From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Mon May 19, 2003  1:11 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Mickey Newbury
 
MICKEY NEWBURY

Born Milton Sim Newbury, Jr., 19 May 1940, Houston, Texas
Died 29 September 2002, Springfield, Oregon

Singer / songwriter.
Here is his obituary from Rolling Stone:

MICKEY NEWBURY DIES

Mickey Newbury, who quietly altered the fabric of country music in the
late Sixties and Seventies, died on September 29th of emphysema; he 
was sixty-two. 

Newbury was best known for being unknown, a songwriter who wrote hits
for Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Joan Baez and numerous 
others, including "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition 
Was In)," the first hit single for Kenny Rogers and First Edition. 
Born in Houston in 1940, Newbury, like his friend Townes Van Zandt, grew 
up amid the fertile and diverse music scene that the city had to offer,
including folk, blues, country, early rock, jazz and border music. That
spectrum informed Newbury's own style as he cut his teeth opening for
various doo wop, soul and blues players that passed through Houston. 
Newbury was stationed in England for a three-year Air Force stint, before 
relocating to Nashville in 1963 and taking a job writing for Acuff-Rose. In 
1966, Don Gibson scored a Top Ten hit with Newbury's "Funny, Familiar, 
Forgotten Feelings," which began a string of successful singles including
"Here Comes the Rain Again, Baby" for Eddy Arnold, "Sunshine" for Ray
Charles and "She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye" for Jerry Lee Lewis
(a # 2 country hit in 1969).

Newbury released his first album, Harlequin Melodies in 1968 on RCA, an
album that made few ripples, and he promptly departed from the label. A 
year later he released It Looks Like Rain, which marked the beginning of a 
string of classic fringe-country recordings. With little concern for Nashvillian
regimen, Newbury's "country" music (he tended to prefer the broader "folk"
as a classification) was indescribable, a mutation of the genre akin to the
variations Tom Waits has played upon the blues. Without regard for running
time, often embellished with sound effects and filled with literate wordplay
-- frequently with a strong historical bbent -- Newbury's songs read as well
as they were heard. His more haunting work, like "San Francisco Mabel Joy,"
had more in common with his friend and fellow relatively unknown legend Van
Zandt, than other writers of the era. It was little surprise then, that Newbury
also associated with Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson (who still regularly
performs "Just Dropped In"), Tom T. Hall and others with a strong disregard
for established structure. 

In 1971, Newbury released 'Frisco Mabel Joy', which contained what would
become his best known recording, "American Trilogy." His arrangement of 
a trio of Civil War-era songs -- "Dixie," "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and
"All My Trials" -- climbed as high as number 26 on the pop charts, and 
stayed in the Top Forty for seven weeks. Newbury's "Trilogy" would later
be pinched by Elvis Presley, who included it in his live performances. 
Throughout the Seventies, Newbury's influence on country music was most
tangible in the work of others like Nelson, Kristofferson, Hall and other
left-brained songsmiths -- even to the extent that his most popular legacy
is being referenced in the Chips Moman-penned Waylon/Willie duet,
"Luckenbach, Texas": "Between Hank Williams pain songs, Newbury's
train songs/and 'Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain'". As for his own recordings,
Newbury remained defiantly original, and his sales never reflected his
acclaim among the small legion of listeners who dug into the roots of some
of the music he helped plant. 

In 1981, Newbury released After All These Years, which would prove to be
the punctuation to more than a decade of prolific productivity during which
he released ten albums. He then moved to Oregon and only performed
sporadically. Recordings were even less frequent. Newbury recast some of 
his vintage material for 1988's In a New Age, and offered his classics along-
side a handful of new songs on 1994's live album, Nights When I Am Sane, 
but it wasn't until 2000's Lulled by the Moonlight that he would offer a full
collection of new material, his first in nearly twenty years. 

Much of Newbury's Seventies output spent the Eighties and Nineties out of
print. In 1998, The Mickey Newbury Collection rectified that dilemma in
grand fashion, collecting ten of his best recordings in an eight-CD box set.

In recent years, Newbury's emphysema necessitated the use of an oxygen tank,
but he managed to release A Long Road Home -- a reflective song cycle and
classic, conscious swan song -- earlier this year. 
ANDREW DANSBY
(October 1, 2002)

Official website: http://www.mickeynewbury.com/
Tribute page: http://www.fbisf.com/Mickey.htm