Nehemiah Curtis James was born on June 9, 1902 in in Bentonia, Mississippi. But he became famous as a blues guitarist-singer-songwriter named Skip James.
James first recorded “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” and other songs in 1931. The recordings, however, did not sell well record buyers lacked disposable income during The Great Depression. So, James gave up performing for awhile.
In the early 1960s, though, blues fans rediscovered James. And he began recording and performing again until he died in Philadelphia on October 3, 1969
Below, Skip James performs “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” at the American Folk and Blues Festival in Cologne, Germany on October 9, 1967.
One of my favorite albums is Willie Nelson’s Across the Borderline, which includes his wonderful version of the title track. Recently, I ran across this gem of Willy DeVille covering the song.
Jim Dickinson, John Hiatt, and Ry Cooder wrote “Across the Borderline.” That’s a pretty good pedigree. And it helps explain why brilliant artists like Nelson and DeVille have covered it.
So, for today, check out “Across the Borderline” by the late Willy DeVille, who passed away in 2009.
Although most people recognize DeVille’s voice from the theme to The Princess Bride (which he co-wrote with Mark Knopfler), he had a long and diverse career as a solo artist and leading the band Mink DeVille.
Steve Earle & The Dukes will be releasing a new album, So You Wannabe An Outlaw. While I have enjoyed Earle’s recent forays into folk and blues, I am excited to hear that the album will be a return to a focus on his country sound. The album is a tribute to the 1970s Outlaw sound of singers like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.
Speaking of Willie Nelson, he also makes a guest appearance on the album, as do Miranda Lambert and Johnny Bush. So You Wannabe An Outlaw will hit stores and the Internet on June 16, 2017.
For a preview of Earle’s Outlaw tribute, you may hear one of the new tracks below. Check out “Lookin’ for a Woman.”
Another track from the new album is “Fixin’ to Die.” It has a harder edge with a rock sound.
Finally, here is a live performance of the title track, “So You Wannabe an Outlaw.” This performance is from a Town Hall performance in New York City in December 2016. Note that Earle jokes about having Willie Nelson singing on the song. He did get Nelson to sing on the album version of the song.
A deluxe version of the album will also include covers of songs by Nelson, Jennings, and Billy Joe Shaver. So keep your ear out for the upcoming June 16 release of So You Wannabe An Outlaw, and watch for Earle in the Dukes, who will be touring this summer.
What is your favorite Steve Earle song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Matthew Ryan has released a number of consistently excellent albums since is wonderful debut album, May Day, in 1997. While all of his albums are worth seeking out, two decades into his recording career he is garnering growing attention for his two most recent albums, Boxers(2014) and his new album Hustle Up Starlings (2017), which may be the most Matthew-Ryan-sounding album of his career. And that is a great thing.
Matthew Ryan is a poet who rocks, with sounds ranging from the rage of punk to the rasp of a whisper. Music writers have compared him to a variety of artists, including Springsteen and Dylan, but comparisons fall away on the new album. Whether it is the maturing of an artist who recently had a crisis of considering giving up on a career — or inspiration from producer Brian Fallon from The Gaslight Anthem — or the maturing of an artist — or something else, Hustle Up Starlings brings together the best qualities of Matthew Ryan’s talent for music and lyrics.
A number of reviewers have raved about the album. And Ryan himself has been giving a lot of interviews to promote the album. It is clear that this project is something he really believes in, and rightfully so.
Hustle Up Starlings
When I first heard the name of the album before its release, I wondered about the odd album title and what was a “hustle up starlings.” The title track, though, is a key to the album. It both reflects Ryan’s poetic instincts (who else would coin that expression?) and themes underlying the album.
The album is not about modern politics, but it captures the anguish of our current political climate and underlying angst. “Hustle Up Starlings,” one of the slower songs on the album, is on its surface about what most great songs are about, love (or lost love). The singer looks back, remembering meeting a woman in a record store in 1991.
But “Hustle Up Starlings” is not so much a song about loss but a song about the fear of loss: “The things we love will one day disappear / First slow and then so quick.” And the title comes from the final lines of the song about seeking safety before something bad happens: ” Hustle up, starlings / The bats are coming / The night’s tuning up /And dusk is humming.”
Other Tracks
This theme of the fear of loss — or fighting against the fear of loss- runs through many songs on the album. The opening song, “(I Just Died) Like an Aviator” begins with the line, “Everything sucks,” but ends with a plea for survival (“Don’t die, don’t disappear/ I swear to God we need you here”).
We previously posted the official video for “(I Just Died) Like an Aviator,” but if you missed it then, it is worth checking out below.
The album’s themes may also be summed up by the closing lines of “Battle Born”: “Screaming hope in the land of the lost / Oh oh ’till the wheels come off.” That is what Ryan is doing here, “screaming hope,” fighting against the fear that one day the wheels will come off.
Of course, these themes underlie all our lives. We all know deep down that — like the aviator referenced in the opening track, none of us are getting out of here alive. But we have to keep hoping for something. Maybe we all are trying to find that place mentioned in the closing song called “Where Summer Never Ends.”
Another highlight on the album is the song “Run Rabbit Run.” I have read some interviews with Ryan and have not seen any mention of a connection between this song and John Updike’s classic 1960 novel of middle-class angst, Rabbit Run. Maybe the similarity in the titles is a mere coincidence. But it would be a strange coincidence if Ryan was not thinking of the novel at all. The song revisits themes from the novel, as Ryan sings about working long hours “just to get by.”
Where Ryan’s Rabbit differs from Updike’s Rabbit, though, is that the novel’s “running” cures nothing. But in Ryan’s song — echoing Springsteen’s epic running song “Born to Run” about a “death trap” in a town that “rips the bones from your back” — Ryan’s plea to run still holds out some hope.
It’s a trap, Always pulling blades From your back.
And it goes on and on and on; Don’t get stuck, just run rabbit run.
Sometimes, like in “Bastard,” one can work to convince yourself that you are better off after a loss: “I’m feeling better / Now that we’re apart.”
On that song, and the other songs of the album, Ryan shows he is at the top of his game in not only writing lyrics but in the music. The music is memorable throughout the album and you’ll find yourself singing along and tapping your foot while the lyrics whistle past the graveyard of possible despair.
Ryan has noted that his goal with Hustle Up Starlings was to put together a cohesive album. He explained, “this is what we do though, even when the world feels like it’s about to burn down, we keep leaning for tomorrow in our own lives and stories and families. It’s all hope and perseverance. We get up and we go to work. We believe in tomorrow, even when we’re not sure what tomorrow will be.”
“The Cracks In Your Broken Heart”
One of my favorite tracks on the album is “Close Your Eyes.” The song also works hard to provide the listener with some hope: “Now it won’t always be easy / But it won’t always be hard / Just listen to the cracks / In your broken heart.”
And maybe that is what Ryan is trying to say with this album: We all need to remember that sometimes you can find some hope in the cracks of a broken heart.
I have introduced several people to the music of this native of Chester, Pennsylvania. I think now I may start encouraging the use of Hustle Up Starlings as a great place to start to delve into his wonderful catalog.
Photo by Scott Simontacchi. What is your favorite song on the new album? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Today’s song of the day is “Icarus” by Tift Merritt. The song takes the story of Icarus in Greek mythology as its inspiration.
In Greek mythology, Daedalus created wings for him and his son Icarus to escape a tower where they were imprisoned. Because the wings were made of feathers and wax, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too low, where the seas would wet the wings, or too high, where the warming sun would melt the wax. Once in the air, though, Icarus forgot his father’s warning and began flying higher and higher. The sun then melted the wax, the wings fell off, and Icarus fell to the sea and drowned. The story is often used as a warning against hubris (flying too high).
NPR describes Merritt’s version of the story as “not Greek mythology’s tragic tale of hubris, but rather an expression of the impulse to cradle a fragile spirit and nurse it back to health.” But recently at MerleFest, Merritt did invoke the theme of hubris in describing the song.
She explained that the song is about dreaming versus hubris. Adding a political note, Merritt added that at least Icarus was dreaming, but certain modern political figures define what hubris really is. I wonder who she means?
A rush of breath, a turn of touch; The up and down arch of loving so much; The way your heart will race and rise; A tear handing in long, slow dive.
Oh Icarus, There’s a wing down in each of us; Faster than the speed of sound inside, Everything flies.
“Icarus” is from Tift Merritt’s album, Stitch of the World, released in January 2017.
Image of Jacob Peter Gowy’s The Flight of Icarus painting via public domain. What is your favorite Tift Merritt song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
, and watch for Earle in the Dukes, who will be touring this summer.
Today’s song of the day is “Icarus” by Tift Merritt. The song takes the story of Icarus in Greek mythology as its inspiration.