I was late to discover Gillian Welch, maybe because she always looked like someone in those old Dust Bowl photos. very severe. One day I was driving around and heard part of an NPR broadcast with two people singing such close harmonies, I thought "Damn if the Judds haven't gone No Depression/Americana on us -- good for them!" Well of course it wasn't the Judds but Gillian Welch and David Rawlings performing songs from their album "Time (The Revelator)", and I was totally captivated.
There are certain albums I put on when I'm in a special mood, but there's only a handful that I can listen to in whatever mood I'm in and it'll take me to the emotional place the album occupies. "Kind of Blue" is one, Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom" another -- albums that exist out of normal time and space for me, and allow me to enter a separate world. "Time (The Revelator)" is one; spare, simple, ancient and modern at the same time, acoustic and hypnotic. The songs are almost always s-l-o-w but never boring. The last track "I Dream A Highway" is almost 15 minutes long, and it truly casts a spell. I was talking to someone 20 years younger a while back, and when I mentioned Gillian Welch, she said "Oh, I heard that at a party once -- that's got that great long long song, right?"
The DVD was from their Revelator tour, and it too is powerfully hypnotic, plus you get the bonus of songs not on the CD, and their great stage presence -- and surprise, Gillian has a great laugh, Dust Bowl regardless!
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