| Jimmy LaFave | |
|---|---|
LaFave at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Okemah, Oklahoma (July 12, 2008) |
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| Background information | |
| Born | July 12, 1955 Wills Point, Texas, United States |
| Genres | Folk Alt Country Country rock |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter |
| Years active | 1992 – present |
| Labels | Music Road Records |
| Website | JimmyLaFave.com |
Jimmy LaFave (born July 12, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician born in Wills Point, Texas, a small farming community located near Dallas. At a young age, LaFave's family moved to the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, Texas, where he attended junior high and high school. By his early-teens, LaFave was making music perched behind a Sears and Roebuck drum kit. It was not long before his mother traded a drawer full of green stamps for his first guitar and the switch to singer-songwriter was in progress.
His family later moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, where LaFave completed high school.[1] Although he has lived in Austin, Texas, since 1986, he is known for his strong ties to Oklahoma and what he often refers to as his "Red Dirt music". It was in the Oklahoma landscape that he began to define his sound which in part is a combination of his Oklahoman experiences among so many authentic songwriters from the tradition of Woody Guthrie.[2]
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While still living in the small farming community of Wills Point, Texas, LaFave played drums in local garage bands. When his family moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma during his sophomore year of high school, LaFave played drums in the high school band, but eventually switched to guitar. An older brother showed him how to play a few chords and LaFave taught himself to play James Taylor and Bob Dylan songs by playing along to records.[3] By age 15 he was writing and singing his own songs and the first incarnation of his band, The Night Tribe, appeared. After high school LaFave played music at night while working a number of day jobs. For a year or two he managed a club in Stillwater called Up Your Alley and recorded Down Under (1979) and Broken Line (1981) at Lamb Recording. During the early 1980s, LaFave traveled to several other cities to determine what the music scene was like. After visiting Nashville, Los Angeles, and Austin, he decided to move to Austin saying "I liked what was going on there."[4]
Mixing blues, jazz, and country influences with the lessons learned from his musical hero, Bob Dylan, LaFave is both a perceptive songwriter and an appealing singer. The years in Stillwater, a town that LaFave said contained a magical energy, left their mark.[1] Other Oklahoma musicians besides Guthrie who inspired LaFave include J. J. Cale, Chet Baker, and Leon Russell. According to LaFave, the college town of Stillwater, Oklahoma was a young city with a lot of bars and other places to play music. Red Dirt music grew from a specific place in Stillwater - an old two-story, five-bedroom house called "The Farm" - which was, for two decades, the center of what evolved into the Red Dirt scene.[5] The house, located on the outskirts of Stillwater, was the country home of the Godfather of Red Dirt Music, Bob Childers. Eventually Childers left The Farm, but the Red Dirt scene continued to grow and thrive.[6] Many Austin artists, including Townes Van Zandt, Joe Ely, and Guy Clark regularly played in Stillwater. When asked if he thought a ley line ran through Stillwater, LaFave said "The dirt is real red there - which indicates the presence of iron, and that element certainly has magnetic properties."[1]
Moving to the strong singer-songwriter community of Austin challenged LaFave to hone his writing skills. LaFave's "red dirt music" sound is a mix of rock, folk, rockabilly, and country, grounded in the landscape of his Texas and Oklahoma influences. LaFave says that his record, Texoma, celebrates the time he spent in Texas and Oklahoma and the sound of the music there.[7] In 1992 he signed with Colorado-based Bohemia Beat Records and recorded his debut, Austin Skyline. The album featured four Dylan covers and its title is both a tribute to Dylan (LaFave loved Dylan's Nashville Skyline) and his new hometown of Austin.[1] In his review of LaFave's Cimarron Manifesto (2007) for the FolkWax E-Zine, Arthur Wood calls LaFave "one of the finest Dylan interpreters ever.[8] Most of the songs on Austin Skyline were taken from live recordings of two shows LaFave played in Austin on two different nights at the Chicago House and at La Zona Rosa. Some of the songs were recorded in Marcia Ball's garage recording studio.[1] The debut album was followed by Bohemia Beat's Highway Trance (1994) and Buffalo Return to the Plains (1995).
In December 1995, LaFave won the Songwriter of the Year Award at the Kerrville Music Awards. In March 1996, he won the same award at the annual Austin Music Awards.[9] LaFave's visibility spread nationwide in 1996 with an appearance on PBS' Austin City Limits. He was paired with Lisa Loeb for an evening of "acoustic ballads and electrified folk-rock numbers" during the show's 21st season.[10]
Between 1997 and 2001, LaFave released another three albums on Bohemia Beat including the 1999 double-CD Trail - a 15-year retrospective of bootlegs, live performances, radio performances, and rare studio outtakes.[7]
LaFave says Woody Guthrie is his musical hero,[11] and pays homage to his hero on Texoma with "Woody Guthrie", "a heartfelt and personal recollection of a song-smith who restlessly sought new horizons."[12] In 1996, LaFave made an appearance at a tribute to Woody Guthrie held at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, having been hand-picked to participate in the celebration by Guthrie’s daughter, Nora.[13] The ten-day celebration, held in September 1996, included other notable musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, The Indigo Girls, Ellis Paul and Ani DiFranco.[14] DiFranco's record label, Righteous Babe, released a compilation of the event, 'Til We Outnumber 'Em, in 2000.[15]
In July 1998, LaFave performed at the inaugural Woody Guthrie Folk Festival held in Guthrie's hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma. He has returned to Okemah for the festival every year since and in 2007 became a member of the Woody Guthrie Coalition - the organization behind the festival.[16] Of the festival, LaFave said "...there's definitely something special going on in that scene. It's almost an American music festival secret. It's like beyond description....like, something is happening there that's literally changing the universe....it's rearranging the molecules of the planet...such really soulful musicians."[17]
In 2003, LaFave produced a Woody Guthrie tribute show called Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway. The ensemble show toured around the country and included a rotating cast of singer-songwriters individually performing Guthrie's songs. Interspersed between songs were Guthrie's philosophical writings read by a narrator. In addition to LaFave, members of the rotating cast included Ellis Paul, Slaid Cleaves, Eliza Gilkyson, Joel Rafael, husband-wife duo Sarah Lee Guthrie (Woody Guthrie's granddaughter) and Johnny Irion, Michael Fracasso, and The Burns Sisters. The Godfather of Red Dirt Music Bob Childers, also known as "the Dylan of the Dust,"[18] served as narrator.[2] When word spread about the tour, performers began contacting LaFave, whose only prerequisite was to have an inspirational connection to Guthrie. Each artist chose the Guthrie songs that he or she would perform as part of the tribute. One of the songs Gilkyson chose was "Pastures of Plenty", while Cleaves chose "This Morning I Am Born Again" - a song he wrote using Guthrie's lyrics. One of the songs Paul chose was a song he wrote using Guthrie's lyrics - "God's Promise".[19] LaFave said, "It works because all the performers are Guthrie enthusiasts in some form".[20] The Ribbon of Highway tour kicked-off on February 5, 2003 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The abbreviated show was a featured segment of "Nashville Sings Woody," yet another tribute concert to commemorate the music of Woody Guthrie held during the Folk Alliance Conference. The cast of "Nashville Sings Woody," a benefit for the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives, also included Arlo Guthrie, Marty Stuart, Nanci Griffith, Guy Clark, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Janis Ian, and others.[21]
LaFave left Bohemia Beat when he was signed to Red House Records and his first release on Red House was Blue Nightfall in 2005. In his review of Blue Nightfall for Freight Train Boogie, Bill Frater stated "This is his best work yet and if you don't know his work, a great introduction to an important artist."[22] LaFave's second release for Red House was Cimarron Manifesto in 2007.[23] On June 11, 2007 Cimarron Manifesto hit #1 on the Americana Music Association chart.[24]
In 2007, LaFave joined forces with recording engineer Fred Remmert and Dallas businessman Kelcy Warren to establish Music Road Records. Located in Austin, Texas, Music Road owns and operates two Texas-based recording facilities: Cedar Creek Recording in Austin and Cherokee Creek Recording in the Texas Hill Country.[25] Favorites 1992-2001, a retrospective from LaFave's years on the Bohemia Beat label, was released by Music Road Records in 2010.[26]
Also in 2007 at Nora Guthrie's invitation, LaFave spoke and performed at Woody Guthrie's induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.[3]
In his review of LaFave's Texoma for FAME David Schultz said, "LaFave's songs are reminiscient [sic] of the Dust Bowl heritage of Woody Guthrie, the early rock of Chuck Berry, the quiet folk reflections of Bob Dylan, and the rock anthems of Bruce Springsteen."[27]"LaFave's music is not lubricated with advertising dollars or formulaic song structures. It's honest, thoughtful and sincere - like baseball and mom's homemade apple pie."[17]
| Year | Title | Record Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Down Under | Snowbound |
| 1981 | Broken Line | Snowbound |
| 1988 | Highway Angels...Full Moon Rain | Independent |
| 1992 | Austin Skyline | Bohemia Beat |
| 1994 | Highway Trance | Bohemia Beat |
| 1994 | The Open Road (Highway Trance) | Munich Records EP |
| 1995 | Buffalo Return to the Plains | Bohemia Beat |
| 1995 | Burden To Bear | Munich Records EP |
| 1997 | Road Novel | Bohemia Beat |
| 1999 | Trail | Bohemia Beat |
| 2001 | Texoma | Bohemia Beat |
| 2005 | Blue Nightfall | Red House Records |
| 2007 | Cimarron Manifesto | Red House Records |
| 2010 | Favorites 1992-2001 | Music Road Records |