Zimmerman, Tucker & Joshua Burkett

***In The 1970s, Tucker Zimmerman made some low-key acoustic guitar records in England. He was raised in Caifornia, and sang like it. And between those two circumstances, Zimmerman happens to have sat in with a whole lotta famous people; The Spiders From Mars, guys from Yes & Traffic & T Rex, Mary Hopkin, Paul Butterfield, Aynsley Dunbar, Ricky Fataar, and plenty more. The seriously famous are always moving along to whatever's new. But Zimmerman has kept his hand in. There were a couple records in the 80s, an interest in novels and words, one in the 90s, an 00s collaboration with another American expat who works on the Belgian version of The Voice, etc. Now he has a new record for the teens. Of himself reading poetry no less. And that is exactly the sort of project that could easily degenerate into the underground dude's answer to a Stan Lee cameo. The reason it doesn't is less about the words chosen(though they're fine) and more about the obvious lived grit in the mucinex-wracked glottis that is Zimmerman's voice these days. The sensitive folk rocker has given way to a grizzled gentleman. Zimmerman is more confident as his 77 years and sounds like a paisley Sam Elliott who spends days wandering outside dispensing advice to clouds & dogs. Zimmerman has also found a precise complement in accompanist Josh Burkett, whose life reads like an indie update to the performer Zimmerman was in the 70s. Burkett runs a record store in Western Mass, and has been a heavy in interesting underground projects of one sort or another for roughly 30 years (Vermonster, Bimbo Shrineheads, Tarp, playing with Ed Askew, & his array of solo records). The seams are allowed to show on these recordings. You can hear Zimmerman stop and go back to correct himself, and the sound levels vary. That puts things firmly in the contemporary camp, ensuring that this ain't no greatest hits that never were. In fact, Josh nips in with his acoustic guitar so subtly, and gets the rhythm of each talking point so just right so that the two performers dovetail again and again. And so the record can exist between them both, a new thing all it's own. —Thanks much, Angela Sawyer 2022