Casey Jones" read "shit in a tray"); no real ending. An individual decelerating in rebellion against the increased acceleration of the rest of humanity.
This is popular music which defies the undertaking. This is miles ahead.
MC London, April 2002
To R with love. Thanking you for the regeneration.
Amor vincera omnes.
― Marcello Carlin, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Ronan, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― mark s, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Having said that this is nicely written piece. Hopefully I'll hear something from this record.
― Julio Desouza, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Sean, Sunday, 7 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Dr. C, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Jeff W, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― powertonevolume, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― david h, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Agree that the individual decelerating etc. etc. is not especially radical per se, but the context in which Welch has presented this does in my view (trad.alt?) and the manner in which this is expressed do make it rather radical. Cf. Mike Skinner's parallel deconstruction/desecration/re-creation of UK garage. With Drake, you kind of know what you're going to get (Island '72 - narrowcast demographic). As you imply, I don't particularly want to push Welch into canonisation/Camden Town Good Music Society hell. I have tried to convince Simon R to have a listen but without much success so far - more intent on drawing a line from This Heat/ACR circa '80/81 to Streets/Position Normal.
I do tend to jump several stepping stones of logic at a go - including back and forth (as it tends to fit in better with the tenor of the music I'm talking about, getting beneath its skin etc.) - but really the data question is self-evident from my theory; the replicant in whom this data (country, USA, Titanic) has been implanted and who spends an hour trying to make it into a coherent story with palpable reason. I hope GW herself gets to read the piece; would love to know what gulf (or not) exists between my perception of what she's done and what she felt she set out to do.
Really the answer is to read the piece, in real time, along with the album (that's how I wrote the final draft - "24" style).
But what I would hope to do is to try and sharpen up ideas about the art of listening; about listening to the space between chords, the ethos which has been used to construct the music/lyric interface. To try to break the surface of "yawn trad country zzz" and get to the nerve centre of what is actually going on within this music. Something perhaps close to "the truth" - like the majestic yet immediately forlorn "perfect" opening chord of Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia, which the rest of the piece tries hard to recapture before settling for a compromise; not quite perfection, not quite God, but as near as humanity is going to get, and we should be satisfied with that.
Thanks also for the red clay info - does, as you say, bring a whole new dimension to that song and its relationship to the rest of the album.
― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
As for the red dirt, I took that as referring to the red dirt of Oklahoma and those kind areas. In that country the dirt really is red so what you've got, in my opinion, is a song about the insecurities of the poor country person toward the city tempered with a sense of defiance as though she's trying to stake a claim that her life is good enough and has value as is.
― Kevin Stahnke, Tuesday, 16 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― david h, Tuesday, 16 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Casey McAllister, Saturday, 25 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
"Welch drifts _inexplicably_ into Steve Miller's "Quicksilver Girl" - itself as much of a virtual "folk song" as anything here."
It's not inexplicable; the lyrics set it up. "Quicksilver Girl" is the song the narrator is listening to while she's losing her virginity.
"Then there's "Red Clay Halo" the only song here whose lyrics have turned up on Welch websites, all about a poor lass who can't get a guy as she has to walk through red clay (why?) to attend the dance. Her gown will only become golden in the afterlife with a red clay halo around her head. This is not comfy Opry fare. "
Well, not exactly. First, it's about a lad, not a lass. "Well the girls all dance with the boys from the city, and they don't care to dance with me." It's about poverty, and a bittersweet fantasy about a heaven for the poor, where those who lived in the dirt have halos and wings made of dirt. As for comfy Opry fare...this song, written by Welch and Rawlings, was originally recorded in 1998 by the Nashville Bluegrass Band. It's a very traditional bluegrass song; poverty, squalor, and sadness are the oldest themes in country and bluegrass music, and have always and will always feature prominently on the Opry. Just a question, and not as pointed as it might appear: Have you ever listened to the Opry? It's easy to imagine what it's like if you haven't, but try listening to it some Saturday on the web. Welch and Rawlings have performed on the Opry a few times, themselves.
"The Opry audience whoops its approval of Rawlings' Scotty Moore licks in the middle. It's only when you realise that the track is extracted from the artfully engineered film "Down from the Mountain" that you understand that the audience is one which has seen "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" So they're all conspiring."
Well, this wasn't performed at the Opry. It was performed at the Ryman Auditorium, which is one of many former homes of the Opry; the Opry is now based, and has been for a long time, at The Grand Ole Opry House in the Disney-like Opryland complex, next to a terrifyingly gigantic shopping mall and chateau-like hotel. It's true that this cut is extracted from the "Down From the Mountain" concert, but it's not true that the audience has seen "O Brother"; the film was still in post-production at the time of the "Down From the Mountain" concert. The concert was simply a gathering of very earnest, straightforward musicians playing very earnest, straightforward music. If there is a hollywood sheen to the film of the concert, it's because the film was made by veteran showbiz documentary filmmakers...the same folks who filmed the Monterery Pop Fest, as well as Bowie's Spiders film and Depeche Mode's 101. Also, audiences whooping approval of guitar/mandolin/dobro/banjo/whatever solos is a bluegrass convention. It's just what's done at bluegrass concerts. I saw Welch and Rawlings recently in Nashville; Rawlings solo'd on every song, and received enthusiastic applause after every solo. He's a damn good guitar player, and deserves every clap. It's not conspiracy, or rebellion. It's all very conventional, traditional, and honest.
The impetus and meaning, incidentally, for "I Want to Sing that Rock N Roll, are here: "The song stems from comments made by Carter Stanley on a live album during the late-'50s' country-music slump, when rock and roll overshadowed everything else." http://www.thestranger.com/2001-12-06/guide2.html
The above link provides an overall excellent historical and interpretational view of this record.
"After that, a meditation on the consequences of wanting to sing that rock and roll. "Elvis Presley Blues." In the chorus it's unclear whether Welch is singing "I was thinking that night about Elvis - the day that he died" or "did he die?" She ponders his sexuality - "he grabbed his wand in the other hand and shook it like a hurricane ... and he shook it like a holy roller with his soul at stake." At the end of his life, "in long decline" he thinks "how happy John Henry was ... beating his steam drill and he dropped down dead." Welch climaxes with a murmured "bless my soul, what's wrong with me?" A tribute which Freddie Starr will never sing."
I kind of like your sexual interpretation here, but I'm afraid it's groundless. Although sexuality does play in here, it's not the point of the song. First, he's "Grabbing ONE in the other hand," not his wand; she's talking about the fusion of racial musical genres; black R&B with white country music. And John Henry is not "Beating his steam drill"...he did, however, defeat ("beat") a steam drill in a race to build a railroad, after which John Henry fell down dead. This is also the source of the lyric, "Lord, let me die with a hammer in my hand." For more on John Henry, look here: http://www.ibiblio.org/john_henry/
"Bless my soul, what's wrong with me" is a brilliantly truncated extract from the Elvis track, "I'm all shook up." The entire lyric, which Welch has added to the song in live performance, is "Bless my soul, what's wrong with me/ I'm itchin like a bear on a fuzzy tree."
"It says fuck you far more fervently than Eminem taking the piss out of Steve Berman. "
Now THAT I can agree with!
"This is popular music which defies the undertaking. This is miles ahead. "
Thing is, though, this isn't popular music. It's pretty underground, by most American standard. The only Gillian you'll really hear on the radio is "I'll Fly Away" from the O Brother soundtrack. This music is miles and miles and miles behind, and miles ahead, and right on time. It overlaps old-time music with Woody Guthrie with Bob Dylan with The Stanley Brothers with Elvis with Blind Willie Johnson with Dead Kennedys with Kitty Wells with everything else. It's basically the whole history of RCA Studio B (Where it was recorded) all coming through at once. It's kind of ultimate postmodernism with all its machine noise turned down, so that the only noise is the noise of analogue tape, and yes, of fingers clicking on the strings.
― St. Brendan, Nashville TN, Wednesday, 12 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Sean Carruthers, Wednesday, 12 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
I just wanted to add one little note for posterity's sake. The association of John in "I Dream a Highway" with John Henry is wrong. Like many of the other characters in this song, she's refering to a singer -- here Johnny Cash. Back when Johnny Cash was really screwed up on drugs and alcohol, he wreaked a little hell at the Grand Old Opry. At this show, he walked around the stage and kicked out the stage lights. The audience and the powers that be at the Grand Old Opry freaked and Mr. Cash was banned from the Grand Old Opry for many years.
She does go on to tie Johnny Cash in with John Henry in her reference to the hammer, but her initial reference is explicitly referring to the former.
― Bob Brookins, Wednesday, 5 February 2003 06:23 (twenty-two years ago)
― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 21 December 2004 05:49 (twenty years ago)
Nothing as erudite as all the musings upthread. Just wanted to note that Gillian & David's cover of Black Star is excellent.
― that's not my post, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 03:59 (eighteen years ago)
Yeah, they did that when I saw them live and it was quite striking
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 04:08 (eighteen years ago)
No album in four years though and no current tours.
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 04:09 (eighteen years ago)
lazy zing x 1000, and yet...
http://media.npr.org/images/podcasts/primary/npr_music_image_300.jpg
― gershy, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 04:16 (eighteen years ago)
thanks for the pointer to the WFUV - Bonnaroo interview. Sounds like they are at least starting to pull together some new material.
― that's not my post, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 05:10 (eighteen years ago)
I love Soul Journey as a deliberate full album, how the final lines rhyme "mall" (mall!) and "ball" and refer to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and how they've got electric guitars for the first time in this song, and it feels like the end of a two-album or maybe four-album song cycle.
Also I love how each of her records sets up particular conventions in the first minute or two that define the parameters of what we'll hear: the dissonant opening to Time, the drums on Soul Journey.
I mean, there are plenty of other pleasures in this music, but their structure as full albums is part of it.
― Eazy, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 05:23 (eighteen years ago)
Revelator is conceptually brilliant.
― roxymuzak, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 06:10 (eighteen years ago)
WHAT DO I PLAY TO SEDUCE CORNY FOLK FUCK
― gershy, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 06:53 (eighteen years ago)
For me, it's been downhill since Revival, and her reference to Gram Parsons pretty much takes all the fun out of ODing in a cheap motel room with a groupie.
― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 08:16 (eighteen years ago)
i think revelator is the only record where she figured out how to do something wholly her own. still shows all her obvious debts and influences, and still indulges in some po-faced po'-folks stuff, but the musical and lyrical reference points are farther flung and more mysterious than on the other albums. i think it's really a great record. the songs stand up individually but also cohere into something greater, mystical, apocalyptic (and/or rapturous, if there's a difference).
on another note, anyone heard tim and mollie o'brien's cover of "wichita"? that's one of my favorite non-revelator gil songs, but she hasn't released a version of it herself as far as i know. the o'briens version is great.
― tipsy mothra, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 18:03 (eighteen years ago)
Yeah, I totally agree about Revelator, and Soul Journey was a bit of a letdown in that regard - I mean not that she went backward or anything, but the album didn't add up to much for me.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)
I also really like the Nowhere Man/Whiskey Girl song for similar reasons (does something her own, loses the po-faced schtick)
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 18:12 (eighteen years ago)
All the talk of Red Clay upthread reminded me of this story
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 18:23 (eighteen years ago)
I guess taste is taste, but I can't help but think that people who use the "NPR music" zing are more interested in stylistic than qualitative distinctions.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 18:30 (eighteen years ago)
I mean i remember that xhucx kept calling her "schoolmarm folk," and I can hardly accuse him of being deaf to qualitative distinctions, but I don't hear schoolmarm folk in Gillian Welch at all.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 18:32 (eighteen years ago)
well there is something a little antiseptic about her, although in a somewhat complicated way (as marcello's first post does a good job of illuminating: "too impeccable to be real; not enough dirt on her boots, not enough creases in his suit. But then that's the point.")
i understand complaints about her humorlessness, even though i think she's funny sometimes, and as far as neo-authenticity goes she can be a big offender. but that's one reason i think revelator is her best record, because it kind of moved beyond a lot of that. a few songs aside (including "red clay halo," which i like a lot anyway because it's a good tune), it's not particularly mannered or self-consciously rootsy.
"npr music" though is just as dumb as any other dumb tag. bob dylan is npr music too. so is ella fitzgerald. and?
― tipsy mothra, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 19:12 (eighteen years ago)
I always thought "Red Clay Halo" was a cover - it sounds like some kind of traditional song that's filtered down over the years into the martyr complex of mainstream country (and a lot of rural, or wannabe rural, white people - them big city elites are making fun of us!).
― milo z, Wednesday, 24 October 2007 19:46 (eighteen years ago)
guess I missed the secret sign that "npr music" was supposed to be trenchant criticism. ok, you've convinced me that she's crap. will stop listening to her and all other npr crap immediately.
― that's not my post, Thursday, 25 October 2007 06:24 (eighteen years ago)
Can we agree on a definition - "NPR Rock" ??
― gershy, Thursday, 25 October 2007 06:46 (eighteen years ago)
ROFFLE:
somewhere between crowded house and wilco.
-- stockholm cindy (winter version) (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 20 January 2006 05:12 (1 year ago) Link ...there lies obsession.
-- Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 20 January 2006 05:32 (1 year ago) Link
― Hurting 2, Thursday, 25 October 2007 14:01 (eighteen years ago)
This thread reminds me of what Tom Smucker (quoted by Xgau) said about Woodstock: "I left one thing out of my Woodstock article. I left out how boring it was."
― Jazzbo, Thursday, 25 October 2007 14:18 (eighteen years ago)
No album in four years though and no current tours.― Hurting 2, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 5:09 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 5:09 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark
What is up with that?
― caek, Wednesday, 22 October 2008 00:56 (seventeen years ago)
weirder is that there kind of were tours, right? like a bunch of american shows a year ago, maybe. she's got really good new songs, too.
― schlump, Wednesday, 22 October 2008 01:12 (seventeen years ago)
I am watching this right now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074qnh/BBC_Four_Sessions_Gillian_Welch/
― caek, Wednesday, 22 October 2008 01:13 (seventeen years ago)
(which that Youtube is from)
yeah funny that it's been so long since her last record! i interviewed her in 2005, i think, and at the time she hinted that a new record was imminent. guess not! she did say that she liked having her own label because it allowed her to go by her own timeline. have heard one amazing new song "the way it will be" that they play live. though calling it new at this point is silly, i think I heard them do it in 2003 ...
― tylerw, Wednesday, 22 October 2008 03:13 (seventeen years ago)
saw her in brooklyn last year and she was grrr8
― Surmounter, Wednesday, 22 October 2008 03:40 (seventeen years ago)
website lists a bunch of albums that she and david rawlings have "appeared" on, no tour dates
― Tyrone Quattlebaum (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 22 October 2008 03:44 (seventeen years ago)
I kind of assumed after Everything Is Free and Wrecking Ball that she'd just never bother recording for public release again.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 22 October 2008 08:30 (seventeen years ago)
New album due next year according to metacritic; no release date as yet.
― Eric in the East Neuk of Anglia (Marcello Carlin), Wednesday, 22 October 2008 08:48 (seventeen years ago)
"the queen of fakes and imitators"
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 26 August 2024 18:27 (one year ago)
About a year ago, my father-in-law mentioned doing chores for "The Traipsin Woman" in his town, who he recalled had something to do with a music festival. Leading us down the rabbit hole of
https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2019/08/jean-thomas-kentuckys-traipsin-woman.html
Sounds like she was the salt of the earth, but she also went to Hunter College. Lunceford's "Mole in the Ground" was recorded in Ashland, maybe because of her connections?
20th century concern about authenticity in music is so weird now. Powers' certainly captures what a muddled concept it is -- I can't quite extract exactly how her feelings have changed, but it reads as a similar history of emotions I've felt. It's like "authenticity" is orthogonal to "pornography", like you know it when you see it, but upon the slightest reflection you don't.
I love that the Welch album gets "ditch that class in college" out of the way within two verses.
― Theracane Gratifaction (bendy), Monday, 26 August 2024 18:31 (one year ago)
The problem with authenticity is solely with the listener. It often dupes people into liking really boring shit
― Heez, Monday, 26 August 2024 19:25 (one year ago)
i prefer fakely boring shit
― mark s, Monday, 26 August 2024 19:30 (one year ago)
It’s just good ol’ gatekeeping as usual
― assert (matttkkkk), Monday, 26 August 2024 19:48 (one year ago)
Gil & Dave’s turn to modernity in the songwriting is hardly new, tho. They’ve been at it for at least 25 years — by Revelator, they weren’t writing about stills in the holler much, more about going to see a junked-out punk band or lamenting Napster. I thought “Harrow” was a step backwards in that regard, tho admittedly I haven’t spent much time with it.
― dentist looking too comfortable singing the blues (hardcore dilettante), Monday, 26 August 2024 21:39 (one year ago)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPBR8sB1W30
― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 26 August 2024 21:46 (one year ago)
I didn't spend much time with Harrow until relatively recently. Really like Scarlet Town and Hard Times.
― that's not my post, Tuesday, 27 August 2024 01:47 (one year ago)
Forget about Doreen, thanks!If somebody in a Welch song seems like she might being trying to wrap her brane around her life in, say, 1924, I often relate to that in whut is this 2024 (wow). And speaking of roots, life goes on and we tend to take of it with us, so why not somebodies---her and Dave, making those harmonies----sounding like the mountains never left them behind---it happens; think of Los Angelena Iris DeMent, hell think of mostly Cali-raised Haggard and Kristofferson----thinking tonight, like on the old camp ground, of how Elvis shook it like a stripper, babyBill Monroe put his fusion music (bluegrass) together, put the later touches on it, while following his brothers to jobs in places like East Chicago and Flint.Maybe 20 years later, Bobby Zimmerman, as he's mentioned to interviewers, heard Monroe's "Drifting To Far From The Shore" while stuck up there in Hibbing, implying that it was an influence on what he looked for in music, as listener, performer, and (as he said in Chronicles, about standing too close to Mike Seeger's overwhelming virtuosity in a loft performance: o shit better go be a) writer--of clever timely lyrics and handy P.Domain tunes, like Woody G and others had done, were doing. -
― dow, Tuesday, 27 August 2024 02:50 (one year ago)
(Wonder if Powers is also still struggling with considerations of, what is it, that there "rockism")
― dow, Tuesday, 27 August 2024 02:53 (one year ago)
Born in NYC, raised in LA, adoptive parents "wrote music for The Carol Burnett Show, appeared on the Tonight Show"---]she in "psychedelic surf band" and goth band before what she's best known for:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_WelchSo I think of her as metabilly, as partial basis for self-expressin, as with Cali's Blasters, CCR etc (also twangy ol' son of Bay Area working class Les Claypool, with his souped-up hot rod prog and all)
― dow, Tuesday, 27 August 2024 03:10 (one year ago)
Love Gill and Dave, but I am not getting a lot from the new record. Lots of pleasant and pretty songs but nothing I've connected with really.
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 3 September 2024 07:29 (one year ago)
I really like hashtag?!
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 3 September 2024 14:08 (one year ago)
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 3 September 2024 15:57 (one year ago)
I like several of the songs individually, but collectively I think it's a bit of a bore — pretty much how I usually respond to them, with Time (the Revelator) as the major exception. It's all very sturdy, but Welch's determined lack of anything but the driest possible humor keeps me at a bit of a distance.
― Blitz Primary (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 3 September 2024 16:24 (one year ago)
loving the new one — sounds totally great to my ears
― tylerw, Tuesday, 3 September 2024 16:42 (one year ago)
fwiw I adored Harrow and Time with plenty of love for the rest of the catalogue as well. This one just lacks mystery I think.
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 3 September 2024 22:55 (one year ago)
This is making me realize my first impressions of their records has been “this is pleasant enough but maybe lacking” and then their weird tapped-in-to-the-history-of-song starts to unfold. I’m about halfway with this one. Trainload, North Country,and Hashtag have moved into the this-has-always-existed feel for me. Mississippi hit deep for the first time on my last listen.
― Theracane Gratifaction (bendy), Tuesday, 3 September 2024 23:50 (one year ago)
this is 100% great imho - ok it's intimate and held back and adult but it's so... perfect. Each note is where it should be and their voices sound even better together now hers dropped a bit with age.
― StanM, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 14:51 (one year ago)
something like "north country" is like every song that "americana" artists have been trying to write for like 25 years — and yet in Welch & Rawlings' hands it feels totally fresh. perfect is the right word.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 15:07 (one year ago)
Runnin aroundwith herragtopdown.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsC3wsVSJYk
― dow, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 17:23 (one year ago)
That sounds like Pistol Annies to me, maybe the song they were listening to the night they said, "Fuck it, let's be a band."
― dow, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 17:25 (one year ago)
Bout time for a tribute album, don't yall think?
― dow, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 17:27 (one year ago)
This'll do for now:Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile---Elvis Presley Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NEFBFMAjRk
― dow, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 17:31 (one year ago)
i think my main disappointment with woodland is the lack of a rythym section. got excited when empty trainload of sky dropped that drums and bass guitar were back.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 5 September 2024 17:13 (one year ago)
Gorgeous live version of "Hashtag"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMuwzkPpa7o
― Blitz Primary (tipsy mothra), Friday, 6 September 2024 05:36 (one year ago)
there's about 5 songs from that show on youtube (the others are audience recordings) btw
― StanM, Friday, 6 September 2024 13:28 (one year ago)
e.g. I Hear Them All (David Rawlings Machine) / This Land Is Your Land:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX9_GReUhFE
― StanM, Friday, 6 September 2024 13:35 (one year ago)
they're going to reissue Time The Revelator and after that the first two albums - oh, and Rawlings has links to the Corning Gorilla Glass people :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrYg6Xz0DXg
― StanM, Friday, 6 September 2024 14:20 (one year ago)
Beautiful version of hashtag - thanks for sharing.
― that's not my post, Friday, 6 September 2024 22:43 (one year ago)
First listen last night and enjoyed it. It's almost got a sophistipop sheen to it in places, which I am very much here for. Rawlings-sung tunes are probably the weakest ones here.
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Saturday, 7 September 2024 09:39 (one year ago)
they're going to reissue Time The Revelator and after that the first two albums - oh, and Rawlings has links to the Corning Gorilla Glass people :-)📹
― dentist looking too comfortable singing the blues (hardcore dilettante), Saturday, 7 September 2024 23:51 (one year ago)
I know it's obtuse and basic to say this, but: when you have a voice like Welch's in the band, and a liquid, endlessly inventive guitarist like Rawlings, choosing to forego those things to have Dave sing simpler fingerpicked songs seems, I don't know, somehow bloody-minded to me. I get it, he's essential, they're equal partners, but hand on heart there is never a moment I'd prefer to hear him singing than her. Hashtag sure is a lovely song, but it quickens to life when Gill sings.Also musicians don't obsess about sound quality because their hearing is often shot.
― assert (matttkkkk), Sunday, 8 September 2024 01:33 (one year ago)
(that interviewer is Michael Fremer who's been an audio gear reviewer for 30+ years, first at Stereophile / Analog Planet and latterly Tracking Angle.)
― assert (matttkkkk), Sunday, 8 September 2024 01:36 (one year ago)
― dentist looking too comfortable singing the blues (hardcore dilettante), Sunday, 8 September 2024 04:34 (one year ago)
OK I was just absolutely thunderstruck by "The Bells & the Birds". Astonishing, mesmerising song, it just crept up on me. These guys.
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 27 September 2024 02:09 (one year ago)
Saw Welch & Rawlings live last night ( occasionally joined by an acoustic bassist). I am a fan of Welch’s voice and her vocal harmonies with Rawlings and they seem like really nice folks. My folk music loving wife loved the show and is wowed by them. I enjoyed it but have determined I am not as wowed by their songwriting.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 December 2024 20:34 (one year ago)
They did a 2 hour set with a break between the first and second hour
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 December 2024 20:38 (one year ago)
“We’re such a quiet band, we really use the room,” Welch says. “We can hear you guys. We don’t have in-ears in; we don’t have monitors blasting up at us,” she explains, naming two methods many touring musicians use to ensure they can hear themselves over the din of the crowd and their bandmates. “Our show changes every night depending upon the theater and the vibe of the crowd. By the time we get to the encore, we all know each other, and the night has usually coalesced into something. And we react to that in the encore.”
From recent interview in Washington Post
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 December 2024 20:41 (one year ago)
I saw them for the first time in Baltimore Saturday night. They played that rousing medley of Rawlings' "I Hear Them All" (which truly sounds like it could be a standard from the 1930s) and "This Land is Your Land." I wasn't aware a version of that was released on that Inside Llewyn Davis concert album a few years back. They also ended with a cover of "White Rabbit."
― Chris L, Monday, 9 December 2024 20:47 (one year ago)
We almost went to that Baltimore gig, but went to last's night Virginia near DC gig instead. We did not get that medley. We did get "Time the Revelator" which I think someone who went to both shows says you did not get Saturday
here's the link to recent Wash Post interview by freelancer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/12/04/gillian-welch-david-rawlings-concert-dc/
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 December 2024 21:41 (one year ago)
We didn't get "White Rabbit" either
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 December 2024 21:42 (one year ago)
I was at the Kingston NY show. Great time. Packed venue.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 10 December 2024 01:19 (one year ago)
Tiny Desk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfGdjdxxOuU
― the way out of (Eazy), Thursday, 3 July 2025 02:14 (five months ago)
always a treat to see these two play live
― StanM, Thursday, 3 July 2025 06:24 (five months ago)
I haven't seen them live, but as for the xpost songwriting, as I said way upthread, was struck by the previously-unreleased megadumps re careful detail, brief scenes from a seeming variety of lives, which (I'll add) may assume different significance depending on how they are sung and played, from night to night: a thought which tempts me to follow them around like a Deadhead.
― dow, Thursday, 3 July 2025 22:36 (five months ago)
Deadhead, Dylanhead---I wonder if there are GillianandDaveheads---
― dow, Thursday, 3 July 2025 22:38 (five months ago)
Several years ago, a friend of mine mentioned them to his (singer-songwriter) son, who said, "Oh yeah, they stayed at my house." Dad: "Oh I would liked to have met them." What, if anything, his son replied is unrecorded by me, but he and his Dad like a lot of the same music, so if he reported everyone who stayed there etc.
― dow, Thursday, 3 July 2025 22:43 (five months ago)
"Oh I would have liked meeting them," more like
― dow, Thursday, 3 July 2025 22:45 (five months ago)
upthread:
(maaaan)Anybody jonesing for Gillian and Dave should check out Kieran Kane & Rayna Gellert:https://kanegellert.bandcamp.com/album/the-flowers-that-bloom-in-spring
This is superb, thank you dow. Love the art, too.― Indexed, Thursday, August 10, 2023 4:45 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglinkYou're welcome! I like the art on the Bandcamp page too. This is something I just came across on there, still need to check the two previous duet albs they've posted. Every time I listen, it hits me a little harder, in that-low key way.― dow, Thursday, August 10, 2023 9:03 PM
― Indexed, Thursday, August 10, 2023 4:45 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink
You're welcome! I like the art on the Bandcamp page too. This is something I just came across on there, still need to check the two previous duet albs they've posted. Every time I listen, it hits me a little harder, in that-low key way.
― dow, Thursday, August 10, 2023 9:03 PM
― dow, Monday, 24 November 2025 21:19 (two weeks ago)