Search - James Talley :: Journey

Hopes and dreams

Jerome Clark | Canby, Minnesota | 06/16/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In October 2002 James Talley and his band toured Italy. This satisfying CD captures the best of the performances, mostly of such Talley classics as "W. Lee O'Daniel and the Light Crust Doughboys," "Sometimes I Think About Suzanne," "Tryin' Like the Devil," and "Richland, Washington," among others. He and the musicians are in fine form. The audience is enthusiastic, but never intrusive or overbearing. This is in all senses more engaging than your average live recording.What makes Journey exceptional, however, are the new songs, in particular "The Song of Chief Joseph" and "I Saw the Buildings." Though perhaps no further proof is needed of his mastery of the composer's art -- Talley, who in the 1970s helped invent the genre now called alt.country or Americana, has been creating songs of power and subtlety for many years -- these are among the most exquisite ballads of our time. "Chief Joseph" retells, from the title character's point of view, a tragic episode from the Indian wars of the American West. If there is a better song about that sad era in our history, I have yet to hear it. The deceptively languid narrative unravels, with perfect lyrical and musical restraint, as no more than a bare-bones recitation of the events in question. Because the song lets the story tell itself, it resists the protest singer's temptation to preach and shout, and thus becomes a masterpiece of understated heartbreak and dark beauty.So is "I Saw the Buildings." Contrast this thoughtful, 9/11-inspired reflection with the jingoistic, chest-thumping rants that spewed out of Nashville in the wake of that terrible event, and you will know the difference between morally serious art and bone-headed bloodthirst. Bob Dylan would be proud to have written this song, if he could have. Ten minutes long, "Buildings" wanders from the devastation of the Manhattan of September 11, 2001, to the broken landscape of the larger world, where despair and pain spawn "hatred stronger than life." The verses return periodically to the haunting refrain, "The stars come out at night/ And the moon shines so bright/ And the mystery holds/ Which no one knows/ And our hopes and dreams sustain us." And so does James Talley's magnificent music."