James Talley
Encyclopedia
James Talley is an American
country blues
and electric blues
singer-songwriter
.
. After five years in Richland, Washington
, and realizing the hazards his father’s employment presented, the family relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico
. Talley graduated from the University of New Mexico
with a degree in fine arts.
After college, encouraged by Pete Seeger
while on a trip to New Mexico, Talley began to write songs that drew upon the culture of the Southwest. These early songs eventually became The Road to Torreón, a saga of life and death in the Chicano villages of northern New Mexico. Released in a boxed edition by Bear Family Records in 1992, it was a collaboration of photography and music, with a photographic essay contributed by Talley's lifelong friend, photographer Cavalliere Ketchum.
In 1968, Talley moved from New Mexico to Nashville, Tennessee
to try to get his songs released. Over the years Johnny Cash
, Johnny Paycheck
, Gene Clark
, Alan Jackson
, Hazel Dickens
, and most recently Moby
, have recorded his songs. Joining country music and the blues, B. B. King
, played his first Nashville session with Talley in 1976, as his lead guitar player.
Talley's recording career now spans over thirty years. The late John Hammond, Sr. at Columbia Records
in New York was his first mentor, and championed his writing in the early 1970s. When Hammond could not get Talley signed to Columbia, he sent him to Jerry Wexler
, who was starting a new Nashville operation with his Atlantic
label at the time. Wexler signed Talley to his first recording contract at Atlantic Records. Atlantic’s Nashville operation, however, did not do well at the time and Atlantic closed its Nashville office.
Talley then moved to Capitol Records
where he released four albums during the mid-1970s: Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love (1975); Tryin’ Like The Devil (1976); Blackjack Choir (1977) and Ain’t It Somthin’ (1977). Rolling Stone
, and other music publications, have declared these albums American classics for their time.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Talley recorded four albums, which were released in Europe by the German Bear Family Records, American Originals (1985); and Love Songs and The Blues (1989); The Road To Torreón (1992) and James Talley: Live (1994).
In 1999, Talley started his own artist's label, Cimarron Records, and released Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home (2000), his only album that covered someone else's songs; Nashville City Blues, (2000), and was named Amazon.com's Folk Artist of the Year 2000. In 2002, Touchstones was released – a fresh retrospective of the songs from his early career. It was recorded in Texas with the help of Talley's old friends, Joe Ely
and Ponty Bone. In 2004 Journey was released, a live recording made on his tour of Italy. It displayed some of his classics as well as five new compositions. In February 2006, Talley's debut album, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love was reissued in a special 30th anniversary edition.
In July 2008, Talley simultaneously issued two CDs in digital download, Journey: The Second Voyage, the remaining songs for the original live Journey recordings, supplemented with five new songs, and Heartsong, an album of fifteen new songs and a re-recording of his song "She's The One," which was covered as "Evening Rain" by Moby.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
country blues
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
and electric blues
Electric blues
Electric blues is a type of blues music distinguished by the amplification of the guitar, bass guitar, drums, and often the harmonica. Pioneered in the 1930s, it emerged as a genre in Chicago in the 1940s. It was taken up in many areas of America leading to the development of regional subgenres...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
.
Biography
Born in Mehan, Oklahoma, Talley is an artist whose vision of the American experience, as author David McGee has said is "startlingly original." As a youth, Talley's family moved from Oklahoma to Washington state, where his father worked as a chemical operator in the Hanford plutonium factoryHanford Site
The Hanford Site is a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, operated by the United States federal government. The site has been known by many names, including Hanford Works, Hanford Engineer Works or HEW, Hanford Nuclear Reservation...
. After five years in Richland, Washington
Richland, Washington
Richland is a city in Benton County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Washington, at the confluence of the Yakima and the Columbia Rivers. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 48,058. April 1, 2011 estimates from the Washington State Office of Financial Management put the...
, and realizing the hazards his father’s employment presented, the family relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
. Talley graduated from the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
with a degree in fine arts.
After college, encouraged by Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
while on a trip to New Mexico, Talley began to write songs that drew upon the culture of the Southwest. These early songs eventually became The Road to Torreón, a saga of life and death in the Chicano villages of northern New Mexico. Released in a boxed edition by Bear Family Records in 1992, it was a collaboration of photography and music, with a photographic essay contributed by Talley's lifelong friend, photographer Cavalliere Ketchum.
In 1968, Talley moved from New Mexico to Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
to try to get his songs released. Over the years Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
, Johnny Paycheck
Johnny Paycheck
Johnny Paycheck was the legal name of Donald Eugene Lytle , a country music singer and Grand Ole Opry member most famous for recording the David Allan Coe song "Take This Job and Shove It"...
, Gene Clark
Gene Clark
Gene Clark, born Harold Eugene Clark was an American singer-songwriter, and one of the founding members of the folk-rock group The Byrds....
, Alan Jackson
Alan Jackson
Alan Eugene Jackson is an American country music singer, known for blending traditional honky tonk and mainstream country sounds and penning many of his own hits. He has recorded 13 studio albums, 3 Greatest Hits albums, 2 Holiday albums, 1 Gospel album and several compilations, all on the Arista...
, Hazel Dickens
Hazel Dickens
Hazel Jane Dickens was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. She was the eighth child of an eleven-child mining family in West Virginia. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs...
, and most recently Moby
Moby
Richard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...
, have recorded his songs. Joining country music and the blues, B. B. King
B. B. King
Riley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter.Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No.3 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Edward M...
, played his first Nashville session with Talley in 1976, as his lead guitar player.
Talley's recording career now spans over thirty years. The late John Hammond, Sr. at Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in New York was his first mentor, and championed his writing in the early 1970s. When Hammond could not get Talley signed to Columbia, he sent him to Jerry Wexler
Jerry Wexler
Gerald "Jerry" Wexler was a music journalist turned music producer, and was regarded as one of the major record industry players behind music from the 1950s through the 1980s...
, who was starting a new Nashville operation with his Atlantic
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
label at the time. Wexler signed Talley to his first recording contract at Atlantic Records. Atlantic’s Nashville operation, however, did not do well at the time and Atlantic closed its Nashville office.
Talley then moved to Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
where he released four albums during the mid-1970s: Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love (1975); Tryin’ Like The Devil (1976); Blackjack Choir (1977) and Ain’t It Somthin’ (1977). Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, and other music publications, have declared these albums American classics for their time.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Talley recorded four albums, which were released in Europe by the German Bear Family Records, American Originals (1985); and Love Songs and The Blues (1989); The Road To Torreón (1992) and James Talley: Live (1994).
In 1999, Talley started his own artist's label, Cimarron Records, and released Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home (2000), his only album that covered someone else's songs; Nashville City Blues, (2000), and was named Amazon.com's Folk Artist of the Year 2000. In 2002, Touchstones was released – a fresh retrospective of the songs from his early career. It was recorded in Texas with the help of Talley's old friends, Joe Ely
Joe Ely
Joe Ely is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist whose music touches on honky-tonk, Texas Country, Tex-Mex and rock and roll....
and Ponty Bone. In 2004 Journey was released, a live recording made on his tour of Italy. It displayed some of his classics as well as five new compositions. In February 2006, Talley's debut album, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love was reissued in a special 30th anniversary edition.
In July 2008, Talley simultaneously issued two CDs in digital download, Journey: The Second Voyage, the remaining songs for the original live Journey recordings, supplemented with five new songs, and Heartsong, an album of fifteen new songs and a re-recording of his song "She's The One," which was covered as "Evening Rain" by Moby.
Albums
- Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love (30th Anniversary Reissue) – Original on Capitol Records 1975, (Torreon Productions) - and 2006 on Cimarron Records, Issue No. 1001
- Tryin' Like the Devil – Original Capitol Records-(Torreon Productions) - 1976; Cimarron Recordings Issue No. 1002
- Blackjack Choir – Original Capitol Records-(Torreon Productions) - 1977; Cimarron Recordings Issue No. 1003
- Ain't It Somethin - Original Capitol Records-(Torreon Productions) - 1977; Cimarron Recordings Issue No. 1004
- American Originals – (Torreon Productions) - 1985; Originally released without license by Bear Family Records, Germany; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1005
- Love Songs and The Blues – (Torreon Productions) - 1989; Originally released without license by Bear Family Records, Germany; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1006
- The Road to Torreón – (Torreon Productions) - 1992; Originally released without license by Bear Family Records, Germany; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1007
- James Talley: Live – (Torreon Productions) - 1994; Originally released without license by Bear Family Records, Germany; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1008
- Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home – (Torreon Productions) - 1999; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1009
- Nashville City Blues – (Torreon Productions) – 2000; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1010
- Touchstones - (Torreon Productions) - 2002; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1011
- Journey - (Torreon Productions) - 2004; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1012
- Journey: The Second Journey (Torreon Productions) 2008; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1013
- Heartsong - (Torreon Productions) 2008; Cimarron Records Issue No. 1014