The Sweet Voice of Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Man, after my recent spate of posting entire shows, it feels funny to focus on one song again. This has to be posted though. You all know how it is having a song stuck in your head. You fathers and mothers out there know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with “Wags the Dog, He Likes to Tango” from the Wiggles, or the Blues Clues Theme song, or “I’m Hungry, I’m Hungry” from Breakfast with Bear. So it’s always welcome relief when it’s a good song that you actually like that’s stuck in your head. For the last couple days, it’s been this Jimmie Dale Gilmore song rolling around in my head.
I would consider Jimmie Dale Gilmore an acquired taste. His singing voice can best be described as a tremolo-filled Texas warble. He can take some getting used to. But hearing this song drew me in the first time. It’s a bittersweet acoustic masterpiece with a tale of love lost.
I have my old friend Mark to thank for putting this on a mix tape long ago (along with my first taste of Townes Van Zandt and Uncle Tupelo). These days, Mark runs a great cafe near Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he hosts some great jazz musicians and roasts his own coffee. I would recommend checking out Luna Cafe, and buying some of his coffee online. Just try it once, and you’ll come back for more, I guarantee you.
Jimmie Dale Gilmore:Tonight I Thing I’m Gonna Go Downtown(mp3) – from After AwhileWelcome to my World
Well, it’s been a good week. My second daughter was born into this world yesterday morning, right into my waiting hands. Words can’t describe it, my friends. The miracle of birth makes skeptics like me into believers. I only wish the world I’ve brought my daughters into was a very different place.
The music that is a natural accompaniment to great moments like these is the music of Bruce Cockburn. Since I discovered his vast catalog of music in the early 90’s, I have turned to Bruce’s music when I want peace, calm, inspiration, and gentle reason.
Here are a couple from my favorite Bruce album, 1979’s Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws.
Bruce Cockburn: Creation Dream (mp3) | Hills of Morning (mp3)
And it goes without saying that one of the first recorded human voices my daughter will hear is Elvis Presley’s.
Elvis Presley: Welcome to my World (mp3) – from Aloha from Hawaii
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Other Bruce News: For you Sirius Satellite Radio subscribers, check out an exclusive interview with the Boss this Sunday. Details are here. An interesting note in this press release regarding the upcoming tour:
Each night, an all new evening of gospel, folk, and blues will be presented by Springsteen with the 17-member Seeger Sessions Band.
I wish I could quit this song
One more on the mellow side before I launch into some newly converted cassette tapes (yes, cassettes!) from my past. So who’s seen Brokeback Mountain? I probably won’t until I run across it on HBO or Cinemax, but if this song is any indication, the soundtrack is worth a listen.
My knowledge of Rufus Wainwright’s work is pretty much limited to that great version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that I first heard while sitting down to some popcorn and the movie Shrek. Beautifully done. And so is this one.
Rufus Wainwright:
The Maker Makes(mp3) from the Soundtrack to Brokeback MountainThe Poet Game
It’s tough enough keeping up with all of the new music out there when you’re still discovering great music from years past. It’s a perpetual cycle, but that’s what is so great about music: you’ll never hear it all, and there’s always something hiding waiting to be unearthed. Like this song here? I don’t know much about Greg Brown, but every time I hear his songs, I like them. Especially this one I heard recently. Soft, heartfelt, and simple.
Greg Brown: The Poet Game (mp3) – from The Poet Game, 1994.
The Poet Game
Down by the river junior year
walking with my girl,
and we came upon a place
there in the tall grass where a couple
had been making love
and left the mark of their embrace.
I said to her, “Looks like they had some fun.”
She said to me, “Let’s do the same.”
and still I taste her kisses
and her freckles in the sun
when I play the poet game. Read the rest of the lyrics.Blue Live
I posted the studio version of this song last summer, but given that the live version from Lucinda’s ‘Live @ the Fillmore’ album is far superior, in my opinion, I just had to share it with you all.
If you’re not touched by this tune, then brother (or sister), you have no soul.
Lucinda Williams:
Blue (live)[mp3] from Live @ the Fillmore | LyricsMore Strays
I just received the Strays Don’t Sleep self titled debut CD / DVD today in the mail, all the way from the UK. After one listen, I have one thing to say: Hey Strays! Release this baby in the U.S.!!
My site has been deluged with visitors searching for their single, “For Blue Skies”, due to it being played on One Tree Hill last week. “For Blue Skies” is available on iTunes, so go check that out.
See my previous Strays post to read more about them, or visit them at their Official Web Site or their My Space page.
Here’s one off the CD:
Strays Don’t Sleep:
April’s Smiling at Me(mp3)I found my copy of the CD off of eBay. But you can find some others here at Froogle.
Sunday Grab Bag 2
Another random sampling of some music I’ve been particularly enjoying of late.
Though a ton of artists have recorded this Boudleaux Bryant classic, I first heard Nazareth’s version as a kid, then the Everly Brothers (who did the original in 1961). It wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally heard Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris do things to it that make me quite content to never hear another’s version again.
Gram Parsons w/ Emmylou Harris:
Love Hurts(mp3) from Grievous Angel (1973)A Cuban friend at work was kind enough to turn me on to legendary conguero Carlos “Patato” Valdes, thought by many to be the greatest Cuban conga player. This one comes from ‘The Legend of Cuban Percussion’, a 2000 release. With a flute, piano, bass, and Patato on the congas, it is most definitely headphone worthy.
Carlos “Patato” Valdes:
Luz(mp3)More Bruce? Yes, More Bruce.
Here are a few selections from Bruce?s Nov. 21st show at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, New Jersey (his 2nd to last show of the tour). I go through ?all Bruce all the time? phases like this. You?re just going to have to work through it with me.Bruce Springsteen:
Song for Orphans
Bruce Springsteen:Dream Baby Dream(Suicide cover)
Bruce Springsteen:Two for the RoadAll live from November 21st, 2005, Trenton, New Jersey
An Afternoon with Blaze
I watched a great Austin City Limits last night: John Prine and Amos Lee. During Prine’s set, he introduced his last song as one “that just about knocked me off my chair” when he first heard it. It was a song called “Clay Pigeons” by Blaze Foley. The song about knocked me off my couch last night too; a heart-wrenching, beautifully written song. It’s on John’s latest CD, ‘Fair & Square’, which I own, but it had never hit me like that before. It’s in the Texas singer songwriter vein, the finger-pickin’ akin to Townes van Zandt (a friend and hero of Blaze).
So I went a searching to find out more about Blaze Foley. Well, like a lot of talents, he died young at the age of 39 years old in 1989. He was shot to death apparently while defending an elderly friend of his. He was a very eccentric, hard living character (he had a strange fixation with duct tape, so much so that his coffin was duct taped at his funeral). He spent most of the 70’s and 80’s playing gigs in Houston, New Orleans, and Austin. But he didn’t leave behind much of a body of work. A couple of albums were released after his death. One of them was ‘Live at the Austin Outhouse’, which was recorded on December 18th, 1988 (his 39th birthday), about three months before his death.
So I have to thank John Prine, not only for his music, but for mentioning Blaze Foley, one of the hidden stars of Texas music, another one who faded away much too fast.
Blaze Foley: Clay Pigeons (mp3)
- Buy Live at the Austin Outhouse on Amazon
- A Blaze Foley web site
- Hear John Prine’s version of “Clay Pigeons”
Mo’ Live Boss
Here’s a treat for the Boss fanatics. Bruce is still churning along on his solo acoustic tour supporting ‘Devils & Dust’. Wednesday night in Philly, Bruce debuted a couple of oldies that came out on Tracks several years back.Here they are:
Bruce Springsteen:
Santa Ana and Thundercrack(mp3)(live – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 9, 2005)
