Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Touching, Deeply Traditional, Remarkable Song Writing, 16 Jun 2002
LA girl Gillian Welch has created one of the most special and unique country records of the last 50 years in "Revival".
This may sound like hyperbole, but the songs on this record will be with me on my dying day- they evoke a sense of time and people past, bringing them and their stories to you in intimate, short moods.
Not as dark as "Yearlings" and not as dreamy as "Time", "Revival" is exactly that- the quality of the song writing and recording bring to mind a golden age of American popular music (did it ever exist?) when folk songs WERE pop songs, and when the culture was sometimes defined less by the need for escape and more by the need for simple acknowledgement of shared troubles and the collective need for comfort.
The likes of Woody Guthrie, Hazel Dickens and the Johnson Mountain Boys hover over this work in spirit- and here you can feel the other, more personal side of those coalmining and union disputes, the conclusions of which somtimes kept people from starving.
One should not miss the spiritual dimension, either- God and the hope of his love and comfort clearly dominated the lives of these people- as clearly as The Alamabama Trust appeared set on letting them down.
Hard to mention ALL the special songs on this record- but "Annabelle" must surely be the tour de force- a mother's years of loss and sorrow following the death of her young daughter due to the difficult economic circumstances and lack of medical help (and nutrition)- "Annie's in the graveyard- she's got no life at all- just these words on a stone."Although Welch can be described as a proto-modernist whilst posturing as a traditionalist, any arguments about her intentions or classifcation go straight out the window- this superb record will challenge people (can you get through it without a bit of a weep??), entertain and sustain them for years to come.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Protective shield of irony lowered. Someone should tell Beck, 31 Oct 2001
By A Customer
Released in 1996, four years before O Brother Where Art Thou? made her a country music superstar, Gillian Welch's debut album, Revival, came as something of a shock. It's understated production, courtesy of T-Bone Burnett, meant that it struggled to fit into the established late 20th Century country music milieu. This was no Alison Krauss record.But nor was it Will Oldham. Alt. Country was - and is - thriving as a genre. Over the past three decades, beginning with the Cosmic American Music of Gram Parsons, a new form of country has slowly developed. The style has taken in influences from outside of country - from rock, jazz, noise, you name it - and a new hybrid of good old boys and college punkers has emerged. This album does show signs of those outside influences and, mixed up with the lush twang of a valve amped, vibrato guitar, you'll hear out-of-tune chords and phrasing borrowed more from the Velvet Underground than Bill Monroe. But, bafflingly, Revival leaves a strictly traditional aftertaste. The simplicity of the recording offset against the contemporary nature of the songs themselves is what gives it this unique duality. The pedal steel guitar - the favoured instrument of country music for the past...oh...50 years - is practically absent from the whole album, Welch instead preferring to conjour up appalachian visions with banjo, acoustic guitar and rasping female/male harmonies. Songs like 'Bar Room Girls' do hark back to country music's past in more than just essence, but generally the structures of the songs are given a free rein. The result is a debut album of exquisite beauty and fragility, cold and deathly in one sense, familiar and warm in another.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A SPARKLING GEM !, 13 April 2003
Such beauty is indeed a rare thing.
From the sparse gentle truth of "Barroom Girls" to the heavy rolling swagger of "Pass You By" this album is a winner all the way.
The quality of song writing and the committment and grace of the performances by Gillian and partner David Rawlings is remarkable. My favourite CD of the nineties, no contest !
The duo tracks ooze intimacy and understanding, and the band ones are perfectly integrated. The presence of musicians of the calibre of James Burton, Jim Keltner and Greg Leisz ensures class.
Highly recommended to anyone who has ever loved, lost, laughed or cried, i.e. all of you !
Jesus, alcohol, loneliness, love and death are all there. Thank you Gillian and David. A triumph, with joy and dignity radiating throughout.
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~ Gillian Welch
~ Gillian Welch
~ Gillian Welch
~ Bob Dylan
~ Various Artists
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