Tom Paxton - Storyteller (1989)

een fraaie verzameling songs van de inmiddels 86 jarige zeg maar "living legend" te noemen folkie en singer/songwriter Tom Paxton. de man heeft vanaf 1964 meer dan 60 albums uitgebracht, waarvan een deel hier op MuMe staan. de samenstelling van dit soort verzamelaars is altijd discutabel. er kunnen immers altijd favoriete tracks van de luisteraar ontbreken, maar deze compilatie is toch wel een fijne weergave van de albums die hij in zijn begintijd maakte op het Elektra label. zoals op veel van zijn albums altijd wel een paar draken van nummers stonden, is dit op deze compilatie niet het geval. een fijn instapalbum voor degenen die kennis willen maken met zijn werk. in 1970 verhuisde hij van Elektra naar het Reprise label, waarna hij albums ging maken op het Vanguard label.

uit de liner notes van Norman Jopling citeer ik:

"Tom Paxton forever shattered his (unfair) image in the UK as a comfortable pipe-smoking folkie when, one afternoon in 1969, his talent and professionalism overshadowed in retrospect that of the Isle of Wight festival headliner Bob Dylan. A lot of people then sat up and took notice that not only was Paxton a terrific entertainer, but a solid songwriter too. Other entertainers had already noticed; Paxton's songs had hit (and sometimes topped) the US charts by a variety of artists in a variety of styles through the '60s.

Born in the South Side of Chicago on October 31st 1937, Paxton's family moved to Oklahoma when he was ten. Shortly after, his father died and his mother single-handedly held the family together. Tom got his first guitar at 16, a present from an aunt, and by the time he entered Oklahoma University as a drama major he could play very well. He began to compose and soon debuted as a folk performer in a campus variety show.

After Army Discharge in 1960, he abandoned and headed for Greenwich Village. It was the right time, the right place, and he was one of the right people, along with Dylan, Baez, Ochs et al. "The Village coffee houses were the dearest of blessings to a beginning performer, a place to be terrible and to learn from being terrible" he later noted.

This album contains some of his finest moments from the Elektra years including the anti-war classic "Jimmy Newman", "Leaving London" (one of Tom's many great "leaving" songs, and "When You Shook Your Long Hair Down", written about his wife Midge during their residency in London during the early '70s.

de rest is geschiedenis.