We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Willie French Lowery yesterday, May 3rd, 2012. Willie’s music and leadership have inspired countless people in his Lumbee community, across North Carolina, and beyond. It has been an honor and a privelege working with him over the past year to reissue some of his powerful and underrecognized recordings. Our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones during this difficult time.

Willie described his faith in the sweet by-and-by in his classic song “Streets of Gold”:

I been told that the streets are gold in heaven
The angels sing when you’re resting there in heaven
There’ll never be a better place.

For those interested in Willie’s life, career, and influence, please visit his website for more info, or click here to read Lumbee folklorist and historian Jefferson Currie’s essay for our upcoming Plant and See LP reissue, scheduled for release on July 3rd, appropriately just in time for Independence Day. We sincerely hope that making Willie’s music more widely available will help his family, friends, and fans in their mourning and remembrance of an unforgettable American artist, activist, and leader.

Rest in peace, Willie. Sing on with that angel band.

It’s almost May Day, with Cinco de Mayo and Derby Day hot on the heels of love, so if you’ve got a barge or dock, and you’re like Merle Haggard, you should consider making a record on that barge or dock while floating around Lake Shasta, as documented in this timeless photo.

For obvious reasons, that picture is an avowed favorite of Hiss Golden Messenger chief M.C. Taylor, whose Poor Moon LP continues to garner a lot of attention and critical acclaim. While PoB is still your source for the original vinyl incarnation of the record, which you can buy here, the CD reissue on Tompkins Square has resulted in a second wave of press, including the following solid gold nuggets and ingots. (We’re feeling nostalgic for those heady days following the record’s original release back on the Day of the Dead…)

We are particularly thrilled and grateful for Grayson Currin’s review on Pitchfork. In these days of copiously spilled digi-ink, it’s heartening to read such a thoughtful, eloquent analysis of a thing as old-fashioned as a vinyl record of country and gospel songs.

“Poor Moon is a fantastic, on-repeat record that recalls the aesthetic risks and rewards of the best stuff produced by Laurel Canyon’s singer-songwriters and, decades later, the stylistically daring musicians associated with New Weird America. Hiss Golden Messenger pairs an instant accessibility with careful complexity [on these] 13 tracks of skewed, country-soul greatness.”

We are always impressed and humbled by the ductile writing, equine insights, and stellar musicianship of Nathan Salsburg, who penned this lovely review of Poor Moon for Other Music.

“Poor Moon is the sound of Taylor, joined by his long-time co-writer and arranger Scott Hirsch, corralling a mighty and potentially messy herd of, in the words of Tony Joe White, “elements and things” — musical and textual; popular and folkloric; sacred and secular and pretty well goddamned — into a folk-rock masterpiece that reveals itself both in short bursts and over long arcs, realized both minutely and effortlessly. Needless to say, it sounds as good, as vital, and as essential today as it did when it first reached me last summer. Hiss Golden Messenger is now the morning-line favorite for 2012, and thus a shoe-in for hitting my Other Music best-of trifecta.”

(Nathan is an instrumental figure at the Alan Lomax Archive, by the way; if you’re interested in Lomax, or American vernacular music in general, please check out these wonderful streaming audio resources, and this rather long reevaluation of Lomax’s career, written by yours truly.)

Thank y’all kindly for the following Poor Moon notices and interviews as well:::::::::::::::::::

No Depression interview here and here.

Huffington Post interview.

“Hermes grabs a banjo and a kick drum, and incarnates as Hiss Golden Messenger” (SSG Music.)

Uprooted Music Review interview.

The Mad Mackerel Recommends.

Exclaim! review.

Aquarium Drunkard: “These are melodies and stories straight out of the same Appalachian hills that gave birth to Gaither Carlton and Clarence Ashley. Find me something more American than that.”

***

Hey, Hiss Golden Messenger is on tour in the UK–with Michael Chapman!–through next week. You may be interested in the forthcoming Michael Chapman tribute album that features HGM’s version of Wrecked Again centerpiece “Fennario”; the comp likewise includes PoB pal Meg Baird, whose contribution is characteristically perfect. M.C. Taylor also recently recorded a Daytrotter session. Check back for an archived stream. 

Finally, ahem, please bear with us old heads as we navigate these tropical waters, but we now have a Twitter account, @PofBachelors. If you party that way.

END OF CINEMA.

(Buy Poor Moon here.)

Spring is finally showering North Carolina with redbuds, jasmine blossoms, and pawpaw sprouts, and folks are out on their porches. So what a happy coincidence that the second vinyl edition of Hiss Golden Messenger’s Poor Moon is now available for purchase. (The first pressing is now completely, indubitably sold out.) Email us to buy a copy for $16, or wait until April 3rd, when we will have a few additional items of interest to HGM fans (hint: a handful of new pressings of out-of-print material, available on a first-come, first-served basis.) The LP will be available here on our product page as well as on our BRAND NEW BANDCAMP SITE, where we’ll be offering the entire PoB discography in physical and/or digital formats. Watch for updates there and on the PoB Facebook page, where you should go ahead and “like” us to receive occasional announcements.

Tompkins Square will reissue Poor Moon on CD April 17th (PoB is still your exclusive source for the vinyl version.) Check out their official announcement here, as well as the below evidence–a trailer featuring Hiss Golden Messenger headman M.C. Taylor as a Durham streetwalker, and a preview of the 45 of “Jesus Shot Me in the Head b/w Jesus Dub” that Tompkins Square will release on Record Store Day, April 21, 2012::::::::::::

More news and blues:

We’re honored to report that Poor Moon has been featured in The Oxford American–thanks, y’all! The Will Oldham comparison is certainly flattering:

“Some might draw comparisons between Taylor and Will Oldham, another roots/Americana music aficionado prone to adopting aliases, but ultimately, both artists are slippery and difficult to confine to categorization or comparison. The motivations for assuming these pseudonyms are consistent: Both artists are reluctant to take personal credit for projects that have different identities, contributors, and collaborators. That’s about where the similarities end, though. The two possess markedly different vocal styles. Taylor’s folky, roots-based musical interpretations also seem to have an inherent pop quality you typically won’t find in Oldham’s music.”

Have you heard the good news? HGM is going on tour with the legendary Michael Chapman this spring. We Bachelors have spent many late nights listening to Chapman’s instantly identifiable brand of virtuosic guitar melancholia, so we’re thrilled about this collaboration.

M.C. Taylor of HGM recently played some tunes and chatted with host Frank Stasio on NPR/WUNC’s program the State of Things. You can stream the archived program here–Mike’s on at the end, and he even premieres a new, gospel-oriented song.

Our friends at Art of the Rural have these kind words to say about our work, with flattering praise for both “Poor Moon” and David Lee, the subject of our first release:

“While we are currently in a golden age of reissues and unearthed music, with more and more coming out each week, what sets Said I Had a Vision apart is its combination of context (rural North Carolina, from the civil rights era to the Reagan era), the  quality of its songwriting, and the absolute exuberance of the performances. Many such records have these qualities in unequal parts, but Said I Had A Vision contains songs that exceed the normal obscurity-fetish that similar records often cultivate. After I play this record through, I generally feel like everyone I know needs to hear these songs.”

We’re working hard on PoB-03, an exciting, first-ever reissue of significance to both late-60′s psychedelia and to the American Indian community of North Carolina. That’s all we will say for now–we’re about to send out the audio and artwork to the pressing plant, so expect the release in late May/early June–but here’s a photographic hint:::::::

Friends, a few items of interest for February——-

First, despite the dire warnings on our product page, we have been able to free up a handful of copies of the first pressing of Hiss Golden Messenger’s critically acclaimed Poor Moon LP. This is your last chance to own the original, hand-numbered edition with tip-on sleeves. Email us if you’re interested. Look for a second vinyl edition this spring, as well as a CD reissue on the fine Tompkins Square label, available in April. (You can read about Tompkins Square in today’s Capital New York profile.)

We’ll certainly be featuring some special pre-order deals for our vinyl repressing of the album, perhaps with some other limited-edition Hiss Golden Messenger recordings, so stay tuned here and on the Faces. (PoB-03 will drop shortly thereafter in late spring–this one’s another exciting reissue project, featuring a late 1960′s interracial North Carolina heavy psych band with roots in the American Indian community.)

Elsewise, Poor Moon Spazz and Slopped at #440 on the Village Voice‘s annual Pazz and Jop list, thanks to the ratings of critics Amanda Petrusich and Jerry Dannemiller. Thanks, y’all!

John Schacht, HGM’s ambassador in Charlotte, penned this sweet little review in Creative Loafing.

The excellent Uncut review and HGM profile by Alastair McKay is now available online. Our sources tell us that the sampler CD to accompany the most recent print issue of the magazine features a track from the album. In other international news, look for HGM on tour with the great Michael Chapman in the UK in April/May and at the Kilkenny Roots Festival in August.

There’s a capsule review of Poor Moon in the 20th anniversary issue of Roctober.

The esteemed and discerning critic Doug Mosurock of Dusted has this to say about Poor Moon in his Still Single column:

“RECOMMENDED. Some of the most accomplished country-rock I’ve heard in some time is on this record. HGM frontman M.C. Taylor is versatile enough to be able to project both weathered ballads and soulful crooning, right at the lip of “hot country” tropes, as well as your country royalty (Hank, George, Townes, etc.) but mostly passionate-sounding, his laconic demeanor positioned well in a five-piece rock combo, with plenty of soul, and an understated hand that brings out the best in his songs. It’s not hard to see this guy playing the lothario in some roadhouse, with secrets he keeps tucked in his denim jacket. There are a number of guys in this vein right now (D. Charles Speer and Zachary Cale comes to mind, albeit from slightly more specific directions), and Taylor and co. are among the best. For fans of the genre, this can’t be beat. 500 numbered copies.”

Finally, fans of HGM and all jams in the honky-conch/wink-stink/boot-cut genres will want to check out M.C. Taylor’s free Wah-Wah Cowboys Vol. II mix. Bam. If that’s not enough to tide you over until the next album, please be advised that the band is currently recording a new record. That’s right.

Happy Valentine’s Day, lovers!

Happy New Year, folks. Thanks to Stephen Deusner for including Poor Moon among his “Most Underrated Albums of 2011″ list on Salon.com. Says he:

“Poor Moon” represents a personal, very expansive view of America and Americana music, alternately recalling Dylan, Hank Williams and any back-porch pickup band, yet the superlatively breezy country-rock vibe conceals bleak implications about morality, fatherhood, and country. Taylor sees a darkness, and to his considerable credit, he never flinches.”

Thanks too to It’s Time to Play B-Sides for ranking Poor Moon as the top record of 2011.

The past few weeks have brought a rush of recognition for Hiss Golden Messenger, Poor Moon, and Paradise of Bachelors, for which we’re grateful and humbled. In the wake of the epic release party concert (see the previous post for photos; stay tuned here for recordings), below is our accounting of the recent slew of very positive views, reviews, and interviews. If you like what you see/hear here, please consider purchasing the album before the limited edition sells out.

NPR World Café Next has posted a Poor Moon review and two streaming tracks. This came as a most welcome surprise!

“…Blends the tried-and-true methods of home-grown bluegrass with the catchiness of contemporary indie folk… Showcases [an] understanding of the folk tradition as history that lives, grows and moves its audience in deep, unpredictable ways.”

–NPR

Alastair McKay has written a well-researched and elegantly referential four-star review of Poor Moon, accompanied by a brief interview, for the January issue of Uncut Magazine. It’s now available on U.S. newsstands, but not yet online–in the meantime, you can read it below (click the image for a larger scan.)

“A small but grand statement, achieving country-soul greatness… Poor Moon is a beautiful, accomplished record… ‘A Working Man Can’t Make It No Way’ deserves to be covered by Merle Haggard… Poor Moon is gospel, played with blue notes. It is the sound of a sweet soul contemplating deliverence; as mellow and fierce and fearful as that.”

–Uncut (4 stars)

Hiss Golden Messenger’s From Country Hair East Cotton (a Blackmaps CD reissue of their self-released Country Hai East Cotton, which is still available for purchase in its original form) ranks at #38 in Uncut Magazine’s 2011 Top 50 (full list text courtesy of Stereogum) and #8 on their Americana list.

Poor Moon earns the #7 spot in Shuffle Magazine’s Carolinas Top 25 of 2011, alongside some formidable company. Bryan Reed’s HGM feature “The Seeker” plumbs some of the deeper deeps of M.C. Taylor’s songs. And yours truly considers futures past, and the role of technology and retrospection for this issue of Shuffle’s Insider essay, entitled “Dem Bones: On Musical Nostalgia.” (You can read both in their paper layout format here.) We’re honored to report that the estimable music critic Simon Reynolds, quoted therein, has some kind words of praise for “Dem Bones” on his Retromania blog.

Shuffle Editor and fine writer John Schacht explores more notions of time in his article “Music as Conversation: Hiss Golden Messenger,” published by Blurt.

Dirty Impound has Dennis Cook’s wonderful, probing, long-from interview with M.C. Taylor, which manages to cover the Bible, the Grateful Dead, and the symptoms of the current contagious media landscape.

“While a great deal of what’s on offer today is as deep as a paper cut, there are beautiful, thorny exceptions, music that pricks us and reminds us of our humanity and potential transcendence. North Carolina-based-former-S.F.-area ontologically charged roots rockers Hiss Golden Messenger till green, fragrant ground, the smell of overturned earth redolent of decay and life in all its tendril throwing glory rising from their work… This band shuffles with archetypes and grasps at the sky in the hopes some higher power high-fives them somewhere along their weary road. It is workingman’s music that melds elements of Merle Haggard with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Rev. Gary Davis, where songs pulled from usually hidden places serve as the listener’s companions into their own craggy, shadowy reaches. By turns worshipful and wary, Hiss Golden Messenger is bread for incarnation and transubstantiation, feeding the body in the here and now while simultaneously nourishing less obvious appetites in one’s soul. It also happens to be great music sung in Taylor’s lovely, almost-too-honest voice, a dirt field relative to Sam Cooke and the Jerry Garcia who sang ballads that make one feel split open. The music is an evolving blur of folk, country, blues and the outside-the-mainstream work of pioneers like Roy Harper, Bert Jansch and John Martyn.”

–Dennis Cook, Dirty Impound

Cosmos Made Conscious has selected Poor Moon as its album of the week.

Thanks to Chaz at Durham’s Bull City Records for his enthusiastic review.

The Independent Weekly generously previewed the Poor Moon Release Party last week. And it is truly an honor for Poor Moon to be selected by Indy Music Editor and Pitchfork contributor Grayson Currin as the #1 local record of the year. All this national and international press is gratifying, but local accolades always taste sweetest somehow. In Grayson’s eloquent words:

“Poor Moon, the most fully developed album yet by indie rock veteran and new Durham resident M.C. Taylor, might be strong enough to reclaim [Americana], that noun of convenience. This is, at least, pan-American music, gracefully shading a bedrock of refined songcraft with touches of soul, funk, bluegrass, classic rock and ancient country. Taylor delivers arrangements that are alternately pretty as a Southern daybreak and threatening as a late summer thunderstorm rolling across the horizon. None of these flourishes seems intentional or forced; they simply seem like the output of lifelong synthesis. And on Poor Moon, Taylor takes nothing for granted, evaluating his career, God, sobriety and sanity with an absolute rebelliousness of spirit. Too young to be told and too wise to be foolish, Taylor writes, sings and records from a place of great wonder, as if these old sounds and these proverbial thoughts are new. For these perfect 45 minutes, they certainly feel that way.”

–Grayson Currin, The Independent Weekly

Thanks to everyone near and far who has taken the time to listen and comment on this remarkable collection of songs. The Bachelors feel like proud uncles.

Many thanks to everyone who came out to the show at Nightlight on Saturday. It was one for the books. Special thanks to the Nightlight staff, our brothers at All Day Records, and especially all the musicians, particularly those that traveled from afar to grace the stage and conjure what for these Bachelors stand as the finest ever live versions of the songs from the Hiss Golden Messenger catalog. Those who stuck around until the bitter end deserve special recognition for tearing up the dancefloor to the sounds of DJ Mental Feelings and the PoB Soundsystem. The Bobby Charles Brunch Jam presented the perfect hangover cure: “Street People,” “Small Town Talk,” and “Tennessee Blues” sounded sublimely shambling in the Sunday sun.

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER: M.C. Taylor (vocals, guitar); Scott Hirsch (bass); Terry Lonergan (drums and effects); Nathan Bowles (banjo and percussion); William Tyler (guitar); Zeke Graves (synths, keys, dubs); and Crowmeat Bob (saxophones)

WILLIAM TYLER (guitar and David Allan Coe stories)

DAVID STRADER & THE BLOOD JAR CREEPERS: David Strader; Aaron Smithers; Charlie Hearon, Zeke Graves; and Crowmeat Bob

DJ MENTAL FEELINGS (records, vibes)

M.C. Taylor and Scott Hirsch will soon begin editing the various recordings of the above performances as well as some rehearsal tapes recorded in the days prior to the concert. We’ll be sure to alert you when that set is available for listening and purchase.We hope that this stellar incarnation of Hiss Golden Messenger gathers again soon…

In the meantime, pick up your copy of Poor Moon here before they’re gone for good.

(Photos by the Bachelors, Constance Mensh, and Laura King.)

First, please consider taking a few minutes to read this righteous, and heavy duty, profile of Hiss Golden Messenger in the Independent Weekly, which plumbs the spiritual and paternal perspectives articulated in Poor Moon and spares some kind words for yours truly at PoB as well. Jordan Lawrence, the author of said essay, has also written a rave review for the Indy, asserting that “Hiss Golden Messenger’s lush and intelligent Poor Moon is a masterpiece that new and old music lovers can agree on,” featuring “brilliant” and “incredibly focussed” songs “reckoning with religion in the perilous middle ground between atheist and believer.” He also gives a nod to the ”immaculate packaging.” Thanks!

Our friends at the highly recommended online journal Art of the Rural likewise dig deep in their perceptive portrait of M.C. Taylor, teasing out in particular Poor Moon‘s lyrical links to Yeats and early twentieth-century notions of pastoralism and workaday poetics. It’s rare to read such insightful, long-form coverage of contemporary recordings, and we’re honored to pass on these press blessings.

If you haven’t yet secured your copy of this highly limited edition release you can purchase the LP here.

Here’s a seasonally appropriate clip of Hiss Golden Messenger and William Tyler performing Mike and Lal Waterson’s “Bright Phoebus” at a gig supporting the legendary Martin Carthy in Preston, Lancashire.

Expect more such magic when William plays with HGM at the Poor Moon Release Party on December 10th at Nightlight in Chapel Hill. Please join us at that event if you’re within reach/roads. (If you haven’t yet heard, local progressive jug band the BJ Creepers–Blood Jar or Bug Jar, take your pick–have recently signed on to support David Strader’s oracular yarns, and Nathan Bowles of the Black Twig Pickers will sit in with HGM too.)

We were delighted to discover the Songs from the Shed project; HGM recorded a session in Somerset during his recent autumn tour of the UK. Here are the fruits of that woodshedding.

Speaking of Albion, HGM devotees in the UK and Europe can now buy Poor Moon directly from Norman Records in Leeds. Their sly review name checks Tom Petty, David Bowie, and Dire Straits. Not bad.

Finally, during your indulgences this holiday weekend, please keep in mind the salient message of this fine title track–and the astounding cover art–to the George Hatcher Band’s 1977 album Talkin’ Turkey. Hatcher, like Said I Had a Vision impresario David Lee, hails from Cleveland County, North Carolina.

That’s all, y’all. Like Charlie Mingus so memorably sang, it’s time to eat that chicken! Or turkey, or other delicious Bird of Courage.

Friends, please save the auspicious wintry date of Saturday, December 10th, and the hours of 9pm to 2am, whereupon Paradise of Bachelors and All Day Records shall present the

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER POOR MOON LP Release Party at the Nightlight, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Featuring::::::::::::::

+ Hiss Golden Messenger, in a rare performance as a full band, with Scott Hirsch on bass, Terry Lonergan on drums, Nathan Bowles (of the Black Twig Pickers) on banjo, Zeke Graves on synths, and William Tyler on guitar;

+ William Tyler (of Lambchop and Silver Jews renown, sideman to Charlie Louvin, Candi Staton, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, et al.) playing an incantatory solo guitar set;

+ David Strader‘s enhanced prophecies delivered on and offstage, accompanied by the Bug Jar Creepers, plus a sruti box and perhaps other machines as well;

+ The Paradise of Bachelors Soundsystem and DJ Mental Feelings conjuring the finest boogies available to humanity.

Yours to feel for only $8, the price of a hoagie. PoB and HGM records will be available for sale at discounted prices.

Please join us. If you like, RSVP here. If you don’t yet have a copy of the album, or if you’re looking for a gift for a loved one this holiday season, you can purchase Poor Moon here.

Drop by All Day Records the next day, Sunday, December 11th, for a very special afternoon Bobby Charles Brunch Jam featuring many of the above musicians.  More details here. It’s just Small Town Talk.