JOYNER, SIMON: Grass, Branch & Bone LP
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Simon Joyner "Grass, Branch & Bone" LP (Woodsist)
Renowned American singer-songwriter Simon Joyner first came to
prominence during the lo-fi movement of the early ’90s alongside
contemporaries like Will Oldham, Peter Jefferies, the Mountain Goats,
Smog and Alastair Galbraith. Joyner was championed early on by the late
British DJ John Peel, who famously played Joyner’s 1994 LP, The Cowardly
Traveller Pays His Toll, start to finish on one of his BBC programs,
making Joyner more well known overseas than in his own country.
Considered a forefather of the Omaha music scene, he’s released
critically acclaimed albums on various independent labels every few
years for over two decades. He keeps a low profile and tours only
occasionally, spending most of his time working and raising a family,
allowing writing and music to remain an artistic outlet rather than an
occupation.Grass, Branch & Bone is Joyner’s thirteenth proper album
and a sonic departure from 2012’s Ghosts. While that record was a
double-disc collection of dark, dissonant songs confronting death and
loss in the vein of Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night, this new one is
sparse by comparison, running with the likes of other singer-songwriter
outcast aftermath albums like Dylan’s John Wesley Harding, Gene Clark’s
White Light, David Blue’s Stories, Jerry Jeff Walker’s Five Years Gone,
Townes Van Zandt’s Our Mother the Mountain and Cohen’s Recent Songs.
It’s a natural progression—after a funeral, one takes stock and reflect
upon his or her own life. Grass, Branch & Bone is a song-cycle of
short stories about time and memory, full of people the listener has
known and even may have been.
“My favorite poet is Simon Joyner.” —Gillian Welch
Tracklist:
1. Sonny
2. Train To Crazy Horse
3. You Got Under My Skin
4. Jefferson Reed
5. Some Fathers Let The Sunset Bring Them To Their Knees
6. Old Days
7. I Will Not Be Your Fool (Muse's Song)
8. In My Drinking Dream
9. Nostalgia Blues