In Oklahoma, where the iron ore in the soil turns the dirt red, there are cross currents of energy. It seems to pull at the people there. They're a little more in touch with the earth and with life. The skies, too, stretch wider in those open spaces. The weather is wilder and the clouds tell stories. They have a majesty… billowing and full of glory in a sunset, serene and white in cool flat rows against an azure blue sky, or full of glowering black turbulence before releasing the deadly funnel clouds. The air currents converge, turning the area between Tulsa and Stillwater into the heart of "tornado alley." You either stay in touch with the forces of nature or they destroy you. Sometimes they destroy you either way. Down on the red earth, the people of Oklahoma move about, working and creating. Somewhere between the glory and the fury, the singers and the poets rise from the red dirt and give America the core of its character. In 1992, a sound rode the airwaves out of Austin, bringing some red dirt with it. It was bursting with the ache of need, of loss, and of living with both, without turning away. The sound came through the ether like a laser and seared itself into my mind. It was only a cover, but oh, what a cover. The voice caressed "Walk Away Renee," the The Left Banke's 60's smash hit, as if it were written for the singer's voice only. It was Jimmy LaFave, wrapping his vocal chords around yet another great song and making it his own. It was from Jimmy's first CD out of Texas, called Austin Skyline. At the time, I had no idea what was coming, but it didn't take long to find out: Jimmy was not just a great interpreter of any number of classics, but perhaps the finest Dylan cover artist the Americana genre has ever seen. And no wonder. Born in Texas, then raised in Oklahoma, he was steeped in the history and lore of the master himself, Woody Guthrie. There's no way to know where he got that voice with the built-in heartache. His vocal style has been described as a mix of Van Morrison, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen and Steve Forbert. Additionally, he's a first-rate songwriter. It didn't start with a guitar and a poetic lyric, though. Beginnings Jimmy LaFave was born in Wills Point, Texas in 1955. His family moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma when he was 15. During the early years in Texas, Jimmy would hear country music from his mother's extensive record collection. He also listened to popular hits coming from the radio station KLIF out of Dallas. Then there was music pouring from the TV set-- "Hullabaloo," "Where the Action Is," "Shindig" and "American Bandstand." When he decided, in junior high, that he wanted to play drums, his mother got him a set from Sears & Roebuck. It must've been apparent right away that he was cut out to be more than just a drummer. He became the lead singer in the pre-teen garage bands he played in, the typical drummer/singer, with his head cocked to the side, he says, like Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. The band played teen dances and the like. When the family moved to Oklahoma during Jimmy's sophomore year in high school, music "became twice as important, for some reason," he recalls. He decided he wanted to play guitar, so his mother gathered up her green stamps and got him one. After his older brother showed him a few chords, he began learning James Taylor songs by playing along to records. Quickly, that was followed by Bob Dylan songs. Although he'd used a James Taylor song to perform in a high school talent show, he had already started to write his own material. At this time, the earliest incarnation of his band, Night Tribe, was born. Coming of Age in Oklahoma Stillwater is the home of the University of Oklahoma. College students came from both urban and rural backgrounds, bringing their musical tastes into the area. A number of other cross currents were added to Jimmy's musical education. The songwriters of Austin, Texas, like Townes Van Zant and Guy Clark were revered and they came through to play at the clubs on the strip in downtown Stillwater. Influences abound in Oklahoma. Along with Woody Guthrie, other great players in American music have risen from the red dirt. There's J.J. Cale, Chet Baker, Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, Wanda Jackson, Patti Page, and Charlie Christian. When Jimmy got out of high school, he worked construction jobs by day and played music at night. His band, Night Tribe, played Stillwater, all over Oklahoma, and made forays into Arkansas, Wichita, Kansas, and Telluride, Colorado. He did this all through his twenties. During this time, Jimmy also managed a club in Stillwater called Up Your Alley for a couple of years. He also recorded two albums, Down Under (1979) and Broken Line (1981) at Lamb Recording. Also, for a while, he played the same club as Garth Brooks. In an interview he gave to Jim Catalano of Twangin', he stated, "We used to play the same club in Stillwater called Willy's, which is where he got his start. He was the Wednesday Happy Hour guy, and I would play the Friday and Saturday nights." The Austin Scene Although Stillwater is known as the home of "Red Dirt Music" -- a mix of folk, alt-rock and country rock -- and today has its own kind of mini Nashville/Austin scene, in 1986, Jimmy needed to find a new music setting in which he could spread his wings. He looked at Nashville and L.A., but settled in Austin because of his high regard for the the music, the songwriters and the entire scene that existed (and still exists) there. Wikipedia states: "Shortly after arriving he was asked to help launch the songwriter nights at the new performance venue Chicago House. In 1988 he recorded his self-produced tape, Highway Angels ... Full Moon Rain, which won the Austin Chronicle Reader's Poll Tape of the Year Award. He got a recording contract upon his arrival, but it proved to be ill-fated. Saddled with "the contract from hell," the album he recorded was never released and he was unable to record his songs for 5 years. During this time he re-formed his band, The Night Tribe, and they became a fixture on the Austin scene. Jimmy used the time well, honing his songwriting skills, meeting the challenge of the high quality of the local talent. The first time I got to see Jimmy live, he appeared at a house concert series, Tim and Lori Blixt's Cabin Concerts. What a thrill. The photograph below was taken there. I gave copies of the photo files to Jimmy and he used one almost identical to this in the liner booklet of his CD, Texoma. The Discography After five years without releasing a recording, Jimmy leaped forward out of the starting blocks like an olympic runner. In 1992, he released the aforementioned Austin Skyline. It was followed by Highway Trance (1994), Buffalo Return to the Plains (1995), Road Novel (1997), Trail (1999), Texoma (2001), Blue Nightfall (2005) and then his most recent release Cimarron Manifesto, this past year (2007). Jimmy independently produced Austin Skyline and it found a home on the Bohemia Beat label, as did the subsequent 5 releases. One of the greatest achievements of his, or anyone else's recording career is the compilation, Trail. Ever the road warrior, Jimmy looked for a way to bring the electricity and excitement of his live performances to the listening audience. Together with Mark Shumate, president of the label, they gathered bootlegs, radio appearances, studio out-takes and concert performances. They released the result, Trail, in 1999. It's a double CD that spans 15 years and contains 31 songs. There are 12 Dylan covers and songs by Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen as well as his own. There are heartbreaking ballads and kick-ass rockers. In the liner notes, Dave Marsh writes: "Jimmy LaFave has one of America's greatest voices, and this album is the story of what he has learned to do with it. It's a unique instrument, with startling range and its own peculiar sense of gravity, liable to swoop in and wreck your expectations at any instant. He dares you to compare what he writes to the best songwriters of his time, and to compare how he sings to the greatest blues and folk singers of all time. It's a bet he cashes every time." On the 2001 release Texoma, he felt the need to pay homage to both his new home in Texas and its stylistic influences as well as what he took out of Oklahoma. The covers of "On a Bus to St. Cloud," by Gretchen Peters (her web site lists it as her favorite cover) and "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress," by Jimmy Webb will break your heart. If they don't, check your pulse. You may be dead. As usual, the rockers show his range. Alvin Lee's "Rock and Roll Music to the World" provides a foundation for a little bit of re-writing to pay tribute to some of his heroes and favorite places: Well, we come from down in Texoma / So let me stand up and say / We like Willie Nelson, J.J. Cale, Chet Baker, God bless Stevie Ray / Okema to Stillwater, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Austin, up to Dallas, too / Houston, San Antone, anywhere that we roam, hey, this is what we like to do / Play some rock and roll music to the world… and then the band proceeds to coat the walls with that red dirt sound. When his song, "Never is a Moment," was played on an Austin radio station, the switchboard lit up with people wanting to know who it was. Jimmy said that he had to play it twice on many nights for audiences after that. People were telling him they wanted to use it as a wedding song. The lyrics: Circumstance cast our fate / Maybe wrong, maybe right / Though you're dreams and miles away / I try to reach you through this night / If you hear music in the wind / I hope my melody you'll find / Because there never is a moment / That you are not on my mind. His song, "Woody Guthrie" is witness to his devotion to the man and his principles: Well you're out there again / Three sheets to the wind / Ramblin' and driftin' / And just living your life away / From the West to the East / For all of those who have least / You're singing and talking and teaching them all to believe / Woody Guthrie / You mean so much to me / Your music and spirit carry me / Through the darkest of nights. Jimmy switched to Red House Records for his two most recent releases, Blue Nightfall and Cimarron Manifesto. For this author, it's tough to pick a favorite between the two. The title track on Blue Nightfall might be one of my all-time LaFaves. His feel for love lost never sounded so deep: Don't want to get out of this car / I just want to drive and drive / Into the fading light / And pretend I'm alive / /Don't want to call your name / It hurts me way too deep / It's a blue nightfall / Now I weep. On Cimarron Manifesto, there exists one of the finest songs about the present state of affairs in this country. Jimmy, not one to take a political stance lightly, makes an eloquent statement as strongly as we've ever heard: …Children dying / On some foreign soil / For God's sake won't you tell me / What is all this fighting for / Traveling through this land / It's the only thing I know / To say my friends / I simply want my country back again / Cause I went driving / Through the American night / And I slowly watched my freedoms / Disappear right out of sight / Traveling through this land. To call it Guthriesque is putting it mildly. In the vein of that Oklahoma influence, I asked Jimmy about the effect that the area's vistas and especially the tempestuous weather might've had on him. He replied, "There's something about the wide-open spaces … there's something about it … it's a great canvas to create music in … you travel all over the world and you never see skies like that…" A quick check of his discography shows a number of references where the terrain, the weather and the road exert a pull: "When It Starts To Rain," "The Open Road," "Cafe In the Rain," and "The Big Wheels" are but a few. "Woodyfest" and "Ribbon of Highway" Recognizing Jimmy's dedication to her father's legacy Nora Guthrie invited him to appear at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to Woody. She also asked him to speak and perform at Woody's induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. The Woody Guthrie Festival in Woody's home town of Okemah, Oklahoma, was started in 1998 by Arlo Guthrie, Billy Bragg and Ellis Paul. Jimmy has been a regular performer since its inception. Today, as the festival approaches its 11th year, he sits on the board of directors of the festival as a performer representative, helping to book the festival. In 2003, Jimmy got together with Ellis Paul and some other musicians. Realizing their mutual interest in Woody Guthrie, they came up with the idea of a show, using a line from "This Land is Your Land," "Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway" as its title. There had already been tribute shows to Woody. On January 20, 1968, three months following Woody's death, Harold Leventhal produced one at Carnegie Hall, then repeated the tribute on September 12, 1970 at the Hollywood Bowl. Jimmy listened to these, taking note that actor Will Geer had narrated one, reading from Woody's writings between songs. Jimmy realized that there had been a lot of new material discovered since those early shows, so he decided to use the old format, but update the show's content to reflect the new material that had been unearthed. He listened to some of the old shows and researched Woody's writing and ran his information by Nora Guthrie for feedback. Nora also gave him some new songs that had never been heard. Once the tour got rolling many artists wanted sign on and play. Whoever's played, it has worked, because, as Jimmy has said elsewhere, "All the performers are Guthrie enthusiasts in some form." In addition to Ellis Paul, other artists have included Eliza Gilkyson (the show provided our first exposure to Eliza), Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, Tom Russell and Slaid Cleaves. Oklahoma songwriter Bob Childers, sometimes called "the Dylan of the Dust," has served as narrator for the shows that we've seen. The most recent show that we saw -- last month -- featured Jimmy with Joel Rafael, Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion and The Burns Sisters (We were also thrilled with the back-up guitar work of Austin legend, John Inmon). A two-disc live album Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway, a collection of the tour's live performances, is expected to be released this spring. Woody's Songs Many people have accepted the offer from Nora Guthrie to pore over Woody's poems and unfinished songs and set them to music. She wanted artists to create works for a youger generation, Artists included have been Billy Bragg, Wilco (Memaid Avenue I & II), Ellis Paul and quite a few others. For some time, this list did not include Jimmy LaFave. This caused some consternation to noted folk critic Arthur Wood, who commented, in his review of Texoma, "I'll swear that Nora Guthrie talked about passing a selection of her dad's lyrics to LaFave, the recording of a Woody/Jimmy album being the objective. Since then, nada. Silence. God knows Jimmy's Okie credentials aren't in doubt, and midway through this set he delivers a powerful reminder. 'Red Dirt Song' … followed by the KO - 'Woody Guthrie' - a heartfelt and personal recollection of a songsmith who restlessly sought new horizons. So here's the message Nora - 'We're waiting. Jimmy's your man.'" I brought his up to Jimmy in our telephone interview, and he set the record straight. Nearly two years ago, Nora allowed him to look over hundreds of songs/poems. He chose 60, then whittled it down to around 23. Nora checked in recently to see if a song that another artist was interested in was one of the ones Jimmy was looking at. It wasn't. Jimmy said, "She told me what the release schedule was for other song versions [not wanting to crowd the market with them]. I told her I'd be working on them this spring to get them finished. She told me she'd like to aim or a year and a half from now for a release window." Are we happy now, Arthur? You bet! We've seen Jimmy a bunch of times, now, at Cabin Concerts, with the Woody tribute and at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Each time has been special. He'll be appearing in the New York area on Thursday, April 3rd at The Watercolor Cafe in Larchmont, NY and on Friday, April 4th, at The Towne Crier in Pawling, NY. If you you haven't seen him yet and can manage to get to either of these shows, you'll be filling in a big chunk of your musical history. Make the effort. You'll be glad you did! Website: http://www.jimmylafave.com/

In Oklahoma, where the iron ore in the soil turns the dirt red, there are cross currents of energy. It seems to pull at the people there. They're a little more in touch with the earth and with life. The skies, too, stretch wider in those open spaces. The weather is wilder and the clouds tell stories. They have a majesty… billowing and full of glory in a sunset, serene and white in cool flat rows against an azure blue sky, or full of glowering black turbulence before releasing the deadly funnel clouds. The air currents converge, turning the area between Tulsa and Stillwater into the heart of "tornado alley." You either stay in touch with the forces of nature or they destroy you. Sometimes they destroy you either way.

Down on the red earth, the people of Oklahoma move about, working and creating. Somewhere between the glory and the fury, the singers and the poets rise from the red dirt and give America the core of its character. In 1992, a sound rode the airwaves out of Austin, bringing some red dirt with it. It was bursting with the ache of need, of loss, and of living with both, without turning away. The sound came through the ether like a laser and seared itself into my mind. It was only a cover, but oh, what a cover. The voice caressed "Walk Away Renee," the The Left Banke's 60's smash hit, as if it were written for the singer's voice only. It was Jimmy LaFave, wrapping his vocal chords around yet another great song and making it his own. It was from Jimmy's first CD out of Texas, called Austin Skyline.

At the time, I had no idea what was coming, but it didn't take long to find out: Jimmy was not just a great interpreter of any number of classics, but perhaps the finest Dylan cover artist the Americana genre has ever seen. And no wonder. Born in Texas, then raised in Oklahoma, he was steeped in the history and lore of the master himself, Woody Guthrie. There's no way to know where he got that voice with the built-in heartache. His vocal style has been described as a mix of Van Morrison, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen and Steve Forbert. Additionally, he's a first-rate songwriter. It didn't start with a guitar and a poetic lyric, though.

Beginnings

Jimmy LaFave was born in Wills Point, Texas in 1955. His family moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma when he was 15. During the early years in Texas, Jimmy would hear country music from his mother's extensive record collection. He also listened to popular hits coming from the radio station KLIF out of Dallas. Then there was music pouring from the TV set-- "Hullabaloo," "Where the Action Is," "Shindig" and "American Bandstand." When he decided, in junior high, that he wanted to play drums, his mother got him a set from Sears & Roebuck. It must've been apparent right away that he was cut out to be more than just a drummer. He became the lead singer in the pre-teen garage bands he played in, the typical drummer/singer, with his head cocked to the side, he says, like Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. The band played teen dances and the like. When the family moved to Oklahoma during Jimmy's sophomore year in high school, music "became twice as important, for some reason," he recalls. He decided he wanted to play guitar, so his mother gathered up her green stamps and got him one. After his older brother showed him a few chords, he began learning James Taylor songs by playing along to records. Quickly, that was followed by Bob Dylan songs. Although he'd used a James Taylor song to perform in a high school talent show, he had already started to write his own material. At this time, the earliest incarnation of his band, Night Tribe, was born.

Coming of Age in Oklahoma

Stillwater is the home of the University of Oklahoma. College students came from both urban and rural backgrounds, bringing their musical tastes into the area. A number of other cross currents were added to Jimmy's musical education. The songwriters of Austin, Texas, like Townes Van Zant and Guy Clark were revered and they came through to play at the clubs on the strip in downtown Stillwater.

Influences abound in Oklahoma. Along with Woody Guthrie, other great players in American music have risen from the red dirt. There's J.J. Cale, Chet Baker, Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, Wanda Jackson, Patti Page, and Charlie Christian. When Jimmy got out of high school, he worked construction jobs by day and played music at night. His band, Night Tribe, played Stillwater, all over Oklahoma, and made forays into Arkansas, Wichita, Kansas, and Telluride, Colorado. He did this all through his twenties. During this time, Jimmy also managed a club in Stillwater called Up Your Alley for a couple of years. He also recorded two albums, Down Under (1979) and Broken Line (1981) at Lamb Recording. Also, for a while, he played the same club as Garth Brooks. In an interview he gave to Jim Catalano of Twangin', he stated, "We used to play the same club in Stillwater called Willy's, which is where he got his start. He was the Wednesday Happy Hour guy, and I would play the Friday and Saturday nights."

The Austin Scene

Although Stillwater is known as the home of "Red Dirt Music" -- a mix of folk, alt-rock and country rock -- and today has its own kind of mini Nashville/Austin scene, in 1986, Jimmy needed to find a new music setting in which he could spread his wings. He looked at Nashville and L.A., but settled in Austin because of his high regard for the the music, the songwriters and the entire scene that existed (and still exists) there.

Wikipedia states: "Shortly after arriving he was asked to help launch the songwriter nights at the new performance venue Chicago House. In 1988 he recorded his self-produced tape, Highway Angels ... Full Moon Rain, which won the Austin Chronicle Reader's Poll Tape of the Year Award. He got a recording contract upon his arrival, but it proved to be ill-fated. Saddled with "the contract from hell," the album he recorded was never released and he was unable to record his songs for 5 years. During this time he re-formed his band, The Night Tribe, and they became a fixture on the Austin scene. Jimmy used the time well, honing his songwriting skills, meeting the challenge of the high quality of the local talent.

The first time I got to see Jimmy live, he appeared at a house concert series, Tim and Lori Blixt's Cabin Concerts. What a thrill. The photograph below was taken there. I gave copies of the photo files to Jimmy and he used one almost identical to this in the liner booklet of his CD, Texoma.

The Discography

After five years without releasing a recording, Jimmy leaped forward out of the starting blocks like an olympic runner.

In 1992, he released the aforementioned Austin Skyline. It was followed by Highway Trance (1994), Buffalo Return to the Plains (1995), Road Novel (1997), Trail (1999), Texoma (2001), Blue Nightfall (2005) and then his most recent release Cimarron Manifesto, this past year (2007).

Jimmy independently produced Austin Skyline and it found a home on the Bohemia Beat label, as did the subsequent 5 releases. One of the greatest achievements of his, or anyone else's recording career is the compilation, Trail. Ever the road warrior, Jimmy looked for a way to bring the electricity and excitement of his live performances to the listening audience. Together with Mark Shumate, president of the label, they gathered bootlegs, radio appearances, studio out-takes and concert performances. They released the result, Trail, in 1999. It's a double CD that spans 15 years and contains 31 songs. There are 12 Dylan covers and songs by Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen as well as his own. There are heartbreaking ballads and kick-ass rockers. In the liner notes, Dave Marsh writes: "Jimmy LaFave has one of America's greatest voices, and this album is the story of what he has learned to do with it. It's a unique instrument, with startling range and its own peculiar sense of gravity, liable to swoop in and wreck your expectations at any instant. He dares you to compare what he writes to the best songwriters of his time, and to compare how he sings to the greatest blues and folk singers of all time. It's a bet he cashes every time."

On the 2001 release Texoma, he felt the need to pay homage to both his new home in Texas and its stylistic influences as well as what he took out of Oklahoma. The covers of "On a Bus to St. Cloud," by Gretchen Peters (her web site lists it as her favorite cover) and "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress," by Jimmy Webb will break your heart. If they don't, check your pulse. You may be dead. As usual, the rockers show his range. Alvin Lee's "Rock and Roll Music to the World" provides a foundation for a little bit of re-writing to pay tribute to some of his heroes and favorite places: Well, we come from down in Texoma / So let me stand up and say / We like Willie Nelson, J.J. Cale, Chet Baker, God bless Stevie Ray / Okema to Stillwater, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Austin, up to Dallas, too / Houston, San Antone, anywhere that we roam, hey, this is what we like to do / Play some rock and roll music to the world… and then the band proceeds to coat the walls with that red dirt sound.

When his song, "Never is a Moment," was played on an Austin radio station, the switchboard lit up with people wanting to know who it was. Jimmy said that he had to play it twice on many nights for audiences after that. People were telling him they wanted to use it as a wedding song. The lyrics: Circumstance cast our fate / Maybe wrong, maybe right / Though you're dreams and miles away / I try to reach you through this night / If you hear music in the wind / I hope my melody you'll find / Because there never is a moment / That you are not on my mind.

His song, "Woody Guthrie" is witness to his devotion to the man and his principles: Well you're out there again / Three sheets to the wind / Ramblin' and driftin' / And just living your life away / From the West to the East / For all of those who have least / You're singing and talking and teaching them all to believe / Woody Guthrie / You mean so much to me / Your music and spirit carry me / Through the darkest of nights.

Jimmy switched to Red House Records for his two most recent releases, Blue Nightfall and Cimarron Manifesto. For this author, it's tough to pick a favorite between the two. The title track on Blue Nightfall might be one of my all-time LaFaves. His feel for love lost never sounded so deep: Don't want to get out of this car / I just want to drive and drive / Into the fading light / And pretend I'm alive / /Don't want to call your name / It hurts me way too deep / It's a blue nightfall / Now I weep.

On Cimarron Manifesto, there exists one of the finest songs about the present state of affairs in this country. Jimmy, not one to take a political stance lightly, makes an eloquent statement as strongly as we've ever heard: …Children dying / On some foreign soil / For God's sake won't you tell me / What is all this fighting for / Traveling through this land / It's the only thing I know / To say my friends / I simply want my country back again / Cause I went driving / Through the American night / And I slowly watched my freedoms / Disappear right out of sight / Traveling through this land.

To call it Guthriesque is putting it mildly. In the vein of that Oklahoma influence, I asked Jimmy about the effect that the area's vistas and especially the tempestuous weather might've had on him. He replied, "There's something about the wide-open spaces … there's something about it … it's a great canvas to create music in … you travel all over the world and you never see skies like that…" A quick check of his discography shows a number of references where the terrain, the weather and the road exert a pull: "When It Starts To Rain," "The Open Road," "Cafe In the Rain," and "The Big Wheels" are but a few.

"Woodyfest" and "Ribbon of Highway"

Recognizing Jimmy's dedication to her father's legacy Nora Guthrie invited him to appear at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to Woody. She also asked him to speak and perform at Woody's induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. The Woody Guthrie Festival in Woody's home town of Okemah, Oklahoma, was started in 1998 by Arlo Guthrie, Billy Bragg and Ellis Paul. Jimmy has been a regular performer since its inception. Today, as the festival approaches its 11th year, he sits on the board of directors of the festival as a performer representative, helping to book the festival.

In 2003, Jimmy got together with Ellis Paul and some other musicians. Realizing their mutual interest in Woody Guthrie, they came up with the idea of a show, using a line from "This Land is Your Land," "Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway" as its title. There had already been tribute shows to Woody. On January 20, 1968, three months following Woody's death, Harold Leventhal produced one at Carnegie Hall, then repeated the tribute on September 12, 1970 at the Hollywood Bowl. Jimmy listened to these, taking note that actor Will Geer had narrated one, reading from Woody's writings between songs.

Jimmy realized that there had been a lot of new material discovered since those early shows, so he decided to use the old format, but update the show's content to reflect the new material that had been unearthed. He listened to some of the old shows and researched Woody's writing and ran his information by Nora Guthrie for feedback. Nora also gave him some new songs that had never been heard. Once the tour got rolling many artists wanted sign on and play. Whoever's played, it has worked, because, as Jimmy has said elsewhere, "All the performers are Guthrie enthusiasts in some form." In addition to Ellis Paul, other artists have included Eliza Gilkyson (the show provided our first exposure to Eliza), Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, Tom Russell and Slaid Cleaves. Oklahoma songwriter Bob Childers, sometimes called "the Dylan of the Dust," has served as narrator for the shows that we've seen. The most recent show that we saw -- last month -- featured Jimmy with Joel Rafael, Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion and The Burns Sisters (We were also thrilled with the back-up guitar work of Austin legend, John Inmon). A two-disc live album Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway, a collection of the tour's live performances, is expected to be released this spring.

Woody's Songs

Many people have accepted the offer from Nora Guthrie to pore over Woody's poems and unfinished songs and set them to music. She wanted artists to create works for a youger generation, Artists included have been Billy Bragg, Wilco (Memaid Avenue I & II), Ellis Paul and quite a few others. For some time, this list did not include Jimmy LaFave. This caused some consternation to noted folk critic Arthur Wood, who commented, in his review of Texoma, "I'll swear that Nora Guthrie talked about passing a selection of her dad's lyrics to LaFave, the recording of a Woody/Jimmy album being the objective. Since then, nada. Silence. God knows Jimmy's Okie credentials aren't in doubt, and midway through this set he delivers a powerful reminder. 'Red Dirt Song' … followed by the KO - 'Woody Guthrie' - a heartfelt and personal recollection of a songsmith who restlessly sought new horizons. So here's the message Nora - 'We're waiting. Jimmy's your man.'"

I brought his up to Jimmy in our telephone interview, and he set the record straight. Nearly two years ago, Nora allowed him to look over hundreds of songs/poems. He chose 60, then whittled it down to around 23. Nora checked in recently to see if a song that another artist was interested in was one of the ones Jimmy was looking at. It wasn't. Jimmy said, "She told me what the release schedule was for other song versions [not wanting to crowd the market with them]. I told her I'd be working on them this spring to get them finished. She told me she'd like to aim or a year and a half from now for a release window." Are we happy now, Arthur? You bet!

We've seen Jimmy a bunch of times, now, at Cabin Concerts, with the Woody tribute and at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Each time has been special. He'll be appearing in the New York area on Thursday, April 3rd at The Watercolor Cafe in Larchmont, NY and on Friday, April 4th, at The Towne Crier in Pawling, NY.

If you you haven't seen him yet and can manage to get to either of these shows, you'll be filling in a big chunk of your musical history.

Make the effort. You'll be glad you did!

Website: http://www.jimmylafave.com/