Some Country Music, which is quite atypical for me…

Must Be The Whiskey: It’s no exaggeration that I pretty much never listen to country music. Still, over the years a few sparkling examples have seeped into my heart for one reason or another, and I will share a couple here. This duo, Carrie Rodriguez and Chip Taylor are just plain fun to hear. Carrie is a country fiddler with a moaning style who also sings quite fetchingly. Chip Taylor is apparently a country performer of some long standing who has always occupied a distinctive sort of outside-the-box niche. For example, he was the original composer of Wild Thing made famous by The Troggs. Which is in itself pretty wild! This song is nicely presented in a his/her duet format. Chip’s zero pretense voice is nicely offset by Carrie’s accented drawling croon. The violin and harmonica adds pleasing grace notes; there is also some banjo in there. This group used to be a lot of fun live in small venues back in their heyday, first decade of the 2000s.

“All The Pretty Horses” was an immensely underrated film back around 2000 — as I saw things. It introduced me to Matt Damon’s intelligent talent. A young man come of age in nowhere-ville somewhere close to the Mexican border in Texas determines to seek his fortune in Mexico, relying upon his horseman skills, and barely escapes alive. The film also had a wonderfully vibrant Penelope Cruz as Señorita Jailbait. It was Billy Bob Thornton’s first directorial effort which he tastefully peppered with a lively and poignant musical soundtrack. It was the final song, playing over the closing credits and summarizing the protagonist’s climactic mood which caught my ears, as follows:

“Far Away” – Marty Stuart: Maybe you just had to be me, and been captivated by the visual poetics of the film to come away so moved by this song and performance. Don’t know. You tell me. 🙂 Marty Stuart sings and plays like the uncle with old tales and yarns you never had but wished for, here: Carved my name one Sunday morning/On a sweet Magnolia tree/I cried when I walked away/It broke my heart to leave/Took that little piece of me/Put it in my pocket/I’ve lost myself a time or two/But I never once forgot it…

_______RS

Notes: I discovered a peculiar coincidence linking these two pieces of music years later. Both are connected to Angelina Jolie, the American actress. Chip Taylor is her uncle, the brother of actor Jon Voight, while the movie mentioned was directed by a previous husband of Miss Jolie, Billy Bob Thonton. A previous article about Music I’ve Loved can be found here.

► Handy INDEX — scan through all available ||SWR|| articles