Strung Out Episode 46 The musical journey of James Talley

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James Talley is an Oklahoma born folk-country-blues singer/songwriter, whose career now spans over forty years. His name has been mentioned alongside Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard and Bob Dylan, and praised for the quality of his songwriting and his wise, expressive voice. Noted author and music critic, Peter Guralnick has said of James’ work, “There are few singer-songwriters who could produce a collection of such magnitude coupled at the same time with such lightness, beauty, and all-out social conscience. Woody Guthrie never wrote a more direct or affecting song than “Richland, Washington”; Bruce Springsteen never wrote a more powerful one than “Tryin’ Like the Devil.”

I met James back around 2003, when we both were at the Folk Alliance in San Diego.  An immediate friendship was struck between he and Brian FitzGerald and myself.  We all saw in the other the working class, road traveling, musician.  James, like Billy Shelton and Sleepy La Beef, became a mentor to Switchback.  We heeded his advice as well about the music business being nothing else, but a business. 

We listened to his stories, we learned from his mistakes and we savored his triumphs.  

The biggest triumph is that James chose not to let the music business ruin his devotion and passion to music.  When every opportunity arose for him to turn his back on music and rightfully shake the dust from his sandals on Music Row, Talley chose instead to work to support his passion.  He continued playing to audiences around the world, while at the same time witnessing the contraction and distortion of the music business in Nashville.  

Peppery, honest, filled with stories that wind from Oklahoma, to New York, to Nashville, to Italy and out to New Mexico, James is the real item.  A musician's musician.   An American treasure that needs to be heard and honored. 

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