#david rawlings

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - WUMB-FM, Boston, Massachusetts, May 1995

Next week, I'll be catching Gillian Welch and David Rawlings in Denver! It's been far too long since I've seen the duo, and they never disappoint — I'm even bringing my teenage daughter along. Gillian and Dave's latest, Woodland, is an absolute wonder. Here's what I wrote about it for Aquarium Drunkard's 2024 year in review:

A breakup album — but not in the Blood On The Tracks/Shoot Out The Lights vein, thankfully (though the devastating “What We Had” is a motherfucker in that regard). No, Woodland is about breaking up with yourself, breaking up with the past, breaking up with your body, maybe even (gulp) breaking up with your country. Strung together with typically timeworn melodies and cut-to-the-quick lyrics, it’s another masterpiece from Welch and Rawlings. I've been prepping for the upcoming show by digging through old rarities and live tapes from G&D — including this great WUMB radio broadcast from way back, about 30 years ago, before the pair had a record deal, or even any merch to hawk, as they note in the interview. "We've got a mailing list," Gillian admits sheepishly. And she's not talking about e-mail.

Boston, was of course, Gillian and Dave's old Berklee College of Music stomping ground, and indeed, the DJ sounds a little suspicious of these kids' ability to inhabit dusty traditional modes. People were kind of obsessed with "authenticity" back in those days, right? And while occasionally their early stuff came across more as intellectual exercises than songs, Welch and Rawlings have spent the last three decades putting any doubts to rest, making records that will stand the test of time.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Sunny War Album Review: Anarchist Gospel

(New West)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

A breakup. The death of her father. A decaying Earth. Uprooting and moving to her childhood city. On Anarchist Gospel, Sunny War looks change in the face--some unexpected, some sudden, some gradual--and transforms chaos into her best album yet. The singer-songwriter and blues guitar fingerpicker has long channeled struggles, from personal bouts with substance abuse and addiction, to the overall fight against institutional racism and police brutality, into genre-averse songs of pain and triumph. The all-encompassing Anarchist Gospel expounds on this ethos, along with a cast of collaborators including producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray For The Riff Raff), Americana wunderkind Allison Russell, Gillian Welch creative partner David Rawlings, and My Morning Jacket's Jim James. Still, Sunny shines above all.

Take opener "Love's Death Bed", featuring backing vocals from Russell and Chris Pierce's shimmering harmonica, atop clacking drums and banjo. Sunny, who leads a chorus in a call and response, centers the song's dead-eyed stare into the soul of an ex. "Your mouth is a gun / Got bodies dropping every time you speak," she sings, making our jaws drop from the get-go. On "No Reason", a song built around Sunny's incredible desert blues riff and Jack Lawrence's steady bass, she clarifies that even though her ex might not mean to hurt her, it doesn't matter: "Good intentions that you keep / Don't change the fact that you're a beast." Sunny explores intentionality of destruction throughout the album, both in interpersonal relationships and via the environment, asking us to empathize and reflect on the space we take up. On "Shelter And Storm", she sings from the point of view of Earth itself, albeit one that has managed to survive apocalypse, repeatedly and jubilantly declaring, "The humans are away!" Yet, on "Earth", her tone is mournful and more realistic. A stunning combination of blues and jazz, bolstered by the vocal support of James, Maureen Murphy, Nickie Conley, and Kyshona Armstrong, as well as past collaborator Micah Nelson's slinky 12-string, the song reminds us that the end of the world is closer than we think, tangible if you bother to look around.

At the same time, Sunny battles self-destruction throughout Anarchist Gospel; in the lead-up to its release, she spoke about her music representing a battle between that side of herself and the one trying to make things better. On "New Day", she uses the language of addiction to wax on love, hurt, and obsession: "Believing in magic can be tragic / I'm love's junkie, I'm love's addict." One of the record's true standouts is "I Got No Fight", where pained guitars and screaming organs exemplify Sunny's desire for the days to end, depression that buzzes like a fly in her ear. On the gorgeous country tune "His Love", she sings of an unhealthy relationship, "His love fades, my love grows," and the timbres of her voice and the instruments similarly diverge, her lurking deep vocal register contrasting the spryness of the backing vocals, guitars, and pattering drums.

If Anarchist Gospel is anything, it's honest, an album that both bares its teeth and cowers, that sometimes turns inward in the face of trouble but eventually overcomes with boisterous community. On the Crass-quoting, blues stomp clap jaunt of a closer "Whole", Sunny War sings, "Today could be the last, you know / Happy's how you ought to go." Fully knowing it's easier said than done, and for some folks, impossible, Sunny nonetheless dares to dream to everyone.

[protoslacker]

Solomon Burke & Gillian Welch - Valley Of Tears

ItsWaldo (Walter Brinkman)

My heart feels so heavy these days. I feel grief over collapsing values, ideas held dearly, and systems upon which all of us depend. it's good to know that music is a healer. On my drive home the DJ introduced this song, noting his March 21st birth date. I've spent some time listening to Solomon Burke's music and I've got a smile on my face.

Solomon Burke died at 70 in 2010 but he still reigns as the King of Rock and Soul. He made records for 55 years! He lived a storied life.

Adam Sweeting's obituary for Burke in The Guardian is worth reading. And Jeffrey Remz's story in Country Standard Time is a wonderful about Burke's 2006 record Nashville. The Wikipedia article is good too. There are many, many wonderful stories about his life. His music just might bring you joy as it has for me.

[thischarmingamy]

Favorite Music of 2024

There was so much brilliant music that came out in 2024! I’m having the worst time narrowing down my list of faves. Luckily, my two cats, Candy O. and Ada Monroe, have been assisting me. Ada Monroe looking mad because I wasn’t playing Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at the time It’s my hope that at least one person finds something they dig through this post. If you’re a Spotify person, do check out…

[rolloroberson]

Gillian Welch - The Way it Goes

[upperswampmonkey]

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – Wind and Rain (Audio)

[jennpelly]

Both Rawlings and Welch talk of a moment that decided their partnership, a month or two after leaving Berklee and moving to Nashville in 1992. They were sitting in Rawlings’s kitchen. Knowing they had a shared interest in duets, they started noodling around on their guitars and singing the classic “Long Black Veil.” They instantly sensed the bones of something good, potential they honed until it was fully realized. Rawlings tells me, “If you have the same North Star as someone, and if you’re trying to walk in the same direction, something will click.”

[leguin]

i am out of remedies at least i'm not a liar somewhere in my memories i held my head much higher

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Gillian Welch - St Luke's, London, England, August 4, 2004

A new Gillian Welch album?! Why not, it's only been like 12 years since her last collection of originals. Though the forthcoming Woodland is actually billed as a Gillian Welch & David Rawlings record — so does this even count? Who cares, it'll be great to have some new material out there. These two do things their own way, at their own pace, and that is an admirable quality.

As we get ready for Woodlands, let's go back 20 years to a very nice BBC programme, filmed during the Soul Journey era. I saw Gil and Dave a bunch during this time and they were always incredible, often conjuring up the full force of a rock band with just their voices and two acoustic guitars.

One of the highlights here is the beautifully enigmatic brooder "The Way It Will Be," which wouldn't show up on an album until much later. I can remember hearing them play this one several times back then and being desperate for a recording; for many years, this BBC performance was my go-to version. A total knock-out.

[bennettmarko]

Well, they say that Santa Fe Is less than ninety miles away And I got time to roll a number and rent a car Oh, Albuquerque

I've been flyin' down the road And I've been starvin' to be alone And independent from the scene that I've known Albuquerque

So I'll stop when I can Find some fried eggs and country ham I'll find somewhere where they don't care who I am Oh, Albuquerque Albuquerque

- Neil Young, Albuquerque

[sinceileftyoublog]

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings Live Show Review: 9/6, Cahn Auditorium, Evanston

David Rawlings & Gillian Welch

BY JORDAN MAINZER

In 2020, right before COVID shut down the country, a tornado outbreak tore through Nashville, killing 25, injuring hundreds, and leaving tens of thousands without electricity. Among the destruction was Woodland Sound Studios, the home studio of contemporary folk legends Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, which they spent the next years rebuilding, all while excavating treasure troves of unreleased tunes. But the first true phoenix to rise from the flames is Woodland (Acony), their latest studio album, which pays tribute not so much to a place that was and stands again, but the very act of creating in the face of loss. And the duo's performance of many of the album's songs last Friday at Cahn Auditorium, a pre-show for the inaugural Evanston Folk Festival, cemented the extent to which their creative power conquers all.

Welch

Welch and Rawlings dare you to focus away from absence. Though Woodland as an album benefits from various studio flourishes and guest players, its songs are strong in any capacity. During "Empty Trainload of Sky", the duo's tight vocal harmonies and Rawlings' bluesy picking didn't make you miss the studio version's propulsive percussion; instead, you were focused primarily on the way in which Welch turns a visual hallucination into a treatise on knowledge and doubt. "Was it spirit? Was it solid? Did I ditch that class in college?" she sings, simultaneously winking and full of wonder. Similarly, the poetry of "Hashtag" proved the studio version's French horns and strings to be borderline superfluous, the duo's Guy Clark-inspired musings garnering equal amounts laughs and existential crises. Even some songs themselves juxtapose elements that seem to be lacking, in a vacuum, with others that are more whole, the overall sum becoming something rather beautiful. On the wonderful "What We Had", Rawlings' cracking Neil Young falsetto contrasted the might of his guitars, as he and Welch harmonized and traded verses about impermanence: "What we had is broken, though we thought we'd never lose it." The rolling "The Day The Mississippi Died", which imagines this country's preeminent river drying up, sees a mix of tragedy and jubilation in the apocalypse, the best song of its kind since Joan Shelley's "The Fading".

Paul Kowert, Rawlings, & Welch

Of course, when listening to a Welch and Rawlings album, or witnessing one of their life-affirming live shows, you can't help but be wowed by the interplay of the two singers and players. If I hadn't written it down, I wouldn't have been able to tell you on which songs they were joined by upright bassist Paul Kowert; even though his playing was terrific, Welch and Rawlings draw your attention. Rawlings' prickly leads played off of Welch's high-register, rhythmic wincing on "The Bells and the Birds". In terms of stage presence, Welch is the silent and still warrior, Rawlings jerky, his expressions embedding within her strums on "Lawnman" and her mournful declarations on classic "Revelator". Perhaps the song that best encapsulated both their creative partnership and their strengthened appreciation for music-making was "Howdy Howdy". "Dry your eyes, don't you cry, ain't gonna rain no more," Welch sings to Rawlings', as if she's comforting him in the face of tragedy; the chorus of "You and me are always gonna be howdy howdy / You and me, always walk that lonesome valley" acts as a statement of purpose. Before playing the song on Friday, Welch was having trouble tuning her banjo, so Rawlings nursed it back to health so they could move on. On both Woodland and forever, Welch and Rawlings have each other's back.

Rawlings & Welch

[rustbeltjessie]

I love Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing, so I had to read this review. And I’m very excited to listen to Woodland.

[allmusic]

AllMusic Staff Pick: Various Artists Down from the Mountain: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Sounding almost like an all-traditional country episode of "A Prairie Home Companion," the guests (including Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski, the Whites, the Fairfield Four, and the Cox Family, among others) amiably exchange songs on-stage, reveling in the atmosphere of warm country, bluegrass, and blues music. Highlights include two non-traditional tracks from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, whose earthy compositions fit in seamlessly with the time-honored traditional songs, and Emmylou Harris' contribution "Green Pastures" (which originally appeared on Roses in the Snow, her own Americana revival album from some 20 years earlier).

- Zac Johnson

[manitat]

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - Hashtag

[rolloroberson]

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings - Scarlet Town