Plus Joe Henry chats a bit about Jim.

By
Blurt Staff

 

 

Luaka
Bop’s neo-southern and country-gothic Jim White will release a live EP titled A Funny Little Cross to Bear.

 

Called
a “six-song gem” of “roadside rarities,” the disc was recorded by Jim at indie
record stores, radio programs and concert halls across the world. Among the
songs are “Jim 3:16,” where he postulates that “a bar is just a church where
they serve beer” and a live unreleased version of  “Stranger Candy,” a beautiful song left off
last year’s Transnormal Skiperoo (Luaka
Bop).

 

Elsewhere,
Joe Henry has been thinking and talking about Jim White. Henry produced White’s
Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell
Me What You See. Here’s what he had to say:

 

“I
wanted nothing to do with Jim White when, years ago, I first had his demo
pressed upon me. I mean, another singer/songwriter-a poet of a particular dark
and Southern sensibility (and one that my own wife alleged to be “brilliant and
strange” even as she held the aforementioned cassette at arm’s length, as if a
bit afraid of residue)…

 

“I
sat quiet and I listened. And then I rewound the tape and played it again… And
thus began my association and working relationship with Jim White: singer,
songwriter, author, actor; Florida native; Georgia taxpayer; former New York
City cabdriver and runway fashion model; would-be seminarian; the father of two
and, generally speaking, a holistic artist intent on moving forward while
seeming to walk backward…a veritable disco moonwalker dressed like Tom Joad.
With sideburns.”

 

And
here is Joe Henry on the new EP:

 

“And
now here he is, offering a new “live mini album,” as if he thinks he’ll trick
us all into thinking the small gesture doesn’t itself draw a plenty-wide arc,
doesn’t have grand ambitions of its own….

 

“He
must think we’re crazy. Or stupid. In any case, I for one refuse to be fooled.
I hear within this 7-song collection much ghostly conjuring and revisionist
theorizing upon life, liberty and the pursuit of truckstop angels with crooked
teeth, checkered pasts, and Jesus programmed on the speed-dial of their cell
phones.”

 

A Funny Little Cross to Bear will hit
stores on October 14th.