| JAMES TALLEY....WOODY GUTHRIE AND SONGS OF MY OKLAHOMA HOME***1/2 JAMES TALLEY....NASHVILLE CITY BLUES**** CIMARRON RECORDS I recall around 10 years ago digging through a box of old albums at a pawnshop and coming across an L.P. that caught my eye. On the cover was a picture of white guy sitting on a bench by an old beat-up garbage can, surrounded by five black people. Everybody looked happy. The name of the album was Black Jack Choir, and it was by a fellow whom I�d never heard of at this point in my life: James Talley. Well, I took my prize home and gave it a listen and found the album�s folk/country/blues sound intriguing; and the lyrics thoughtful and compelling. The songs championed the lives and struggles of working class people not unlike myself. Nowadays, I know a little bit more about James Talley than I did back then, and so I was pleased to discover his two newest releases in my mail box to consider for review. James Talley was born in Oklahoma some fifty-odd years ago and had a dream to make music. He got his degree in fine arts and set out after his dream. Along the way he worked as a carpenter and a case worker for the New Mexico Department of Public Welfare. While a case-worker he had a caseload of poor Chicano families who had little, or no education, and even less hope. �What I saw at my Welfare Department job let me know, that for some people, things had changed very little during the thirty years since the Great Depression. What I saw as a caseworker changed my whole view of life in the United States; and to this day those images are stamped indelibly in my memory.� Around 1967 Talley met Pete Seeger at a concert at the University in New Mexico. Pete encouraged Talley to write about the things around him, the things he saw and experienced. Talley heeded the advice and wrote the songs that became the album The Road to Torre�on. Soon after, Talley moved to Nashville and quickly got the word on what it was like to put an album together there. �I didn�t realize at the time, that Nashville�s music business is just that, a �business�- art has no place in it, unless it can be translated into dollars...� Publisher Chuck Glaser told Talley that �If he wanted his songs to be commercial, that he must follow certain rules, and use certain themes. Songs could not be too long, or radio wouldn�t play them.� Well, time passed and eventually Talley landed a record deal with Capital Records where his album Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got A Lot of Love was released to critical raves. Greil Marcus from The Village Voice was decidedly impressed. Then in 1975 Tryin� Like The Devil was released and likewise garnered great reviews all around. Talley�s third Capital album Black Jack Choir was a favorite of then president Jimmy Carter�s wife and Talley was invited to perform at the Carter Inauguration. During Carter�s term in office, Talley would play at the White House twice more. 1977 saw the release of Talley�s fourth Capital release Ain�t It Somethin� and the beginning of major problems which were to soon manifest themselves into his life. Late in the fall of 1977, his manager, Michael Brovky called Talley up and said �Capitol is not doing the job for you and I want to take you off of Capitol and find you a real record company.� Well, Talley trusted him and was soon released from his contract. Funny thing though, is that soon after, Talley couldn�t get Brovsky to return any of his telephone calls. �Brovsky had dropped off the face of the Earth as far as I was concerned. He wasn�t returning any of my calls, and I had no recording contract any longer.� In 1979, another disaster occured when Capitol deleted all of Talley�s albums from their catalog. By 1982 Talley was virtually broke. �I was driving home one night from a performance non-stop, when a North Carolina State Trooper pulled me over for speeding and wrote me an $85 ticket. I was so broke, so tired, and so worried about my wife and boys-and $85 was a big chunk out of a $500 payday-that I literally almost broke down and cried in front of him that night, but I managed to bite my lip and hold it together. After these set-backs, Talley got into the Real Estate Business, his self-esteem suffering tremendously. �I�d had four acclaimed albums released; I had been written about in ever major publication and newspaper in the country; yet here I was, with my name and home phone number on signs in people�s front yards.� during the later part of the 1980s, Bear Family Records in Germany approached Talley and several albums were released by them. �These albums were all released on good faith, without license, on a handshake, with the understanding that I would be paid royalties at some point.� Well, Talley never saw a cent from Bear Family and thus, could ill afford to release any more projects through them. In 1990 Rolling Stone Magazine included Talley�s first album Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got A Lot of Love, on a list of the essential albums of the Decade. If this album was so essential, Talley thought to himself, then how come it wasn�t for sale? Recently Talley was able, with persistance, to negotiate a very favorable, long-term, exclusive license for his masters, which has led to his latest new direction - Cimarron Records. The first album, Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home contains Talley�s renditions of many of Woody Guthrie�s best tunes. Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. It was out of this dust-bowl environment that he developed his song style. Guthrie documented what he saw and felt around him in a simple, narrative way that never pandered to �commercial� song-writing. Guthrie once said �I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still further...but, I decided a long time ago that I�d starve to death before I�d sing any such songs as that.� Talley�s family life growing up in Oklahoma was very similar to Guthrie�s, and Talley listened to Guthrie�s music all during his upbringing. The environmental and social influences show through in these recordings-making this album no �fly-by-night� cover-song collection. Talley says �These songs have become my own; they are as much a part of me as are my own original compositions, for they are about me, and from where I came.� The second album released by Talley recently is Nashville City Blues and It is a breath of fresh air to the Country-Blues idiom. A dose of bitterness can be detected in the opening, title cut; but it�s to be expected from an artist who has gone through the hell that James Talley has, on his journey in chase of his singer-songwriter dreams. A friend of his commented that �Well, if you want to destroy your career in Nashville, then go ahead and release that song.� to which Talley replied, �What career?� The rest of the album is consistently engrossing and powerful. Songs about perseverance in the face of the desolation of one�s dreams. Lived-in dramas about love and redemption that will stay with the listener long after the stereo is turned off. These are affectingly well-crafted songs, all accompanied by captivating instrumental work-outs. This is country-blues at it�s best. I find it hard to pick stand-out songs on this album simply because they each stand out wonderfully on their own. These songs are James Talley�s children, and they�ve been a long time coming into this hard-headed World, so let�s give them a chance to live the long and healthy lives they so richly deserve. James Talley�s albums can be purchased from your favorite record store or ordered from his web site at www.jamestalley.com or www.cimarronrecords.com |