Jasper and The Miner..infectious and brilliant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cb2v7hhktE
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Miss Cherry Lane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ygBNBo ... re=related
After spending last weekend catching up with what seems like a veritable deluge of great new music, I had a yen for some old favourites this weekend, among them two albums by the cult singer-songwriter, Paul Siebel, Woodsmoke & Oranges and Jack-Knife Gypsy.
Itís sadly probable that only a handful of people reading this will actually have heard of Siebel, let alone the music he made on these two incredible records. Originally released in 1970 and 1971, they quickly disappeared without trace, vinyl chimera, as did, soon after, Siebel, their charismatic author.
What acknowledgement they received at the time was unbelievably meagre, but often ecstatic. For those of us fortunate enough to have heard them on first release, these albums were testaments to a breathtaking talent, whose genius flared briefly, but brilliantly enough to be mentioned in the same breath as any of the songwriting legends who rode the folk and country rock booms of the 60s and early 70s, from Dylan to Gram Parsons. Much revered by his contemporaries, Siebel simply blew out of town after Jack-Knife Gypsy, destination: obscurity.
He was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1937, studied at the university there and later spent time in the US Army. By 1965, after serving a musical apprenticeship in the clubs and coffee houses in Buffalo, he was in Greenwich Village, playing the usual haunts. Inspired by Hank Williams and Dylan, he was also by now writing the brilliant songs that eventually got him signed to Elektra, who bankrolled the four three hour sessions it took to record Woodsmoke And Oranges.
With fiddles, acoustic guitars, occasional pedal steel and Siebelís glorious voice to the fore, Woodsmokeís honky tonk exuberance, backporch ruminations and broken-hearted ballads are more than passingly reminiscent of Gram Parsonsí first solo album, GP. It would be fair to say from some of these songs that Siebel's view of love is somewhat more than jaundiced, and there's a cruel misogynistic edge to songs like Miss Cherry Lane that wouldnít be out of place in the Jagger-Richards songbook. More typical, however, of Siebelís temperament, is the dream-like reverie of ìLong Afternoonsî, a requiem for lost love set to one of his most achingly affecting melodies ñ as keenly piercing as anything on Blood On The Tracks. Siebel also has an unflinching eye for the sad detail of emotional trauma.
And while the captivating Then Came The Children and the anti-war song My Town are lyrically allusive, powerfully allegorical, the best of his early songs Louise and ìBride 1945 are models of narrative clarity, deeply moving portraits of a lonely truckstop whore and a young war bride, the two women separately condemned to lives of mutual disappointment and serial unhappiness. If heíd never written anything else, these two songs alone would justify Siebelís reputation as one of the finest songwriters of his time.
The people who heard it and got it loved Woodsmoke. . ., but it sold poorly. Elektra gave Siebel another chance, however, and with a band of crack session men ñ including Byrdsí guitarist Clarence White, David Grisman on mandolin, Buddy Emmons on pedal steel, drummer Russ Kunkel, Doug Kershaw, Sea Trainís Richard Greene ñ he recorded Jack-Knife Gypsy, which is by turns ravishing, forlorn, ecstatic, delirious and ultimately bleak beyond words.
Dylanís influence is again enormous ñ especially on the dark and menacing title track and the surreal Jasper And The Miners with Siebel revelling in the vernacular story-telling styles of The Basement Tapes and John Wesley Harding. Elsewhere, there's the rhapsodic ìPrayer Songî, the desperate If I Could Stay and best of all - the desolate introspection of Chips Are Down, one of the most self-lacerating songs ever written, a bleak nugget, as soiled as Dylan's Dirge.
Disappointed by poor sales, Siebel went into artistic decline, writerís block giving way to addiction, depression and self-destruction. He was last heard of, in 1996, working as a bread-maker in a cafe in Maryland. We shouldnít lament for too long his drift towards the edge of things, however, because over the course of these two albums Siebel recorded more good songs than most artists manage in a lifetime.
Elektra re-released Woodsmoke & Oranges and Jack-Knife Gypsy in 2004 as a double CD, after a long period out of catalogue. Miraculously, itís still available or you can download them individually on iTunes for an incredibly reasonable £3.95 each. There's also a third album, Live At McCabe's, recorded in 1978 with guitarists David Bromberg and Gary White that you can also get easily enough from either Amazon or iTunes, that features tracks from his two studio albums as well as covers of "Lonesome House", originally recorded in 1927 by Blind Lemon Jefferson, Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonely I Could Cry" and Jimmie Rodgers' "Woman Made A Fool Out Of Me" and "I'm In The Jailhouse Now". Give them a listen, at least. -uncut
Prayer Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2IHahBX ... ure=fvwrel
Paul Siebel is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, born on September 19, 1937 in Buffalo, NY. He is best known for other artist's cover versions of his songs, most notably "Louise". Other notable Siebel songs include "Spanish Johnny," Long Afternoons," "Any Day Woman," "Nashville Again," "She Made Me Lose My Blues," and "Then Came the Children".
Biography
After serving in the military, Siebel began playing folk clubs, eventually moving to Greenwich Village, where he found support in the coffeehouse circuit.
In 1969, a collection of songs he made with David Bromberg caught the attention of Elektra Records. Two classic albums followed: Woodsmoke and Oranges (1970) and Jack-Knife Gypsy (1971). The two albums made him a musician's musician. The songs were covered by, among others, David Bromberg, Willy DeVille, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kate Wolf, Mary McCaslin, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, and Leo Kottke, but songwriter Paul Siebel remained unknown to the larger public.
After 1971, his songwriting production stopped. Siebel became depressed and developed drug problems. Now and then his name came up in interviews with other artists. Kris Kristofferson tips his hat to Siebel in his song "The Pilgrim". Siebel played in McCabes in 1978, which was considered a come-back, and appeared on a 1977 LP (1992 on CD) Music From Mud Acres, with a cover of the Hank Williams song "Weary Blues". Siebel was a guest at Jerry Jeff Walker's 1987 Birthday Bash in Austin, Texas. He did not write any new songs.
In 1996 Folk Magazine Dirty Linen tracked him down and talked with the then-58 year-old bread-baker (Issue #64, June/July 1996).
In 2004 Elektra released a compilation CD with most of Siebel's songs. The booklet contains an interview by Peter Doggett where Siebel is now working for the county taking care of local parks, and looks back on his career.
Discography
* 1970 Woodsmoke and Oranges
* 1971 Jack-Knife Gypsy
* 1978 Live at McCabes (with David Bromberg and Gary White)
* 2004 Paul Siebel (Compilation CD, includes all songs from Woodsmoke & Oranges plus 5 songs from Jack-Knife Gypsy)
-wiki
