James Talley, Nashville City Blues - 49m 59s

Tracks & Durations

1. Nashville City Blues	4:30
2. Down on the Corner	2:50
3. Don't You Feel Low Down	3:27
4. Rough Edge	4:12
5. Baby Needs Some Good Times	4:04
6. Streamline Flyer	4:32
7. When I Need Some Love	3:56
8. If It Wasn't For The Blues	4:13
9. You Can't Get There From Here	2:42
10. So I'm Not the Only One	3:20
11. House Right Down the Road	3:38
12. Workin' for Wages	3:38
13. I've Seen the Bear	4:48

Note: The information about this album is acquired from the publicly available resources and we are not responsible for their accuracy.

Review

James Talley is not here to sing polite well-meaning songs of protest. He's angry and frustrated and bitter and fed up. "I ain't leavin' this town, people," he snarls on the title track, "'til I get paid." From this CD-opening lament of Music City's soullessness through the moody closer "I've Seen the Bear" ("is anything sacred, is anything fair?"), Talley is resilient, though not optimistic, in the face of a life where "not a dream comes true." In fact, the concept of dreams arises in nearly every song and, suffice to say, they're not remembered fondly; they're failed or lost or squashed. "Dreams don't mean a thing," he sings on "Workin' for Wages," "just the interest on a loan." Yet, as he writes in the lengthy autobiographical notes (subtitled "The price of dreams and keeping the faith"), "the dream is the spark," whether it comes true or not. "Dreaming," he writes, "is a way of coping with man's discontent." Similarly, the "blues" is a way to come to grips with man's discontent, and here he uses the blues in all of its permutations as a musical backdrop, shading his creations with the strains of mandolin, country-flavored pedal steel, or background soul singers. Ultimately, Nashville City Blues is about the healing effects of the blues, its loyal companionship and its knowing sympathy. On the gripping, reflective "So I'm Not the Only One," he yearns for others to share his misery and dissatisfaction--"play me the miles, play me the years, play me the hurt 'til you can feel it too"--and the blues becomes the ultimate populist thread. That universal bond, that shared disenchantment, is the only thing that makes it all bearable. "If it wasn't for the blues, I'd be crazy too," he moans. We hear you, James. We hear you. --Marc Greilsamer

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