Posts Tagged ‘David Rawlings’

GILLIAN WELCH – ” The Lost Songs Boots Number 2… Vol 1 Vol 2 and Vol 3 “

Posted: January 26, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , ,
0

Working in tandem with her erstwhile musical collaborator David Rawlings, singer/songwriter Gillian Welch searched through her vault and uncovered a rich cache of home demos and reel-to-reel recordings that she then assembled into three volumes of archival offerings. Collectively titled The Lost Songs and delineated as Boots Vol. 1, 2 and 3, she shares 48 songs in total, thus allowing fans and followers an opportunity to bear witness to Welch’s creative sensibilities and the unreleased music she and Rawlings recorded in the fertile period between her critically-acclaimed albums Time (The Revelator) and Soul Journey. An aural sketchbook of sorts, the three volumes reflect a certain creative consistency and Welch’s willingness to indulge her muse wherever it might lead.

Fans of Gillian Welch and her long time songwriting foil David Rawlings’s reimagining of early country and bluegrass are used to being patient. Until a month ago, the pair had only released five albums proper under her name, and three in his, since Welch’s 1996 debut, “Revival”. But after their studio, with all their old recordings, was almost destroyed by a tornado in March, they’ve changed tack. Hot on the heels of July’s covers album, “All the Good Times Are Past and Gone”, comes the follow-up to 2016’s first batch of archive recordings, The Official Revival Bootleg, with two more volumes.

http://

While most of the offerings are rendered in stripped-down settings, all reflect a propensity to tap traditional sources and pay heed to a strong roots regimen. It’s music that’s rendered with a genuine folk finesse and a sound of a vintage variety.  The charm is manifest in both the novelty and the nuance. Although they are demos, with little more in play than guitar and Welch’s voice, they sound fully realised. 

First Place Ribbon, about barefoot Kathy, “the kinda girl likes the dust between her toes”, rattles along with an irresistible momentum; the narrator of the brooding Shotgun Song fantasises about escaping the chain gang; Valley of Tears is as desolately beautiful as its name suggests. That Welch and Rawlings have sat on such inspired recordings for almost two decades makes you wonder what other hidden treasures might be forthcoming.

http://

Unearthed from a cache of home demos and reel-to-reel recordings, Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs is the second release of archival music from the vault of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. This remarkable 48 song collection, spread over three volumes, was recorded between the making of Time (The Revelator) and Soul Journey. It is an intimate glimpse at the artist’s sketchbook, containing some lifelong themes as well as some flights of fancy.

http://

This album is all about the honed to a sharp fine edge, of Gillian Welch Goodness- excellent production, and just so damn real and fine.

DAVID RAWLINGS – ” Cumberland Gap “

Posted: December 29, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , ,
0

From the new album , out now on Acony Records. Shot on location in Tennessee with acclaimed director James Lees. Southern This gothic tune appears on the singer-songwriter’s new album ‘Poor David’s Almanack,’

There are few figures in the Americana community who are as respected and beloved as David Rawlings. The songwriter, guitar slinger, producer and longtime Gillian Welch collaborator is one of the pioneers of the form, having played integral roles in such monumental releases as Welch’s 2001 Grammy-nominated Time (The Revelator), Ryan Adams’ 2000 solo debut Heartbreaker, and Old Crow Medicine Show’s 2004 self-titled studio debut. a new track from Poor David’s Almanack, the Southern Gothic stomp “Cumberland Gap.” As Rawlings explains, the track was a vital piece in finishing out Poor David’s Almanack, as it was one of the last songs to be completed in what he describes as “the fastest [they] ever made a record.”

DAVID RAWLINGS – ” Airplane “

Posted: December 16, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: ,
0

If David Rawlings had an airplane, he’d “fly to Tennessee just for the day, and lay me down easy, just to wind my blues away.” You could substitute any state or place in that line, wherever you want to be at any particularly bad moment. It’s a beauty of a song about escaping, about leaving your woes on the ground as you go soaring through the air, and Rawlings sings and plays guitar like a man who has more than a few of those woes.

Over the past decade, ever since releasing the first album under his own name — 2009’s Friend Of A Friend – David Rawlings has gradually emerged in his partnership with Gillian Welch as the duo’s primary vocal outlet. Though it often seems as though the only discernible difference between albums under Gillian Welch and David Rawlings is who happens to be singing lead, three of their past four albums have been released under Rawlings’ name. “Poor David’s Almanack” takes a more full-band approach toward Welch and Rawlings’ neo-traditionalist American roots music. Enlisting longtime collaborators like Willie Watson, Brittany Haas and Ketch Secor, Rawlings runs through a mix of light folk-rock, orchestrated country-soul, traditional country-gospel, and folksy low-country blues. When recording under the Rawlings name, Welch and Rawlings are freer to toy around musically and stray from the note-perfect craftsmanship of the acoustic duo format they tend to stick to when performing as Gillian Welch. Poor David’s Almanack, for instance, features plenty of electric guitar, full string sections, rollicking fiddle and ramshackle three-part harmonies. A large component of Rawlings and Welch’s musical/historical project with their David Rawlings’ releases is their repeated insistence that in traditional music, there’s no such thing as a novelty song. Like on past comical high-dramas like 2009’s “Sweet Tooth” and 2015’s “Candy,” new numbers like “Yup,” “Good God A Woman” and “Money Is The Meat In The Coconut” are humorous, deadpan allegories that often tell deeper stories of lust, greed sex, and violence. What’s so profoundly American about these songs are the way they often deploy humorous metaphor and simple, child-like storytelling devices to convey deeper, darker truths. Other times, the songs are simply funny stories without a larger lesson. In this way, Dave Rawlings records exist as an important counterweight to the inherent gravitas and high stakes seriousness in Gillian Welch albums. An earlier version of this review listed Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith as producers of the album. The album was produced by David Rawlings and engineered by Ken Scott and Matt Andrews.

from his “Poor David’s Almanack” 2017. Acony Records