***Have You Ever Seen A .. The Songs of Jesse Winchester
CD REVIEW
Live From Mountain Stage, Jesse Winchester, 2001
If I were to ask someone, in the year 2013, to name a male folk- singer from the 1960’s I would assume that if I were to get an answer to that question that the name would be Bob Dylan. And that would be a good and appropriate choice. One can endlessly dispute whether or not Dylan was (or wanted to be) the voice of the Generation of ’68 but in terms of longevity and productivity he fits the bill as a known quality. However, there were a slew of other male folk- singers who tried to find their niche in the folk milieu and who, like Dylan, today continue to produce work and to perform. The artist under review Jesse Winchester is one such singer/songwriter.
The above is a question that I have been posing in reviewing the work of a number of male folk- singers from the 1960’s and it is certainly an appropriate question to ask of Jesse as well. I do not know if Jesse Winchester, like his contemporary Bob Dylan, started out wanting to be the king of the hill among male folk- singers but he certainly had some things going for him. A decent acoustic guitar but a very interesting voice to fit the lyrics of love, hope and longing that he was singing about at the time. Of course, the need to go to Canada as a draft exile from the Vietnam War perhaps cut across cut across some of those youthful dreams, as it did for many others whether they went to 'Nam or resisted one way or another.
As for the songs themselves, many that evokes the Southern roots from which Winchester came. Eualie is evocative of that. Other nice touches are That’s What Makes You Strong and his patented Brand New Tennessee Waltz. But the one I have always liked personally, and here my roots show, is Yankee Lady (see lyrics below).
I lived with the decent folks
In the hills of old Vermont
Where what you do all day
Depends on what you want
And I took up with a woman there
Though I was still a kid
And I smile like the sun
To think of the loving that we did
She rose each morning and went to work
And she kept me with her pay
I was making love all night
And playing guitar all day
And I got apple cider and homemade bread
To make a man say grace
And clean linens on my bed
And a warm feet fire place
Yankee lady so good to me,
Yankee lady just a memory
Yankee lady so good to me,
Your memory that's enough for me
An autumn walk on a country road
And a million flaming trees
I was feeling uneasy
Cause there was winter in the breeze
And she said, "Oh Jesse, look over there,
The birds are southward bound
Oh Jesse, I'm so afraid
To lose the love that we've found."
Yankee lady so good to me,
Yankee lady just a memory
Yankee lady so good to me,
Your memory that's enough for me
I don't know what called to me
But I know that I had to go
I left that Vermont town
With a lift to Mexico
And now when I see myself
As a stranger by my birth
The Yankee lady's memory
Reminds me of my worth
Yankee lady so good to me,
Yankee lady just a memory
Yankee lady so good to me,
Your memory that's enough for me
©1970 Jesse Winchester
From the LP "Jesse Winchester"
CD REVIEW
Live From Mountain Stage, Jesse Winchester, 2001
If I were to ask someone, in the year 2013, to name a male folk- singer from the 1960’s I would assume that if I were to get an answer to that question that the name would be Bob Dylan. And that would be a good and appropriate choice. One can endlessly dispute whether or not Dylan was (or wanted to be) the voice of the Generation of ’68 but in terms of longevity and productivity he fits the bill as a known quality. However, there were a slew of other male folk- singers who tried to find their niche in the folk milieu and who, like Dylan, today continue to produce work and to perform. The artist under review Jesse Winchester is one such singer/songwriter.
The above is a question that I have been posing in reviewing the work of a number of male folk- singers from the 1960’s and it is certainly an appropriate question to ask of Jesse as well. I do not know if Jesse Winchester, like his contemporary Bob Dylan, started out wanting to be the king of the hill among male folk- singers but he certainly had some things going for him. A decent acoustic guitar but a very interesting voice to fit the lyrics of love, hope and longing that he was singing about at the time. Of course, the need to go to Canada as a draft exile from the Vietnam War perhaps cut across cut across some of those youthful dreams, as it did for many others whether they went to 'Nam or resisted one way or another.
As for the songs themselves, many that evokes the Southern roots from which Winchester came. Eualie is evocative of that. Other nice touches are That’s What Makes You Strong and his patented Brand New Tennessee Waltz. But the one I have always liked personally, and here my roots show, is Yankee Lady (see lyrics below).
Hell, I once had
a relationship with a woman like the one he describes in that little song. Oddly enough my Yankee Lady as if in some reverse symbiosis was
from Texas and had most of the virtues that Jesse sings about in the song, and
I had some woe-begotten need to go back north, to go back to the cold from those
dusty, steamy nights. And a little just plain wanderlust to boot
Didn’t we all (male or female) have our own version of
Yankee Lady back then. Didn’t when we all thought that we would live forever
and that we would create the “newer world” that were bursting forth about in
the late 1960s, before the nightfall ebb devoured us, before that little world
we dreamed of turned to ashes in a fit of hubris (aided not a little by the
guns of the old world crowding us out) think such loves grew on trees there for
the plucking. Didn’t we, as we departed from that Yankee Lady think we would
endlessly meet such types as we travelled whatever road we were travelling. And
didn’t we in some moment of thought regret, no more than regret, leaving that person,
that righteous person who made the days, well, just made the days.
*****Yankee Lady
I lived with the decent folksIn the hills of old Vermont
Where what you do all day
Depends on what you want
And I took up with a woman there
Though I was still a kid
And I smile like the sun
To think of the loving that we did
She rose each morning and went to work
And she kept me with her pay
I was making love all night
And playing guitar all day
And I got apple cider and homemade bread
To make a man say grace
And clean linens on my bed
And a warm feet fire place
Yankee lady so good to me,
Yankee lady just a memory
Yankee lady so good to me,
Your memory that's enough for me
An autumn walk on a country road
And a million flaming trees
I was feeling uneasy
Cause there was winter in the breeze
And she said, "Oh Jesse, look over there,
The birds are southward bound
Oh Jesse, I'm so afraid
To lose the love that we've found."
Yankee lady so good to me,
Yankee lady just a memory
Yankee lady so good to me,
Your memory that's enough for me
I don't know what called to me
But I know that I had to go
I left that Vermont town
With a lift to Mexico
And now when I see myself
As a stranger by my birth
The Yankee lady's memory
Reminds me of my worth
Yankee lady so good to me,
Yankee lady just a memory
Yankee lady so good to me,
Your memory that's enough for me
©1970 Jesse Winchester
From the LP "Jesse Winchester"
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