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Now lets get this straight. Just because an artist covers "Blowin in the Wind" does not mean he sounds like Bob Dylan. Just wanted to get that straight from the start.
"Holding Up The World" is Grimms fifth solo album and his first for Corazong, and if the quality of his previous outings are only half of the songs here, then I've been missing out on a real treat. Isnt it annoying when an album comes along from an artist that youve never heard of and you really like, only to find out they've been around for ages. But I suppose it now means I can explore some of his old stuff with the thought that its gonna be pretty good.
Recording songs live with just voice and guitar and then adding layers of instruments that fit the song, Grimm has delivered a mighty fine modern folk record.
The title track opens the album and you know what? It just gets ya! There and then, it grabs you and doesnt let go. My god its beautiful. Instantly hummable, with lyrics that engage your thoughts and make you both sad and happy simultaneously. What initially seems like a love song to his wife, like all the best songs it also says something else. But what is it? ...Holding up the world, so many things get broken, when youre holding up the world, you cant protect your heart....
Grimm is a storyteller, up there with the likes of Crowell, Earle and Jackson Browne. He sings of families being lost, the loss of rural America, returnees from Basra, slaves escaping a horrendous life, floods, yearning, anguish and the reason why people faced with such adversity carry on whilst being totally empathetic toward their plight or feelings. He also brings in other music genres within the Americana field like some Appalachian on "Or Bust". Bit like Woody Guthrie.
Supported by Jason Wilber from John Prines band, and label mate Krista Detor, Grimm has restored my faith in todays folk music. It was starting to wane, but this guy has bought it back.
Im not going to single out any other tracks for praise. I cant, because theyre all excellent. Its taken me ages to get around to reviewing this album and thats simply because Ive been too busy listening to it.
Oh yes, he does do a version of "Blowin in the Wind". But it is a good one.
americanaUK
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Recreation News AUGUST 2009 43
POPULAR MUSIC with Kerry Dexter
Tim Grimm
Holding Up the World
Vault Records
www.timgrimm.com
Frontiers of geography and frontiers of the heart, borders between expectation and reality, hopes and dreams, plans and outcomes these are the things Tim Grimm explores through ten songs on Holding Up the World. For the title track, the Indiana- based musician gently expresses the varied ideas of strength and vulnerability, connection and isolation that fill the days of family and work life.
Holding up the world, you can see when things get broken/But your hands are tied, you cant reach down/You've got to stand so strong/Holding up the world he sings. In Rebecca Versailles there's the voice of a woman facing other frontiers, a black woman in19th-century Indiana, who sits in the back of a classroom of white students, carving quills and making copybooks for them, and soaking up the reading lessons to go home at night and teach her own four children because they are not allowed to come to class with the white children. Its a quiet, hopeful ballad, filled with strength and holding many levels of meaning within three short verses and choruses. Or Bust is a lively tale of another time, people heading west from the dust bowl to California in
the 1930s,a vivid trip into a brief moment on that journey.
Grimm sings in a rough-edged tenor that well suits the stories he unfolds, from the modern political commentary of This Holeto the evocation of time, change, and aging in So It Goes. His song Heart So Full makes a generous and hopeful bookend to the title track. Its homecoming song of sorts. Long Way Round finds the songwriter taking a clear-eyed look at lasting love and lasting futures.Grimm closes with a cover of Blowin' in the Wind, by one his favorite songwriters, Bob Dylan. If you like thoughtful tunesmiths such as Dylan, Jesse Winchester, Gretchen Peters, and Terri Hendrix, then you'll find much to enjoy here from Tim Grimm.
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Tim Grimm - Holding
Up The World (CoraZong)
If you were to approach Tim Grimm's 'Holding up the
World' with no prior knowledge of either artist or his work, there are two big
clues as to what to expect. Firstly there is the excellent Dutch label CoraZong
which deals with American influenced roots music and secondly a studious
exploration of the art work gives you the clue as to the nature of Tim Grimm's
ruminations on his mid west background. Except of course that he's disguised any
autobiographical connections by outlining a series of character sketches that
take in a variety of people from the returning Iraqi soldier in 'This Hole' to
the jilted Mid West farmer on 'So It Goes'. The imagery is lucid, the vocal
phrasing pregnant with emotion, the phrasing frequently world weary and the
narratives are realistic enough in a Dylan meets Springsteen kind of way to
gather widespread appeal.
Pete Feenstra -
independent music promoter
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“One of the best
storytelling songwriters in America”
Rootsville, Belgium
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