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| Featured Artist Link REALLYMUSICRADIO presentsGILLIAN WELCH
"But it is," laughs Gillian Welch. "This really is the sunniest record I've ever made!"
Now, "sunny" isn't usually the first word that comes up in a discussion of Gillian's music. Maybe "partly cloudy" is a better fit for Soul Journey, the latest from this gifted singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. After all, it offers much of what we've come to associate with her style, stark but powerful stories set to music whose bare intensity conveys an almost unbearable beauty. Gillian and David Rawlings rushed into 2003 in a whirlwind of concentrated writing. When some early recording yielded three unexpectedly powerful solo performances, Soul Journey had begun. The band was called in to cut everything else in early March. In four days they finished six cuts, took a few days more to finish the last one... and that was it. Perhaps the best example of what can happen under these conditions is "Wrecking Ball," whose soaring dynamics and inspired interplay recall classic moments from Dylan and the Band. "It was really just a jam," Gillian remembers. "There was hardly a form to work with; the song just barely existed. But that's the kind of intensity we got all week, working sixteen hours a day. We just played. I did the vocals live, with the band. We didn't even listen to playbacks; we just kept going." Gillian smiles. "To me, that means, first of all, that the spirit of the performance transcends the notes themselves. I don't like to see musicians reading charts in the studio. It's better if everyone is playing, listening...even guessing. That's when good things happen." Soul Journey rose from this turbulence, like a light breaking through a fabric of mist. The record may not represent an end, or even a new beginning, for Gillian. Certainly her fans can count on many more duets from her and David, on record and on stages, for many years yet. But for all that she will achieve in her lifetime, Soul Journey will surely be seen as unlike anything else she has done -- something similar enough to her other work to meet expectations, though also revealing, if only for a moment, the shadows and, sure enough, the sunshine that lies within this artist's soul. |
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