Newbury, Mickey

Newbury, Mickey

Frisco Mabel Joy

Fat Possum

***MICKEY NEWBURY was a songwriter’s songwriter at the dawning of the era of the singer-songwriter, yet he was also an unknown name on the Billboard charts. Mickey Newbury found early writing success in Nashville, enabling him to pave the way for his friends and contemporaries like Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and David Allen Coe. Even to this day, Newbury continues to influence the most championed songwriters. His songs have been recorded nearly 1400 times by more than 1000 performers including Johnny Cash, Scott Walker, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, the Box Tops, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Nick Cave. He is the only songwriter ever to have number one hits (with different songs) in the pop, country, R&B and easy listening charts within the space of one year (and three of those songs were in the charts simultaneously!). But Mickey Newbury himself was by far the best interpreter of his own songs.MICKEY NEWBURY’s ’Frisco Mabel Joy was produced back at Cinderella Sound, newly upgraded from eight to sixteen tracks. Drawing on a larger cast of musicians (dubbed by Mickey “The Nashphilharmonic”), The Newbury Universe expanded, adding clusters of steel and electric guitar overdubs to create expansive orchestral crescendos for his delicately constructed guitar-and-vocal compositions. e album’s opening track was perhaps its most arresting: “An American Trilogy,” combined “Dixie,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “All My Trials” into a searing medley that spoke to the political crisis in the country while standing simultaneously as a...

Newbury, Mickey

Heaven Help The Child

Fat Possum

***MICKEY NEWBURY was a songwriter’s songwriter at the dawning of the era of the singer-songwriter, yet he was also an unknown name on the Billboard charts. Mickey Newbury found early writing success in Nashville, enabling him to pave the way for his friends and contemporaries like Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and David Allen Coe. Even to this day, Newbury continues to influence the most championed songwriters. His songs have been recorded nearly 1400 times by more than 1000 performers including Johnny Cash, Scott Walker, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, the Box Tops, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Nick Cave. He is the only songwriter ever to have number one hits (with different songs) in the pop, country, R&B and easy listening charts within the space of one year (and three of those songs were in the charts simultaneously!). But Mickey Newbury himself was by far the best interpreter of his own songs.Heaven Help the Child appeared almost two years after MICKEY NEWBURY’s ‘Frisco Mabel Joy album, pushing his expanded sound ever deeper and higher. In “Sunshine” the vermillion hues of ’Frisco Mabel Joy give way to shadows and light. Additionally, two classics from the Newbury songbook were in the flow: the soaring ballad “Sweet Memories” and the bluesy shuffle “Why You Been Gone So Long.” The title track raised his lyrics to new levels of poetic expression. This was the end of Mickey’s time exploring his inner space at Cinderella Sound. (STREET DATE - 5/17/2011)

Newbury, Mickey

Looks Like Rain

Fat Possum

***MICKEY NEWBURY was a songwriter’s songwriter at the dawning of the era of the singer-songwriter, yet he was also an unknown name on the Billboard charts. Mickey Newbury found early writing success in Nashville, enabling him to pave the way for his friends and contemporaries like Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and David Allen Coe. Even to this day, Newbury continues to influence the most championed songwriters. His songs have been recorded nearly 1400 times by more than 1000 performers including Johnny Cash, Scott Walker, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, the Box Tops, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Nick Cave. He is the only songwriter ever to have number one hits (with different songs) in the pop, country, R&B and easy listening charts within the space of one year (and three of those songs were in the charts simultaneously!). But Mickey Newbury himself was by far the best interpreter of his own songs.Looks Like Rain was the artistic breakthrough that MICKEY NEWBURY knew he had coming. Songs stretched to lengths that weren’t radio-friendly, but represented flowing states of mind while discrete overdubs placed in the mix provided faraway twinkles and ripples analogous to the lyrics, marking the album’s path and the listener’s journey. When it was done, Mercury didn’t like or understand what they heard, but they put it out without complaint—and without much enthusiasm either, and the sales reflected it. At least they put it out. Forty-plus years later, Looks Like Rain is Mickey Newbury’s...