Jimmy LaFave - The Night Tribe (2015) CD-Rip

Starting in 1992 with his Austin Skyline debut, there was never any doubt about the debt the Oklahoma-raised, Texas-based Jimmy LaFave owed to his biggest inspiration Bob Dylan. From the album title’s riff on Nashville Skyline to numerous covers that have peppered subsequent releases in LaFave’s thick back catalog, he has created a cottage industry of sorts interpreting Dylan songs alongside his own originals.
For better or worse (largely the former), LaFave hasn’t shifted gears much from his first recordings over three decades ago. A few rustic rockers mesh with lovely, understated melodies, all of which are enlivened by the singer’s scratchy, raw and thoroughly distinctive voice that sounds more like Steve Forbert as they both age. Almost anything from this terrific new batch of rootsy folk-rockers could have been included in any earlier album.
As usual, LaFave is not shy about his influences, including an obscure Neil Young track (“Journey Through the Past”) along with what is by now a de rigueur version of a Dylan gem. For the latter he dips into the bard’s early years for a seldom performed “Queen Jane Approximately,” which expands from a stripped down beginning to a full blown finale complete with backing vocals and strings.
But LaFave’s own songwriting talents are as striking as his interpretive skills. The opening “The Beauty of You” is not only one of his finest spiritually based songs, but a sweet, honest love song that could easily apply to a romantic partner. He adds blues and atmospheric noir strings for the evocative title track that describes and embraces those who live in the “neon glow” of late night jobs, as he has for all these years. Gospel female backing singers bring soul to the regretful mid-tempo “Never Came Back to Memphis,” another one of many highlights that seem to effortlessly drop from LaFave’s pen.
From the swampy J.J. Cale-styled restrained rock of “Dust Bowl Okies” and the Chuck Berry chugging “Trying to Get Back to You” and the exquisitely beautiful “Talk to an Angel,” there are no weak spots throughout this long but never dull 56 minute set. Those new to LaFave’s singer/songwriter talents can start here, then work back through a history that’s as rich, impressive and frustratingly underappreciated as any in his genre. (Hal Horowitz, American Songwriter, 12 May 2015)
Jimmy LaFave’s rich, effusive vocals command attention and when the Austin, Texas-based singer pairs them with the right material, wonderful music results. That’s what happens on nearly every track on his self-produced latest album.
LaFave—whose voice reminds me at times of the great Michael Fracasso’s—brings out every bit of melancholy in Neil Young’s “Journey through the Past” and serves up a soulful, anthemic reading of Bob Dylan’s classic “Queen Jane Approximately.” (LaFave is no stranger to Dylan covers: a 1999 retrospective includes a dozen of Bob’s songs and 2007’s Cimarron Manifesto features a reading of “Not Dark Yet” that nearly equals the spellbinding original.)
LaFave’s own compositions, which dominate the program here, are terrific as well and in line with the album’s moniker. As the singer writes in the liner notes, his tunes concern the “after-hours people . . . the Kerouac people: the all-night waitress, the 24-hour truck stop attendant, the after-midnight radio host . . . restless insomniacs up all hours of the night searching for truth.” Highlights include “Maybe,” an exuberant mid-tempo number; the gorgeous ballads “Not On Me,” “The Beauty of You” and “Talk to an Angel”; and “Never Came Back to Memphis,” a sultry, seductive folk/rocker.
LaFave’s band, which includes a six-piece string section, is first-rate but I have to single out pianist Radoslav Lorkovic, whose majestic work reminds me at times of the feeling I get from Bruce Hornsby’s piano riffs on “The Way It Is.” Throughout, LaFave sings with conviction about the things that matter in life, and the results are profound. This moody, heartfelt album makes a perfect accompaniment to that last late-night glass of wine but sounds magnificent by daylight as well. (Jeff Burger, No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music, 10 June 2015)
Jeff Burger (byjeffburger.com) edited Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters, both published by Chicago Review Press.