Jimmy LaFave: Cimmaron Manifesto (Red House/Elite)

 |   |  <1 min read

Jimmy LaFave: Cimmaron Manifesto (Red House/Elite)

Austin-based singer-songwriter LaFave has perhaps covered too many Dylan songs in his long career (usually very well indeed it must be said) so it's amusing to find on this album he shifts his sights and does Donovan's Catch The Wind.

But he also does Dylan's Not Dark Yet so he's still finding that influence hard to shake. LaFave has a voice which aches with passion and he can turn it to inspired treatments of other people's songs -- his (possibly definitive?) cover of Walk Away Renee 15 years ago remains a career highpoint. However often this has meant casual listeners don't appreciate his exceptional originals. This album -- with guests Carrie Rodriguez, Ruthie Foster and an excellent band -- is full of typically thoughtful and thought-provoking originals, most of which convey a sadness for a lost America and the certainties of youth and yesteryear.

It evokes the open spaces and wide promise of America and while there is a political subtext in places it never feels anything less than deeply personal.

Quite something.

Share It

Your Comments

Rosco - May 23, 2017

Very sad.
I was one among many at a very crowded Gluepot back in 1993 to witness this American master in action. I heard him on BFM's Border Radio(?) years before and he changed the way I looked at Americana/country music. The Austin Chronicle has some lovely images and even lovelier words that should give us all pause to reflect.
https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/music/2017-05-19/i-love-you-jimmy/

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Norah Jones: The Fall (Blue Note/EMI)

Norah Jones: The Fall (Blue Note/EMI)

The smaller sales on Jones’ two albums  -- Feels Like Home (04) and Not Too Late (07) -- after the extraordinary figures for her 02 debut Come Away With Me (20 million and rising) were... > Read more

Methyl Ethel: Triage (4AD)

Methyl Ethel: Triage (4AD)

Their location (Perth in Western Australia) and the band name (which brings to mind Nick Cave/Grinderman's raucous Depth Charge Ethyl) might conjure up some pretty brittle and aggressive.... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . CARL T SPRAGUE: At home on the range in the Eighteen Seventies

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . CARL T SPRAGUE: At home on the range in the Eighteen Seventies

Some musicians are so close to the source they are almost part of it. The young Rolling Stones -- despite their cultural, emotional and physical distance from American blues – heard... > Read more

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Victoria Girling-Butcher

THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Victoria Girling-Butcher

Victoria Girling-Butcher fronted New Zealand's Lucid 3 for a decade but recently stepped out with her first solo album after a four-year hiatus. The delay in launching herself under her own... > Read more