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* "swingin' the world by the tail...."

Among those who, like me, have long been enamored with Rowland Salley's heartachingly beautiful tune "Killing The Blues", a great many were probably first exposed to the song via John Prine's version on his 1979 album Pink Cadillac. I'd somehow missed that one, having been sort of hit-and-miss with Prine's '70s catalogue -- some of those records I was fairly familiar with, others less so. It's possible I did hear the song, actually, as I have a vague memory of checking out Pink Cadillac from the local library way back around 1980; but either I never got around to playing the LP, or the song just didn't make an impression on me back then.

That definitely was not the case when I heard Chris Smither's version of the song on Smither's 1993 album Happier Blue; indeed, I was totally captivated by the track, which has ended up on various mixtapes and CD-comps I've made ever since. Smither's interpretation is exquisite in its arrangement, with subtle flourishes of various backing instrumentation, a slight but significant turn in the chorus that lifts the melody to another dimension, and a glorious fiddle solo in the bridge.

Shawn Colvin followed in 1994, including the song on her Cover Girl album; her take was pleasant enough, but didn't stack up to Smither's, at least in my mind. I'd not heard another version of "Killing The Blues" for many years after that, though a quick glance through the Allmusic database indicates it had been done a small handful of times by a few roots and Celtic acts. I wasn't too surprised to find that just last year it was recorded by Bill Chambers (Kasey's dad), as he's always had remarkably good taste in covers. Also listed for 2006, intriguingly, is a version by Malcolm Holcombe on a soundtrack album called Come Early Morning.

The reason my attention was recently drawn to the song again, though, is that it's among the tunes Alison Krauss & Robert Plant have recorded for their upcoming collaborative album on Rounder. It's a terrific choice for the two (kudos to producer T Bone Burnett, who apparently was primarily responsible for selecting the material); together on the track, they sound like neither of their solo identities, but rather an altogether different whole -- no mean feat for two artists with such distinctive imprints as singers.

And one more happy find while sorting through CDs this week in preparation for our upcoming cross-country move: It seems I'd missed that Prine's longtime guitarist, Jason Wilber, had recorded his own version of "Killing The Blues" on his 2004 album King For A Day. Not surprisingly, it's quite engaging and graceful, as has been the case with pretty much everything the underrated Wilber has done, both as a sideman and in his occasional forays out front.

All of which made me curious as to whether Salley had ever released his own version of the song. To my knowledge, he's really only served as a bassist for other artists; I first saw him with Lucinda Williams in the early '90s, and for the past decade or so he's been a fixture in Chris Isaak's band. The Allmusic listings indicated he'd actually recorded and released the song a couple years before Prine's version as part of a collective called the Woodstock Mountain Revue, but I've never come across it.

However, there was also a much more recent listing for a version by Salley -- apparently he recorded "Killing The Blues" for a self-released album of the same name two years ago. And -- hark! -- the song is actually posted this very moment to Salley's MySpace page. So, if, like me, you've long been a fan of "Killing The Blues" but have never heard the songwriter's own version, check it out here:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=49514733

adios,
peter

Posted by peter on August 30, 2007 10:50 AM | Permalink