Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – All The Good Times (Re-issued)
Acony Records – 5 March 2021
While many artists have been making the most of lockdown to dust off the archives or record intimate socially distanced material, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings have been busier than most. Following on the heels of the physical box set of Boots 2: The Lost Songs, a gathering together of three download album of unreleased demos, they now offer this collection of ten simple acoustic covers recorded at home on reel-to-reel and previously only available as a limited edition webstore exclusive pressing for the fans that sold out in 48 hours.
Now given a wider release with new packaging and art, it’s a mix of familiar and more obscure names, kicking off with Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie, written by self-taught left-handed North Carolina African-American blues and folk musician, Elizabeth Cotten, writer of, among many others, Freight Train and Shake Sugaree. Bob Dylan sang it on several of his shows during the 90s and he, in turn, is represented here by two songs, the first up being a slow burn take on Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power) from Street Legal with Rawlings singing lead and taken at an ever-slower pace than the original. The other, Rawlings again on lead, is the slightly more uptempo Abandoned Love, a Dylan rarity with only one live performance known of and has only been released as a 1975 Desire outtake on his Biograph album.
Digging into the traditional repertoire, Welch takes lead duties on the strummed Appalachian bluegrass Fly Around My Pretty Little Bird with Rawlings on mandolin, he is also upfront with Welch on harmonies for the second of three, Poor Ellen Lee, a 19th-century murder ballad based on the shooting of Ellen Smith in Winston-Salem, in 1894 by former lover Peter DeGraff. The first known recording dating to that by Fred and Gertrude Gossett in 1930, it’s followed by the third, the lyrically resonant bluegrass campfire waltz-time title track, Rawlings on lead and Welch joining on the chorus.
Originally appearing on his 1971 album Back Home In Sulphur Springs, sung by Welch and featuring an acoustic solo bridge Ginseng Sullivan is Norman Blake song about a weary old man trying to eke a living out of growing ginseng, deludedly hopeful that the summer will see a rise in demand and his fortunes. It ends in goodtime form with two uptempo tracks, the pair duetting first on a bluesy interpretation of Jackson, a 1967 hit for both Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra and Johnny Cash and June Carter, and finally, on the leg-slapping Y’All Come, a 1954 Bill Munroe hit written and first recorded by Arlie Duff in 1953.
Prior to that, however, there’s the album centrepiece on which Welch delivers a stunning, heartbreaking, slow, sad reading of John Prine’s classic rumination on old age and empty nests, Hello In There, extending the song by over a minute to just under six.
The duo have long been established as immaculate interpreters of old-time acoustic folk and country and this is another outstanding addition to that catalogue. If this is how they spend their lockdown, it’s almost enough to make you want for it to last an album longer.
Re-issued CD out now, Vinyl due later in the year.
Photo Credit: Kristine Potter