{"id":22767,"date":"2024-09-19T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=22767"},"modified":"2024-09-17T18:13:24","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T17:13:24","slug":"woodland-new-album-from-gillian-welch-and-dave-rawlings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2024\/09\/19\/woodland-new-album-from-gillian-welch-and-dave-rawlings\/","title":{"rendered":"WOODLAND: new album from Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WOODLAND<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gillian Welch (left)<\/em><\/strong> and David Rawlings are one my very favourite music duos: up there with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, The Everly Brothers even, and yet they produce their own unique sounds. I have albums by both Gillian Welsch and David Rawlings, and love all of them\u2026..but never quite as much as I love their collaborative albums. It is not intended to denigrate either of these seemingly time-travelling artists to say that the duo is even higher than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s always been something unmistakably kismet about the musical partnership of Gillian Welch<\/a> and David Rawlings\u2014the latter\u2019s tasteful production choices and intricate guitar picking (not to mention harmonies) perfectly complementing Welch\u2019s lightly twanging, quietly commanding voice. On 2001\u2019s Time (The Revelator)<\/em>, they proved beyond doubt that they were an all-time folk duo, penning 10 stone-cold classics that spoke to love, longing, a search for meaning and living life on one\u2019s own terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

23 years later and the duo\u2019s partnership has only gotten tighter\u2014a fact that is immediately evident from the title of their new album. Named after the Woodland Studios the pair have owned since 2001, the LP is also their first collection of original material to be jointly billed under both their names. Upon casual listening, the album (at least the tracks led by Welch) recall Time<\/em> (and also 2011\u2019s The Harrow & the Harvest<\/em>). Like those albums, Woodland<\/em> is free of pretences, casually revelatory and aided by clean, unfussy production courtesy of Rawlings. But upon closer examination, it\u2019s clear that, thematically, there\u2019s a wealth of distance between the albums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On Time<\/em>\u2019s most widely recognized song, \u201cEverything is Free,\u201d<\/a> Welch sang of unbowed idealism (\u201cI\u2019m gonna do it anyway \/ Even if it doesn\u2019t pay”) and simple contentment (\u201cI don\u2019t need to run around \/ I\u2019ll just stay at home\u201d). On Woodland<\/em>, by contrast, the tribulations of life and middle age weigh heavily\u2014nearly every song is haunted by either the specter of death or that of aging (and sometimes both). On the Guy Clark-tribute \u201cHashtag,\u201d fit with French horns and strings, Welch and Rawlings confront these heavy themes head-on while reflecting on how celebrity influences the dimensions of mortality (\u201cSingers like you and I are only news when we die\u201d). \u201cHashtag\u201d also stands out for being Woodland<\/em>\u2019s most nakedly vulnerable tune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In perhaps the album\u2019s most haunting moment, Rawlings (right)<\/em><\/strong> looks down at the boots of (presumably) Clark and opines, \u201cJesus Christ, that\u2019s some mighty big ones to try to fill \/ Never can and never will,\u201d sounding audibly gobsmacked\u2014and maybe even slightly horrified. Rawlings and Welch have written so many great odes to meaningful connection\u2014the kind of kindred spark that can kindle between like-minded individuals and serve as a reminder of what really matters in life. \u201cHashtag\u201d explores the inevitable flipside of that; the heaviness of grief and the gnawing hole left by someone\u2019s irreplaceable absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the gravity of the subject matter which Woodland<\/em> concerns itself with, it would be wrong to describe the album as a downbeat listen. Warm, tough, tender and resilient all at once, the album is illuminated by memories of old while still finely attuned to present reality. Recollections of long road trips, old dreams and familiar faces add warmth to the album. As do surprising flashes of dry humor\u2014on the opener \u201cEmpty Trainload of Sky,\u201d Welch looks up at the clouds and sings, \u201cWas it spirit? Was it solid? \/ Did I ditch that class in college?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2020, tornadoes ripped through Nashville, necessitating extensive repairs to Welch and Rawlings\u2019s Woodland Studio. The duo managed to salvage all of their music during the storm, and it may have even provided inspiration for what would become Woodland<\/em>, the album\u2014a record finely attuned to the threat of destruction. \u201cThe Day The Mississippi Died,\u201d a string-led lament that recalls folk traditionals, foretells both the death of a person and the eventually drying up of the Mississippi river. Once again, Welch and Rawlings use humor to elevate what could be unbearably heavy in another\u2019s hands (\u201cThe subject\u2019s entertaining but the rhymes are pretty rough\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, despite such flashes of humor, there\u2019s no doubting the gravity of what Gillian Welch and David Rawlings sing about across\u00a0Woodland<\/em>. For this reason, the album\u2019s lovely. \u201cDry your eyes, don\u2019t you cry, ain\u2019t gonna rain no more,\u201d declares Welch on \u201cHowdy Howdy,\u201d as if trying to gain composure after a particularly emotional episode. Over a plucky banjo, Rawlings and Welch intertwine their voices to deliver an ode to eternal love: \u201cYou and me are always gonna be howdy howdy \/ You and me, always walk that lonesome valley.\u201d Sometimes, staring down the apocalypse doesn\u2019t have to result in despair\u2014instead, it can just make you profoundly thankful for everything you\u2019ve had and everything you have yet to lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sometimes, staring down the apocalypse doesn\u2019t have to result in despair\u2014instead, it can just make you profoundly thankful for everything you\u2019ve had and everything you have yet to lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,78,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-and-tradition","category-entertainment","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22767"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23009,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22767\/revisions\/23009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}