MICKEY NEWBURY


The Nashville singer/songwriter, Gretchen Peters, is about to issue a new CD filled only with songs written by Mickey Newbury.  Here's a preview video...

GRETCHEN PETERS \ MICKEY NEWBURY
Wish I Was - official lyric video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-Kmmni5ADA

from the album The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs of Mickey Newbury released May 15, 2020 to preorder visit https://smarturl.it/songsofmickeynewbury

Mickey Newbury Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Newbury
https://www.mickeynewbury.com

Mickey Newbury : An American Trilogy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiTjElq5Xjs


"She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye" Mickey Newbury
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM2PKcLSaYA

Mickey Newbury : A Long Road Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1zUOQ6Eksg


I learned of Mickey Newbury from the posts of another singer/songwriter, Jack Williams.  They toured together near the end of Mickey's life.  Jack had some wonderful stories about his commitment to Mickey as well as his respect for his songs.  I paid attention but somehow never collected Mickey's work.  Now that I am buying everything I can of Mickey's I regret even a moment of hesitation.

Any other Mickey Newbury fans out there?
bigquery
Thank you.

Saw Mickey Newbury at  Singers Songwriters show at the Bottom Line almost 30 years ago and have been hooked ever since.

Pre-ordered.

Rich
Wanting a little more discussion on this great songwriter I have taken the liberty of including a review published in No Depression. I’ve had a little trouble with the link for this review but have none-the-less included it at the bottom...

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #38 March-April 2002Mickey NewburyA Long Road Home (Mountain Retreat)

By Peter Blackstock

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“Do you still have your dreams?”

Mickey Newbury drops this question about halfway through his new album’s title track, one of two songs on the disc that clock in on the long side of ten minutes. Newbury has sketched plenty of three-minute vignettes ripe for radio and remakes in the past thirty-odd years, but this time, the story demands grand, sweeping strokes on a vast canvas.

The result is, at last, a masterpiece, one that required considerable attention and energy in these twilight years, from a man for whom every breath is literally a battle anymore. At 61, Newbury deals daily with emphysema-related breathing problems that require him to be hooked up to an oxygen tank full-time. And yet he is driven, as an artist of his nature invariably is, to continue to create, to write, to sing…because he knows there remain songs inside him that simply must get out, while there is still time.

A Long Road Home is the evidence of his efforts, ten new songs (plus a re-envisioning of “Here Comes The Rain, Baby” from his 1968 album Harlequin Melodies) that echo deeply with a longing resignation toward what has come and gone, and a looming realization of what lies ahead and beyond. You could call the narrator’s perspective nostalgic, perhaps — but the pathos really runs much deeper than that.

The album opens with Newbury remembering his life “In ‘59″, a fireblooded teen hell-bent on leaving Texas behind, running so fast and so hard that he “burned that two-lane highway down”. By the fourth verse, it’s ten years later and that highway is now four lanes, but he’s still running, if sometimes running aground. The years and the miles roll on through the song for eleven minutes, until he realizes that he’s now running — out of time. (Musically, “In ‘59″ seems vaguely akin to Tom Waits’ similarly titled “Ol’ 55″, an early hit for the Eagles; and in fact there are moments when Newbury’s still-soaring voice sounds uncannily like a young Don Henley.)

The heart of the album deals largely with deep sadness and romantic regret, from the straightforward sentiment of “I Don’t Love You” (that’s all the song says), to the wee-hours wondering of “Where Are You Darlin’ Tonight?” (”Do you think of me when you turn out the lights?”), to an even more haunting inquiry in “The Last Question (In The Dead Of The Night)”: “Where did the truth lie in your eyes?” Each is arranged exquisitely and delivered with a melody so melancholy that Waylon & Willie should re-cut “Luckenbach, Texas” and change the line to “Newbury’s pain songs”, all apologies to Hank Williams.

In the middle of all this comes “So Sad”, simultaneously the most heartbreaking and uplifting song of the proceedings. The words alternate between pure poetry — “In the morning light she glistened like a ruby in a stickpin” — and veiled confession — “I am not in prison, I am only doin’ time” — but it’s the rhythm that sets the song apart, a simple guitar groove that rocks gently and sweetly as Newbury quiets to a whisper in the chorus, letting the music carry the day. It immediately deserves notice as one of Newbury’s all-time best songs, which is saying quite a bit for a writer who has had nearly 100 of his tunes covered by other artists.

The clincher is “A Long Road Home”, which aches with the fading visions of a life’s journey’s over the course of ten minutes and thirteen verses, stopping along the way to revisit Galveston Bay, the East Texas woods, the Silver Moon Cafe, the Ryman and Tootsie’s and Tubb’s, finally heading west on Interstate 10 and north to Newbury’s present home in Springfield, Oregon. These places are part of his past, perhaps never to be seen again outside the realm of memories — but oh, what memories were made across that map of time.

Newbury concludes with a sort of denouement, “116 Westfield Street”, an ode to his childhood home and, in fact, to childhood itself. A piano reaches up for the notes as Newbury reaches out for his youth, even as he acknowledges the final truth of age: “Only a dream, so it seems, is sure to endure”.

Mickey Newbury still has his dreams.

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MICKET NEWBURY - LONG ROAD HOME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1zUOQ6Eksg

The best place to buy Mickey's recordings is the home page devoted to his music:
https://www.mickeynewbury.com/bio.htm

Here is his obit from THE GUARDIAN
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/oct/03/guardianobituaries.arts
New Gretchen Peters video from her just released album of Mickey Newbury songs:

The Sailor - official lyric video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEYF-68Oc38

The song is from Mickey's 1981 release, After All These Years.  I recently purchased an unopened copy on vinyl.  It hasn't left my turntable since it arrived.

Mickey Newbury - The Sailor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lHKAJU4kdA


"After All These Years is the 1981 album by singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury. Considered the concluding album of his remarkable 1970s run, it was the last album he would record for seven years. The album is very different in tone from its predecessor and revives Newbury's talent for song suites with "The Sailor/Song of Sorrow/Let's Say Goodbye One More Time". Other highlights on the album include "That Was The Way It Was Then" and "Over the Mountain".

After All These Years was collected for CD issue on the eight-disc Mickey Newbury Collection from Mountain Retreat, Newbury's own label in the mid-1990s, along with nine other Newbury albums from 1969–1981."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_All_These_Years_(Mickey_Newbury_album)

https://www.mickeynewbury.com/bio.htm
Gretchen's vinyl is available June 26

Also of note - out in Nov but can now be preordered...

Looks Like Rain: The Songwriting Legacy of Mickey Newbury (John and Robin Dickson Series in Texas Music, sponsored by the Center for Texas Music History, Texas State University) Hardcover – November 15, 2020
https://smile.amazon.com/Looks-Like-Rain-Songwriting-University/dp/1623499267/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&am...