Jesse Winchester – Memphis Flyer

Rob Jungklas

Nothing to Fade

Self-release

There is a striking contrast between Rob Jungklas’ last two albums. Where 2013’s The Spirit & the Spine was a tortuous exploration of religious dread, his latest, Nothing To Fade, opens with the expansive acoustic universe of “Mary Sees Angels.” Anchored in tuned-down guitars and a five-string bass, a tone of redemption emerges from the depths. This tone continues in “Cop For You,” which has a hint of Cat Stevens amid the whooshy, compressed drums. Jungklas produced with Chad Cromwell and Jack Holder. Cromwell is a Nashville-based Memphian who has drummed for Neil Young and Mark Knopfler. Holder is known for his work with Black Oak Arkansas and Cobra. Jungklas has an affinity for religious language. But he never gets far from the edge. The black hounds gather for “Crawl the Moonlight Mile,” but the dark mood doesn’t dominate this record like it did his last one. The notions of faith and doubt permeate Jungklas’ work, but what sets him apart from “Contemporary Christian” music is his willingness to descend into Hell and the fact that he knows what good acoustic guitars sound like. It’s good to hear his voice emerge from the darkness.

Jesse Winchester

A Reasonable Amount of Trouble

Appleseed

Recordings

Jesse Winchester recorded A Reasonable Amount of Trouble shortly before his death in April. The album sounds much larger and more rambunctious than one might expect from a last effort. But producer and guitarist Mac McAnally lets Winchester’s voice hover in its own space among instruments that do more than support the song. Recorded at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch in Wimberley, Texas, this record is an acoustic marvel. McAnally has written for Jimmy Buffett, Alabama, and Kenny Chesney, among others. His acoustic palette is marvelous and does justice to Winchester’s melodies. Winchester’s voice is a grey line between himself and the air. The instruments don’t sit behind the voice as much as they mix with it. It’s refreshing and no small feat given Winchester’s leaf-on-the-wind vocal approach to delivering a lyric. Winchester had dramatic sense of melody and knew when to whisper and when to start a fire. The liner notes address Winchester’s aversion to writing from a dark place, even though the songs were written during his treatment for cancer. The album closes with “Just So Much.” “There is just so much that the Lord can do.” The last verse is an unflinching final testament to a writer, thinker, and musician.

John Kilzer

Hide Away

Archer Records

The Reverend John Kilzer’s Hide Away comes out on October 14th. It’s his first offering from Archer Records. Like Jungklas, Kilzer wrestled with the music industry in the 1980s, signing and releasing two albums on David Geffen’s DGC in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Kilzer was an All-American forward for the Memphis State Tigers in the late 1970s. That level of Memphianity gets you a backing band composed of Rick Steff, Greg Morrow, Sam Shoup, Steve Selvidge, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Luther Dickinson. Kilzer delivers contemplative songs, which one would expect from an ordained minister. The struggle between the divine calling and our earthly vessels is evident througout the record. But Kilzer took musical bona fides into the pulpit rather than taking the pulpit to the stage. That’s an important distinction and is aurally obvious from how much Kilzer’s voice gets wonderfully seduced by temptation.

“Lay Down” is a call to peace that transcends the stupid platitudes of hippies and casts the dialog for peace in biblical dogma. This record amounts to a nuanced and honest approach to a civic Christianity that sadly goes unnoticed in the culture wars. “Uranium won’t feed the hungry.”

“Until We’re All Free” marches a foot or two behind the Staple Singers, but is on the same path. The band Kilzer has assembled allows him to craft each song into its own sound. Throughout, the record benefits from the assembly of talented guitarists. Steff’s organ parts stand out in particular. “The White Rose and the Dove” is a sonic blend of “Stairway to Heaven” and “Blind Willie McTell” and therefore a bit of divine inspiration. On “Babylon,” Kilzer pulls out his judging finger, but he points it the right way. “You think God can hear your prayers/ You ignore their hungry stares.” The album might be a little long in places. I could live without “Love Is War.” But for the most part, Christianity as practiced in this country and this state in particular could use more leadership like Kilzer. He offers a soulful, compassionate alternative to the louder sort of God squadder. And he did so by making a great sounding record. Here’s to that.

On Sunday, December 8th, Beth Sholom Synagogue will host Acoustic Sunday Live!, a concert with three acts: Jesse Winchester is a former Memphian who worked with Robbie Robertson and the Band and has had his songs recorded by Joan Baez, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Buffett, the Everly Brothers, and others. Mary Gauthier is a singer-songwriter with a colorful past and an iconoclastic ‘tude. No Depression magazine named Gauthier’s album Mercy Now the sixth best album of the decade. Memphis’ Motel Mirrors with John Paul Keith and Amy LaVere round out the bill.

Winchester was born in Louisiana in 1944, but his family moved to Memphis when he was 12. He always had a musical bent. “I certainly wasn’t a prodigy in terms of talent. But I was in terms of enthusiasm and interest. I was always into it, but I didn’t start writing until later,” he says.

Winchester gained experience like so many musical Memphians do: “We had a garage band in Memphis with my friends. We were called the Church Keys. No one’s ever heard of us. We were as insignificant as we could possibly be. The big guys were the Shades. At one point, Larry Raspberry tried out for our guitar player. He never took the job. I don’t know what happened, but he showed up one day. He had a Stratocaster with ‘Larry’ engraved on the fingerboard like Ernest Tubb.”

Winchester’s life took a major turn when he went to Canada to avoid the draft. It’s not a subject he readily addresses. It’s a complex decision for a young man and a philosophical quandary for an adult. “I really couldn’t tell you in simple words what my thoughts and feelings were,” Winchester says. “I don’t know if I could do that.”

The decision kept him in exile until President Carter pardoned draft dodgers in 1977. But in 1968, he encountered a life-altering opportunity.

“I was in the basement of a church where this guy owned a really nice two-track tape recorder. He offered to let me use it. We set it up in the basement of the church, and I would make a demo tape of some songs that I’d written. A friend of a friend lived in Montreal and knew Robbie Robertson. The Band had just hit big with Music from Big Pink. I had heard that and been knocked out because here was somebody playing musical parts as opposed to 30-minute stoned-out guitar solos that went nowhere and started nowhere. The Band represented a kind of return to roots. I was really impressed and thought music was ready for that. Anyway, this friend of a friend brought Robbie down into the basement of the church.”

Robertson eventually produced Winchester’s first self-titled album: “He liked the songs. And it was convenient because we were working on the demo at the time. So everything fell into place. He took a copy to Albert Grossman, who was their manager at the time. He was Gordon Lightfoot’s and Bob Dylan’s manager. Janis Joplin’s manager. As big as you can get. Albert liked it. That’s how my recording career began.”

By the time things were up and running, the situation proved to be short-lived.

“He produced the first record I made,” Winchester says. “We did it at Yorktown Studios in Toronto. We used a bunch of the guys who’d worked with Ronnie Hawkins but didn’t become the Band. Ken Pearson played keys, and Dave Lewis played drums — a lot of the leading lights of the Toronto music scene, which is a very good music scene at any time.”

Levon Helm played mandolin and shared drum duty on Jesse Winchester.

“I opened for the Band a few times when they did shows in Canada. There was one particular night we did together at Massey Hall, a beautiful concert hall with old wood, so it just sounds beautiful. We did a few other shows together. But it wasn’t long after that they quit playing entirely or at least touring. So doing further stuff with them wasn’t really an option.”

But songwriting has been the basis of Winchester’s success and notoriety. He began writing after being frustrated with live performance.

“After I moved to Montreal, I had some trouble getting stolen from by promoters with bands. I’d worked with bands most always, usually as a rhythm guitar player. The promoters would just take off with the money and what have you. All kinds of problems developed. So I just started to play solo in restaurants and that kind of thing. I got a job at a coffeehouse where you were expected to write your own songs like Bob Dylan did. I started writing when I started playing solo, and it never stopped. Except for dry spells.”

Accounting for dry spells, Winchester’s output is profound. His reception among the top-tier songwriters of his time is unreal: Tim Hardin recorded Winchester’s song “Yankee Lady.” Elvis Costello recorded “Quiet About It.” James Taylor cut “Payday.” The list goes on and on: Roseanne Cash, Jimmy Buffett, Vince Gill, Lucinda Williams, Little Feat, Lyle Lovett, and Allen Toussaint. It’s a staggering group of songwriters to have endorsing one’s output. They mostly cover his songs. But sometimes he gets together to collaborate.

“Every now and then someone invites me to sing harmony on something. Wynonna Judd did, and that was fun. The Weather Girls, if you remember “It’s Raining Men,” their follow-up song to that, which was a flop, was one of my songs. They invited me to sing harmony on it, which was fun. Jimmy Buffett and those people will invite me to collaborate. It happens, and it’s fun when it does.”

Winchester’s Memphis connections endure in ways old and new: “I live in Charlottesville, Virginia. I lived in Quebec until 2003, 37 years. Then I met Cindy, who, oddly enough, I met when I was playing in Memphis. She was living here, but she’s from Iowa. And, you know, you introduce a woman into the story and the plot zigs. And it zags.”

Winchester still has family here. Among those kin is notable drummer Graham Winchester, who toured Europe in March with fellow performer John Paul Keith.

As for Keith, he is busy promoting his latest solo album, Memphis Circa 3AM, which was one of Roland Janes’ last projects.

“It was the best-sounding session I’ve ever worked on,” Keith says. “He really did have it. Not only was it a privilege to be around him and to know him and all that, it was also the best session I’ve ever had. It came out as the best results I ever got. It was really special.”

Acoustic Sunday Live!

With Jesse Winchester, Mary Gauthier, and Motel Mirrors

Sunday, December 8th, 7 p.m., $39-$100

Beth Sholom Synagogue

bsholom.org