My good pal Brendan O’Keeffe called me up last week to say that – on the back of a mere footnote in my Tom Waits book – he’d downloaded Lewis Taylor’s THE LOST ALBUM… and that he wholeheartedly agreed with me that it was “one of the greatest albums ever made”. That makes two people who’ve acquired the record and absolutely flipped over it. (The other was the widely-respected Michael Azerrad, during his tenure at eMusic. The piece I wrote about that contrary cove Taylor for Azerrad, “LOST and Found”, can be found in the RBP library… Note that LT got in touch with me and told me to remove it from both eMusic and RBP. I asked him who he thought he was; he deigned not to reply, so perhaps he doesn’t know. I still say it’s one of the perhaps 20 greatest albums ever made, but then I’ve probably said that about at least 100 albums. It is a wondrous thing, though – really. As Johnnyboy Keats would have had it, a thing of beauty and a joy forever…) Anyway, all of which to say: what a nice feeling it is to turn somebody on to something you care passionately about, and to think they respond in the same way to it (though philosophically, of course, we can never know that another person hears a record in the same way we do: Brendan and Michael may, respectively, be hearing something like Black Sabbath’s PARANOID and Barbra Streisand’s COLOR ME BARBRA when they listen to THE LOST ALBUM.)
9 Responses to The Quiet Satisfactions of Life as a Pop Evangelist: Lewis Taylor and more
Erm, Barn, I must certainly be included in the triumvirate of those AM Acolytes who have slaved at the altar of Brer Lewis Taylor. (Perhaps unfortunately) arrayed across the websphere is the effluvium of my devotion to Tayloriana & my own Marooned paean to the “Lost Album” (alongside all the previous LT recordings I either beggared myself by sending away to Blighty for or begged dear Mr. Merlis to acquire for me) is way more reviled than yours. That’s the wax facts, (Black) Union Jack.
…and hang around with democratic fellows named Mack. Welcome aboard Stella Gypsy, and get blogging. We just know that there’s critical issues relating to the hip hop/Southern twin guitar nexus that need discussion. x
KCH, where is your Maroon’d paean to TLA to be found?? And as Mr P sayeth, welcome to yet another blogspace!
Know exactly how you feel about the joys of musical evanglism, Barney, and I loved Lewis Taylor from his self-titled debut onwards. What logic can he possibly have had in asking you to remove your piece? I’m intrigued.
It’s the same perversity that led Tom Waits to request that Keith Richards not tell me how much he dug Tom Waits! Curiouser and curiouser…
It is indeed a sublime album, Barney, and thanks again for introducing me to it — I don’t think I ever would have discovered it otherwise. I don’t hear a shred of Sabbath or Babs in it though; more like the music of the spheres.
p.s.: Here’s the quick take on TLA I did for eMusic. I feel a bit put out that I wasn’t harassed by Mr. Taylor for it. Perhaps he’ll read it now. One lives in hope.
http://www.emusic.com/features/spotlight/293_200705-ym01.html
There’s always time for Lewis to take umbrage! And I’ll have a gander at your appreciation. What you working on presently, by the way?
Have to agree that Lewis is one of the most extraordinary and criminally overlooked talents we have. I still can’t get over ‘Bittersweet’ after all these years AND he’s a huge fan of Captain Beefheart!