Gillian Welch

The first album I bought by Gillian Welch was Revival. I bought it in the used CD store in Oxford, MS, called Uncle Buck's Records. Since the days I lived in Oxford, MS, Uncle Buck's closed and Hot Dog Records opened for a few years before kicking the bucket, too. I loved the slow rocking rhythm of "Pass You By" and the way Gillian sang, her vocals saturating the air, pouring out like molasses, drawing out words to match the melody.

"Don't turn no head, don't catch no eye Just a wind on the road, gonna pass you by Don't come over here, Don't scream don't cry Just a wind on the road, gonna pass you by"

Sometime after I bought Revival, I saw that Gillian and David were coming to Oxford for a gig in Proud Larry's, a bar and restaurant just off the downtown square. This was before the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? came out with Gillian singing "I'll Fly Away" with Alison Krauss. This was before she was well known, from what I could determine. The audience was full but not crammed, and the tiny stage was just enough for Gillian and David to play. I stood over to stage-right, near a speaker and the checker-paned windows looking out on the alley. The stage was only one step up, and if I had stood in the back I would not have been able to stare at their fingers on the guitars, banjos, and mandolins. I was fascinated and had forgotten my camera. She sang several songs I knew, and many I had not yet heard. Some days later, when I was dating someone for several months, I was given the CD Hell Among the Yearlings. The songs here were slower and more mellow than the ones on Revival. It took me a lot longer to like these songs, but eventually I did. My favorite song, played over and over in my car stereo when I went for a long drive to have time to myself, was "Tear My Stillhouse Down."

"Oh tell all your children That Hell ain't no dream 'Cause Satan he lives In my whiskey machine And in my time of dying I know where I'm bound So when I die tear my stillhouse down."

I just loved the way she sang every line of that song, powerful and regretful, mournful of the march drumming behind her last request of tearing the stillhouse down. "Don't leave no trace of the hiding place where we made that evil stuff" just bounces off your tongue; the poetry of the lyrics struck me. Some time later she and David came back to Oxford for the Double Decker Arts Festival in April. We sat with Organic Blue Sky Raspberry sodas in hand on the balcony of Square Books overlooking the stage and their performance. I don't remember if I had my camera with me this time, but I probably didn't take very many pictures after all. A few years later, on April 24, 2004, I came back to the Festival, making a special trip up from Jackson, MS, to see them perform again. A two year relationship had ended a year earlier and we were meeting to be cordial and try to maintain a friendship. But I disappeared a few times to enjoy the show and to take some pictures from just below the stage, all angled awkwardly. I wanted to stand but nearly all the audience had sat down to enjoy the music. Much later, after moving to Hattiesburg, MS, for graduate school at USM and settling into an empty apartment with scattered boxes everywhere waiting to be unpacked, I had Gillian's album Soul Journey playing "Lowlands" loudly.

"Oh I've been in the lowlands too long, Oh, I know, I know that I should go, And I've been in the lowlands too long"

It was the epitome of being happy to move into my first apartment, a place of my own. Music on constantly, Gillian singing about making a pallet on the floor or Miss Ohio. I read reviews that contradicted with my opinion of the album, criticizing the songs I liked most, and preferring the ones I liked least. I am waiting for Gillian and David to come to Kentucky so I can hear them in their best form, live.

"Ain’t one soul in the whole world knows my name Ain’t one soul in the whole world knows my name But I’ll see it by and by cause it’s written up in the sky Ain’t one soul in the whole world knows my name"