Touchstones

Amazon.com
Merle Haggard has at times been known as the Poet of the Common Man, but the title could just as easily apply to James Talley. A fine Nashville-based singer-songwriter with a gift for writing stirring portraits of working-class heroes, Talley has kicked around for years without getting the big break he deserves. In the 1970s he recorded four highly regarded albums for Capitol, none of which are currently in print. For the exquisitely beautiful Touchstones, Talley has culled 16 of his favorite songs from those albums and rerecorded them with a crack band of Texans, including guitarist Tommy Detamore (who coproduced) and fiddler Bobby Flores, both of whom worked with the late Doug Sahm. In a simple voice that sounds a bit like Tom T. Hall's, Talley sings about everyday people just barely getting by, like the "pot-bellied truckers drinkin' coffee / With a redheaded waitress named Louise" in "Tryin' Like the Devil," or the dying "black lung miner from East Tennessee" in "Give My Love to Marie." The gorgeous "Sometimes I Think About Suzanne" finds Talley reminiscing about a lost love--and wondering what might have been. Never mind that the album's 16 songs are all at least 25 years old--they're timeless. --David Hill

Touchstones,James Talley,Cimarron Records,Country-Folk,Folk,Folk & Traditional,New Traditionalist,Pop,Singer/Songwriter

Average customer rating: An Excellent Album From A Very Underrated Artist!!! Songs that grow on you, and quickly, too... songs for the American life

Touchstones James Talley Manufacturer: Cimarron Records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Country | Styles | Music Outlaw & Progressive Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music New Traditionalist | Contemporary Country | Country | Styles | Music General | Folk | Styles | Music Traditional Folk | Folk | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music Country Folk | Country | Indie Music | Stores | Music General | Folk | Indie Music | Stores | Music Similar Items: Nashville City Blues Journey Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love Blackjack Choir/Ain't It Somethin' ASIN: B0000630CP Release Date: 2002-04-23

Tracks:

1. Tryin' Like The Devil
2. Sometimes I Think About Suzanne
3. Calico Gypsy
4. Bluesman
5. W. Lee O'Daniel And The Light Crust Dough Boys
6. Not Even When It's Over
7. Forty Hours
8. Deep Country Blues
9. Are They Gonna Make Us Outlaws Again?
10. Richland, Washington
11. Nothin' But The Blues
12. Up From Georgia
13. To Get Back Home
14. What Will There Be For The Children?
15. When The Fiddler Packs His Case
16. Give My Love To Marie

Amazon.com

Merle Haggard has at times been known as the Poet of the Common Man, but the title could just as easily apply to James Talley. A fine Nashville-based singer-songwriter with a gift for writing stirring portraits of working-class heroes, Talley has kicked around for years without getting the big break he deserves. In the 1970s he recorded four highly regarded albums for Capitol, none of which are currently in print. For the exquisitely beautiful Touchstones, Talley has culled 16 of his favorite songs from those albums and rerecorded them with a crack band of Texans, including guitarist Tommy Detamore (who coproduced) and fiddler Bobby Flores, both of whom worked with the late Doug Sahm. In a simple voice that sounds a bit like Tom T. Hall's, Talley sings about everyday people just barely getting by, like the "pot-bellied truckers drinkin' coffee / With a redheaded waitress named Louise" in "Tryin' Like the Devil," or the dying "black lung miner from East Tennessee" in "Give My Love to Marie." The gorgeous "Sometimes I Think About Suzanne" finds Talley reminiscing about a lost love--and wondering what might have been. Never mind that the album's 16 songs are all at least 25 years old--they're timeless. --David Hill

Customer Reviews:

An Excellent Album From A Very Underrated Artist!!!.......2005-10-14

I often get the feeling that the greatest musicians in this world are never fully given the credit and the recognition that they deserve. In a way it is like the true unknown genuis' of the world who make your "average Mensa Card carrying Geek look like Bozo The Clown" as Stephen King once wrote. I don't usually have much time for country music. They seems to be full of songs about "Good Lovin' Gone Bad and the Mean Repo man done drove away mah pickup truck and my dawg he done died and ma wife is having an affair with mah best friend and the whiskey jug is mah new best friend" and similar themes. James Talley is the exception to this country mould. He writes from the heart and soul and his songs are about Working Class men with no pretensions just trying to make a living the best way they know how. The mournful ballad "Give My Love To Marie" is a haunting song about a miner suffering from Black Lung Disease. I suggest you buy this album and you will discover a rare talent.

Songs that grow on you, and quickly, too..........2003-07-28

I found this CD at a bargain price and took a chance, having heard OF James Talley but never having heard him sing. The first time through it, I thought "the voice is nice, the accompaniment great, and the songs are pleasant without being special." What I meant was, none of these re-recorded 1970's compositions jumped off the disc and into my brain instantly, the way previously unfamiliar songs by Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Gordon Lightfoot, Kris Kristofferson, even John Denver might have. Heck, none of the songs on here quite reach the very best of Townes van Zandt or Guy Clark, for that matter. But they do grow on you. By the third or fourth listen, one is more and more impressed with the scope of these 16 high-quality selections. The tempos are varied, the subject matter, too, and the performer's point of view is always interesting. I agree with an earlier reviewer that "Richland, Washington", one of the shortest songs on the disc, is wonderfully stated. Also fine is the one James calls "Are They Gonna Make Us Outlaws Again?" Overall, this is a nice hour of competent, confident folk/country/blues performances. While it is my first Talley CD, no way will it be my last.

songs for the American life.......2002-04-23

James Talley's music comes out of his roots in the Southwest, part of a musical culture that, seemingly effortlessly, generated an organic blend of blues, folk, honkytonk, and big-city swing. Talley sounds like the natural heir to Bob Wills, Woody Guthrie, Henry "Ragtime Texas" Thomas, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Merle Haggard, without really sounding like any of them -- though if Guthrie had written it, the gorgeous, cryptic "Richland, Washington" would be judged among his masterpieces.

Through his uncondescending sympathies with the struggles of working people, Talley's songs often have an at least implicit political subtext, without ever devolving into preachy protest anthems or "progressive" sloganeering. This is music for grown-ups living in the real world, which is to say that you can't be there without getting your heart, and maybe even your nose, broken. Like all great artists, Talley's hand is as sure as his eye is sharp and his ear is keen. His characters are recognizable human beings, not Popular Front cartoons. If Talley has no easy answers for them, he can celebrate their endurance. The people, yes, but without tears.

Even when the subject is a familiar one, such as a rodeo rider ("Calico Gypsy") or a bluesman ("Bluesman"), Talley never falls into cliches. In their evocations of vanishing American worlds, "Gypsy" and "Bluesman" bring to mind songs that set their respective gold standards, namely Ian Tyson's "Old Cheyenne" and Bob Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell." I cannot give voice to higher praise than that. Songs like "Deep Country Blues" and "Give My Love to Marie," for all their inherent darkness, rise to a kind of luminous, transcendant beauty few songwriters can hope to touch.

The songs' power owes a debt to the magnificent Texas country band Talley assembled for these sessions. Everything comes together, and what emerges is, as the old spiritual would put it, music from the true vine. These are American songs, earth songs, life songs. Touchstones will stay with you for a long, long while.

Average customer rating:

Touchstones Manufacturer: Neath Music ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD ASIN: B000E718AU

Product Description

Full length audio cd.

Average customer rating:

Touchstones and Torch Songs Rhodes Spedale Manufacturer: The Orchard ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music ASIN: B00005BC3A Release Date: 2001-06-19

Tracks:

1. Satin Doll
2. Jordu
3. I Can't Get Started
4. Squeeze Me
5. Yardbird Suite
6. Yesterdays
7. Some Day My Prince Will Come
8. Just One Of Those Things
9. I Should Care
10. I Will Wait For You
11. Struttin' With Some Barbecue
12. Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise
13. Somewhere In Time

Tracks:

1. The Preacher
2. Love For Sale
3. I Could Have Told You
4. Ill Wind
5. Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime?
6. Alone Together
7. Getting A Balance
8. My Romance
9. Beautiful Love
10. Moment's Notice
11. Love Letters

Average customer rating:

Usually Destroyed Manufacturer: Subspace Platform ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music ASIN: B000CAFFHG Release Date: 2005-01-18

Average customer rating:

spiritual touchstones suzanne sachnowitz Manufacturer: jb records ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Compilations | Classical | Styles | Music ASIN: B000MXOVBY Release Date: 2007-01-26

Tracks:

1. out of order
2. why me
3. making memories
4. who am i?
5. circle of stones
6. let it go
7. in the wee small hours
8. you can't go back until you leave
9. helping me to cry

Product Description

companion cd to 'til death

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