FOLKTONES
A few weeks back Ted Wilson and Pat Phillips spent some time working on "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive," a folk tune about coal miners in Kentucky. I'd never heard the song, and Ted's blog refered to it as "an old folk tune." Pat does a great job with the vocals; this man was born to sing songs about coal miners in Kentucky, where "the sun comes up, about ten in the morning, and the sun goes down, about three in the day." I worked on the mix and the arrangement for a bit last night and fell in love with the tune, so I did me some research.
Surprise! Turns out it's not an old folk tune at all, not unless 1997 was the olden days (I guess it was, in many ways, what with the nation's sweet naivete during the Clinton administration). It was written by Darrell Scott, who researched his family history and found inspiration in his great-grandfather, a coal miner; it appeared on Scott's "Aloha from Nashville" record. Well, Patty Loveless heard the song (her family were all coal miners) and covered it for her 2001 record "Mountain Soul." The same year Brad Paisley covered it. The Dixie Chicks and Travis Tritt have done Darrell Scott's songs as well.
It feels exactly like an old folk tune feels. When Pat Phillips sings about the man from the Northeast (they're always from the Northeast) coming to town with his hundred dollar bills, saying "I'll pay yah for yer minralz," you figure this was certainly written in the late 19th century. The Folksmen might have put in on one of their 60's releases, or maybe the Main Street Singers. That's the direction I started to go in last night when I was inspired to add backing vocals to those great lines in the chorus. "The sun comes up... the sun goes down... and you fill your cup..." I hope Pat likes it. And Darrell, and his great grandfather, too.
2 Comments:
I'm very excited and anxious to hear what you've added to the track and humbled that you like what you hear so far. I'm confident that I can tidy up a few bits, as well as nail a few things a little tighter/stronger.
I think you hit upon something that is worthy of mention in your post about this song as it relates to my recent foray (fast approaching love affair status) with bluegrass music. I've actually sung and recorded some bluegrass years ago when a good friend of ours was playing a lot of banjo. He would talk endlessly about the parallels between it and the blues that we both already had been in love with forever. I sort of got it, but not completely. Like many others, I had my epiphany after seeing the film "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" and buying the soundtrack (T-Bone Burnett produced, no way it could suck). I think that record stayed in my car stereo the whole year. I immediately bought all the recommended titles that came as part of the record and it just snowballed from there. I also had a chance to see my favorite folk artist Peter Case a couple of times in the interim and got to tug on his coat about the various artists who he draws his influences from. He turned me on to Irish folkers and gave me a primer on some of the history of both blue grass and Irish folk music (the Irish mercenaries who came to fight for the South during the civil war blended blues with their music to give us the bluegrass baby).
It's interesting how similar songs written by two different cultures can be. The catalyst is the subject matter I believe and that is death,sadness, and hope (didn't David St. Hubbins make the statement that every song is about death?). That's what makes delta blues and bluegrass so attractive to me. I love a good story about people too, and a lot of blues/bluegrass songs are about characters and people real and fictional. I'm a complete sucker for it. I like good playing, but a good story on top of it is even better (see Nirvana’s cover of the Leadbelly tune “In The Pines” on the Unplugged record)
As for the track we recorded, I first heard it sung live by Patty Loveless during the Down From The Mountain concert series that came through Atlanta. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the show by some friends of ours when others cancelled on them. Ms. Loveless sang the first two verses unaccompanied to a deafingly quiet outdoor crowd and I had tears in my eyes (I think it happened again during Ralph Stanley's set). Her voice was absolutely angelic. When I though beauty could not be topped, to my amazement Emmy Lou Harris and Allison Kraus came out to provide harmony and the flood gates just opened up. Perfection.
I couldn't believe it when I discovered as you now have that she didn't write Harlon (while her recording of it is very good, it doesn't come close to what I heard that night). I went out and bought the Darrell Scott record that it appears on as well. It’s a very good record on it’s own. He’s just another great song writer amongst the millions walking the streets of Memphis and Nashville. Darrell’s original version is not really a bluegrass tune at all, and it’s too dressed up for a folk song. Patty’s is certainly bluegrass and it’s a good fit in that vein. My lack of guitar playing prowess unfortunately leaves only a folk groove to translate it into, but in this case it not a bad fit either. I was very careful not let Ted listen to it so we could just let it materialize into something worth building on, or let it die in the bowels of the G4 Mac. When we wrapped up I thought it worthy of more life myself. Glad to hear you think so too, I need all the confidence boosters I can get.
It's a damn good song, and Tony is a damn good singer.
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