By James Calemine
My book, Insured Beyond The Grave, contains an interview with Music Maker Relief Foundation president Tim Duffy. I met Tim back in 1997 when Music Maker was gaining traction in their cause. Music Maker supports the roots of American music by directly helping the artists who make it.
I called Tim to let him know he was in my book, and see how he was doing. We talked about all the reviews I wrote revolving around Music Maker over the years as well as our latest on goings. I mentioned my favorite Music Maker artists such as Frank Edwards, Mudcat, Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, Cool John Ferguson, Cootie Stark, Sol, James Davis and Dave McGrew.
“Dave has a new record out,” Tim said, “do you want me to send you a copy?”
“Absolutely, I need some new music.”
McGrew’s Somewhere Between Truth & Sanity arrived today. His earlier release Fruit Tramp Ballads of the Great Northwest mesmerized me. These Truth & Sanity tunes were recorded in October of 2014, and February 2016 in Hillsborough, NC. McGrew wrote all 14 songs, and Tim Duffy produced the record.
Duffy provides a clear insight to McGrew’s music in the liner notes: “McGrew’s lyrics speak of fragmentation and isolation. The self is in pieces and the part with a mouth is lonely. To read the song sheets is sad. To listen to the songs, though, is to hear the McGrew I first met in the sunshine when I was a teenager, who moved through the orchards faster than anyone, an active, problem-solving, reliable friend. He stands in the circle of his acquaintance and enthusiastically entertains, in unity and connection. I have seen him do it by firelight by the ditches in the orchards.
“He wrote in the Northwest from roots in the Southern musical tradition, and he came to roost in North Carolina. Now when the fruit tramps have dispersed, I have sat with him at the Music Maker studio in Hillsborough and listened to his recordings together–the golden harvest of life.”
McGrew’s songs paint vivid stories of a hard-ass life of fruit picking, lonely orchards and poverty like a modern day chapter of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath or Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory.
Somewhere Between Truth & Sanity opens with “Going Home”. Musicians on this album include McGrew (vocals/guitar), Tim Duffy (guitar), Aaron Greenhood (mandolin) and Cornelius Lewis (bass). “Shit Happens” tells a story of faded love. “Highway 97″ stands as this writer’s favorite composition where McGrew sings: “Highway 97 runs by my baby’s front door…”
McGrew’s musical spirit sometimes reminds me of Townes Van Zandt. “He’s A Legend To Me” emits a quiet sadness…like a memory of a lost friend…and contains the lyric, which turned into the album title. “Thank Them All The Time” operates somewhere between street singer blues, and a hobo singing alone on a train he hopped.
McGrew sings for every hardworking American…