16. Art Makes Art Makes Art...
Hello, old friend,
Remember me? At some point you signed up to hear from me occasionally, so here I am, stopping by with an auditory love note.
I don’t know about you, but I remember certain songs by the feeling they evoked in me the first time I heard them and, albeit more fuzzily, all the times since then. Sometimes that feeling is infused with the thoughts that were swirling in my head when I heard the song, or a conversation I was having with someone, or a particular bend in the landscape I happened upon when I was listening to the song. And every time I listen to that song again, I carry all those notes with me, the vivid first memory and its afterechoes.
So perhaps I will associate Knocking (On Your Door) from Rusty Williams' Grand Man with my office on a regular Monday, an easy, swooping blanket of calm making me want stop everything I was doing just to focus on the music. Or with the feeling of being in a movie, both outdoors and in a recording studio on a farm of the likes in Dreamin’ Wild.
From the 78-old grandfather of Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Grand Man is a beautiful album from another era, which Rusty and his friend, Frank Morris, recorded in the late 70s and 80s and never released because all the record label producers they presented it to wanted it to be ‘a bit more country’.
The almost complete album was put into storage and unearthed last year, when Frank found some old recordings and shared them with the family. Hayley loved them, showed them to her producer, and like in a movie, the album was finally released on February 14 this year. You can read more about it here. (Someone please make it a movie already!)
I’ll let you decide how you feel about it, but I think the beauty of the album (and you should really give it a go as a collection) is really in how young Rusty’s quiet, slightly wavering voice draws you into the room with him as he croons about love in an album full of songs ‘mostly’ dedicated to his now wife of 60 years, Sharon.
Any favourites? The whole album is lovely, but I have a little corner in my heart for The Only Way. Let yourself to get to it in time, and find your own coups de coeur along the way.
From the album’s bio:
“Grand Man is no time capsule: built on the grains of the past, it is a vibrant, living work of a man who had so much to say. It just took the world a minute to be able to hear it.”
Where to go from here:
If you liked Grand Man, you may enjoy watching the aforementioned Dreamin’ Wild, a thoughtfully directed and acted film about music from around the same time period.
This is not a plug for Spotify (support your artists!), but its Discover Weekly really does hit the spot most weeks, including this one, where this song found me. Here’s a playlist based on the album, also suggested by the al-gods:
That’s all for me this round. If you liked this little missive or want to share a music recommendation, drop me a note! 🧡