Like many people, I love Townes Van Zandt’s song “If I Needed You.” And through the years, I’ve enjoyed many beautiful covers of the song. Recently, I discovered a version by Joey + Rory, and it has quickly become one of my favorite versions of the song. But then discovering a little more about the singers Rory Lee Feek and Joey Feek makes this version even more heartbreaking.
There’s something about finding an artist new to you and then finding out they are no longer around. That is the case for me with my recent discovery of Joey + Rory.
The husband and wife duo married in 2002 after falling in love and knowing each other only a few months. Rory Feek had served in the marines and was a single dad and successful songwriter, and Joey Martin had been part of a talented musical family. As a musical team, they achieved some success after a friend suggested they try out for a musical competition as a team. In 2008, they were among the finalists for CMT’s competition Can You Duet. Later that year, they released their debut album, and several other albums soon followed.
“If I Needed You” appeared on Country Classics: A Tapestry of Our Musical Heritage, released in October 2014. That year was a big year for both Rory and Joey, as in February they welcomed their first child, a daughter who was born with Down’s Syndrome. Then, in May, Joey was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
They initially thought that treatments had taken care of the cancer, but it returned in mid-2015. And Joey Feek passed away in March 2016 at the age of 40.
If I needed you,
Would you come to me?
Would you come to me?
For to ease my pain;
If you needed me,
I would come to you;
I would swim the seas,
For to ease your pain.
In her final months, Joey did get to see the couple receive a Grammy nomination for their version of “If I Needed You,” and she also saw the release of their final album, a collection of gospel hymns that also featured a song they had previously released, “When I’m Gone.” In that song about a wife dying and leaving her husband, Joey sang, “And even though you love me still/ You will know where you belong/ Just give it time, we’ll both be fine/ When I’m gone.”
The background of the time period where “If I Needed You” was released adds a layer of poignancy and beauty, in the sense of how beauty often comes because everything is temporary. Joey’s voice reminds me of another of my favorite singers, Kasey Chambers (who also breaks your heart on her version of “If I Needed You” that appeared on her album Storybook in 2012).
The video for Joey + Rory’s version of “If I Needed You” also celebrates a life that started at the same time as another one was preparing to leave us, even if they did not know it at the time. Check it out.
Rory’s and Joey’s story was told in the 2016 documentary To Joey, With Love. And of course the story does not end there. Rory continues to make music and other activities. There has even been a TV series carrying on the story, This Life I Live, as well as a book, This Life I Live: One Man’s Extraordinary, Ordinary Life and the Woman Who Changed It Forever.
Since Joey’s death, Rory Feek has been raising their daughter Indiana as a single father on the family farm. But he reports that he has help from many family members and that his daughter spends a lot of time in a community schoolhouse built on the property with contributions made after Joey’s passing. Rory reports that he has learned that Indy can be whatever she wants to be: “She just needs love, just like everybody else.”
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