Artist: Gillian Welch
Title: Revival
Label: ALMO Sounds
Release Date: 1996
Format: flac
The debut album by Gillian Welch is aptly titled. In an alt-country scene primarily focused on adapting the sound and feeling of old-time traditional country to its own ends, this singer-songwriter, along with her ever-present musical partner David Rawlings, is more interested in taking the sound of the Carter Family and transplanting it whole into the middle of the 1990s. T-Bone Burnett produced the album with such a sharp eye towards period authenticity that even the occasional modern musical elements (bits of electric guitar and drums, and keyboards) sound of a piece. The songwriting is uniformly excellent, with mature, emotionally resonant songs like "Orphan Girl" sitting comfortably next to such bluesy character pieces as "Tear My Stillhouse Down." Although Welch's future albums would maintain this high level of quality, REVIVAL is an impressive debut of a richly talented singer and songwriter.
Recorded at Sunset Sound, Oceanway and Sound Factory, Hollywood, California; Woodland Digital, Nashville, Tennessee.
Track List:
01. Orphan Girl
02. Annabelle
03. Pass You By
04. Barroom Girls
05. One More Dollar
06. By the Mark
07. Paper Wings
08. Tear My Stillhouse Down
09. Acony Bell
10. Only One and Only
Personnel: Gillian Welch - vocals, acoustic & electric guitars David Rawlings - vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, Optigan, 6-string bass Jay J. Joyce - electric guitar, E-bow James Burton - electric guitar, National steel guitar
Greg Leisz - dobro, Weissenborn John R. Hughey - pedal steel guitar T-Bone Burnett - Optigan Armando Campean - acoustic & electric basses Roy Huskey, Jr. - acoustic bass Buddy Harman, Jim Keltner - drums
Artist: Gillian Welch
Title: Previval
Label: Bootleg
Release Date: 1995 (?)
Format: MP3 @ 320 K
Full-band demos for Revival, sounding drastically different to the final release. The mournful, sparse arrangements of the album are much more elaborate here, and there's a much greater emphasis on the harmonica on several tracks.
Track List:
01. 455 Rocket
02. Play It Slow
03. Tear My Stillhouse Down
04. Orphan girl
05. Pass you by
06. One more dollar
07. Red clay halo
08. Birds of a feather
09. Making time
10. I don't want to go downtown
11. We must look like we're in love
12. Forty one dollars and change
13. Unfinished business
14. Why he needs me |