Deep Voices 138

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The first time I heard Bill Callahan’s music I was sitting at my friend Simon’s kitchen table. It was 2005, maybe 2006. Simon was playing A River Ain’t Too Much to Love.

It felt like music I didn’t know I was looking for. Intense, but pure in its intensity, with Bill’s voice deep and clear. I was astonished. I had a work trip that next week, driving to DC. So the next I went to Other Music and bought the CD and that’s all I listened to for the drive south and back home, and then for the next few weeks and, in a way, the next 20 years.

As I write in my book Rise Above, after my son died, I had my stack of Bill records and I listened to them almost exclusively. Where most music had someone become brittle and vicious, Bills music was both tender and strong. His songs were my constant companion in the time I felt the most deeply alone in the world.

One funny thing that happened along the way with my Bill fandom/devotion was that I got to know him a bit, after he married a former colleague of mine. He’s very nice. So when I had the idea that he might narrate the audiobook for Rise Above I just asked him. I wasn’t scared. He said yes, he’d be interested. I sent him a copy of the book in a PDF and he said he liked it which was very, very meaningful. And so a couple months ago at a studio in Texas he spent a few days recording himself reading it. When he says “I” he means me. It’s a surreal blessing.

Rise Above is out next week, in physical and audio form. I hope you’ll read and/or listen. In the next Deep Voices, I’ll send out a playlist of music from the book. Until then, here’s a playlist of music I’ve been listening to lately. Enjoy.

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