I got to speak with Doug Moreland the other day about his musical influences and heroes. Moreland, a singer/songwriter/fiddle player releases his newest Barnstormer tomorrow at his Cattlelacs Calf Fry in Austin, which also features Corb Lund, Ryan Bingham, and Eleven Hundred Springs. Five Records is an occasional feature of artists talking about the music that inspires them. Read more of these posts here.
Jack Ingram
Livin’ or Dyin’
“I used to dream of being a fiddle player in a country act out of Nashville. The problem was, every time I got hired, I ended up hating the music I was playing. Then I saw Jack Ingram play at a little hole in the wall in Alpine, TX called Railroad Blues and thought — ‘I need to be writing my own songs!’. On the drive back to Austin, I wrote 4 songs, so I figured Austin would be a pretty good place to settle down. The record I got was Livin’ or Dyin’, which Steve Earle produced. I always thought Jack ought to do another record with him, considering the way this one turned out.”
Jimmy Buffett
Living and Dying in 3/4 Time
“Most people think of Jimmy Buffett now as a sort of brand, this island party music that he has made his own. Very few people remember that back in the 70’s he was making country music in the Caribbean on his own record label, which was a lot harder to start back then. I admire guys who do things their own way — Jimmy is a great songwriter, and has been able to do it all himself. ‘Pencil Thin Mustache’ was one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar, and I still love this era of his music. Plus, I grew up in Fort Davis, Texas and had never been to the beach, but this made me feel like I lived there.”
Purely coincidence that Doug’s first two records have Livin’ and Dyin’ in the title. — Ed.
Levon Helm
Dirt Farmer
“We cut my newest record live, with just 4 guys. I love the feel of this record and wanted to capture something like that. I got my car a year ago, and this CD was the first one I put in the changer. It’s still there.”
M. Ward
Hold Time
“I heard the song “Never Had Nobody Like You” on KGSR the other day and it grabbed me immediately. M. Ward has such a cool sound — I wish I had written a song like this. Hardly anything catches me on the radio anymore, but the cool production leapt out at me.”
Ryan Bingham
Roadhouse Sun
“I’ve been friends with Ryan for a long time and I’m just as proud as I can be about how far he has come. His latest record is put together so well — Marc Ford’s unconventional approach to recording suits Ryan’s music nicely. I went out and played 7 shows with him recently and we played all rock and punk clubs. They eat him up there and they all seem to like my country and western swing as well. He also benefits from being represented well — they don’t try to dress him up or make him look like someone he is not.”
Posted: September 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
1. “Gentle On My Mind” (which won two Grammy awards in 1968 for John Hartford’s folk version and Glen Campbell’s pop version) was written after Hartford attended a screening of Dr. Zhivago. Not that the song has anything to do with the film, it just happened to come out right after that event, or so said Hartford. Whether there was a subconscious inspiration or not, a classic film begat a classic song, one eventually covered by Johnny Cash, Dean Martin, Aretha Franklin, and Elvis Presley.
2. Hartford expresses the peace and serenity that his lover provides him in a charming, down home way that reveals a little bit about the man he is:
“Just knowing that your door is always open and your path is free to walk/
that makes me want to leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch”
We get a sense of the rambling man who wants to stick around. The second verse zooms in a little more to reveal that he is unable to resist the pull of the road, traveling by railroad across the country. Hartford elaborates on this in the third verse, when he reveals the true distance between the faithful lover and the rambler, who places himself at fault for leaving. Nevertheless, no amount of hardship can remove his memory from him, as even the loss of his sight wouldn’t take away his comforting mental picture. Finally we see the man around a fire in a railroad yard imagining that his cup of soup is his lover, and he pulls it close and imagines himself home.
3. The version of this song that struck me most was Lucinda Williams‘ take, which played over the credits of Talladega Nights and stopped me dead in my tracks until it had passed. Her cover musically evokes the peaceful feeling that Hartford’s rambling man carries in his mind, with her band’s restrained vamp and her cracked, near-crooning vocal track. Robert Earl Keen has said this to be his favorite song, saying in a recent Texas Monthly article that “You know how how a great book is like a tight bud of a flower that blossoms when you get to the part that’s really good? It’s the same with this song.”
Posted: September 24th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
1. A self described “failed little love story”, the characters of Robert Earl Keen’s latest single (and title track to his new record) “The Rose Hotel” just barely miss each other. If the previous sentence could adequately sum up the song, it wouldn’t be worth a listen. Luckily, Keen knows how to write around a story, telling just enough to insinuate what happened without laying it all out. The details of the song imply the intent of the characters: the “wishing well” across the street, and the “oldies on the radio” at the woman’s house conjure up the feeling of pursuing something nostalgic, whether it was actually good back then or not.
2. Rich Brotherton’s mandolin aids a near-party-rock beat that belies the fact that the song might have any kernel of intimacy. In truth, Keen’s casual musical approach shoes his shoulder-shrugging attitude about missed connections: they might bear incredible potential, but sometimes they just don’t work out. All three verses of the song show a man and a woman at similar levels of romantic pursuit, but always at differing times. At first, the woman waits for the man, breaking a nail on the latch of her door. He wanders outside, unaware, though by the time he enters in the third verse, the intricately described desk clerk lets him know that “she had just checked out”.
3. Keen says that he doesn’t remember writing this song, that it just spilled out. Then again, he also says that sometimes we can’t remember or write very much about close encounters, because “we just don’t know how close we were”.
Buy this track
Posted: September 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »
