There's a real satisfaction in sharing favorite songs, albums, and artists with and among my music-loving friends. A year or two ago, my friend Debby Kaspari sent a CD she'd burned (legally) of a live performance by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at the legendary Telluride Bluegrass Festival. I'd listened to the CD several times, but I'd never made it all the way through, for some reason.
The other night, while driving home, I was reaching for something different in the ear-candy department. I popped in the Telluride CD and hit the random button on the CD player. The first track that came up was one I'd never heard, and it it was so beautiful and mournful that it just killed me!
It's been the song in my head ever since.
It's called Throw Me a Rope and it's not yet been released on any Welch/Rawlings studio album. But you can see them perform it (minus one verse) on this YouTube video.
This song reminds me how much I love acoustic music. Tonight, The Swinging Orangutangs will be playing mostly electrically at The Marietta Brewing Company, but I plan to sneak in an acoustic song or two on the break with our old pal Jimmy Clinton playing along on mandolin.