CA
  
You are currently viewing the Canada version of the site.
Would you like to switch to your local site?
4 MIN READ TIME

BOOKS

BRENDANGreaves starts and ends Truckload Of Art, his authorised biography of Terry Allen, with acrow. The crow is asculptural work made to immortalise the ashen remains of Allen’s friend and collaborator, fellow Texan songwriter Guy Clark. The two played together as Los Dos Rockin’ Tacos, and Clark’s last playful “fuck you” to his old pal as he suffered with lymphoma was the instruction that Allen should cast abronze goat and store Clark’s cremated remains in its rear. Instead, Allen settled on an enlarged crow, anod to asong Clark had never been able to finish, about two nests he had seen in the American Windmill Museum in Allen’s hometown of Lubbock. The nests were made of scavenged scraps of barbed wire. “He loved that they built those nests so beautifully out of almost nothing,” Allen tells Greaves. “Like asong.” The funerary sculpture, Caw Caw Blues, has its black bronzed feathers dappled with the ashes of Clark, with the remainder secreted within the bird’s ribcage.

There is another crow in the Terry Allen story. It appears in an Allen reminiscence from 1962, after aperformance by the Freedom Singers, when the bandleader and civil rights activist Cordell Reagon played him areel-to-reel tape. The voice, Allen recalls, was “high and scratchy, and mysterious and ancient, and ugly and hypnotic all at once.” The song was about ablack crow. “Reagon said it was this young white kid who called himself Blind Boy Grunt.”

Blind Boy Grunt was an early pseudonym of Bob Dylan, and it’s only slightly fanciful –in atale ripe with symbolism –to suggest that the bird in the song helped construct the barbed wire nest, just as Dylan’s musical scavenging expanded the possibilities for songwriters across Texas.

Unlock this article and much more with
You can enjoy:
Enjoy this edition in full
Instant access to 600+ titles
Thousands of back issues
No contract or commitment
Try for $1.39
SUBSCRIBE NOW
30 day trial, then just $13.99 / month. Cancel anytime. New subscribers only.


Learn more
Pocketmags Plus
Pocketmags Plus

This article is from...


View Issues
Uncut
March 2024
VIEW IN STORE

Other Articles in this Issue


Editorial
Editorial
“Sometimes the world has aload of questions/Seems like
In This Issue
“Bob was like aprophet”
Catching afire: Dennis Morris’s intimate portraits of Bob Marley show alegend in waiting
Ever fallen in love?
As ateenager, Paul Hanley was Buzzcocks’ number-one fan. Now the former Fall drummer has written abook about them
A Quick One
Grab your things! The Ultimate Music Guide to
Pale fire
Folk-blues stylist Charlie Parr is content to fly under the radar
“People came to listen”
Remembering the “intimate, smoky” liberation of 1960s folk crucible, Les Cousins
Uncut Playlist
On the stereo this month...
Arushi Jain
A heavenly hybrid of modular synthesis and Indian classical music
Real Live Wire
THIS MONTH’S FREE CD
MICHAEL MOORCOCK
AN AUDIENCE WITH...
JULIA HOLTER Something In The Room She Moves DOMINO
THE UNCUT GUIDE TO THIS MONTH’S KEY RELEASES
TOP HOLTER
Three key stages in the Angelena’s back catalogue
Q&A
Julia Holter: “A lot of it is about life and death”
SHEER MAG
Playing Favorites THIRD MAN 8/10
AtoZ
This month… P24 YARD ACT P26 KIM GORDON
YARD ACT
Where’s My Utopia? ISLAND
LIAM GALLAGHER JOHN SQUIRE
Liam Gallagher John Squire WARNER
VICTORIA LIEDTKE & JASON RINGENBERG
More Than Words Can Tell
ODETTA HARTMAN
Multi-instrumentlist New Yorker on casting her sonic net wide
FAYE WEBSTER
Underdressed At The Symphony
FRANCIS PLAGNE
Improvising Aussie on his love of ‘airiness’
DEAN McPHEE Astral Gold
BASS RITUAL
TV EYE
“I thought, ‘Let’s ask Tom!’”
THE BLACK BOOK
Scott’s spell of magic
BUILT TO LAST
From bluegrass to free improv, power punk and beyond, ROSALI has refused to be pigeonholed. But with anew album, Bite Down, full of country-tinged folk and inventive guitar jams, Brian Howe meets the singer-songwriter in North Carolina to explore her many creative selves. “I know how to do this stuff, because I’ve been doing it forever,” she reveals.
THE NAME GAME
Aquick guide to the guises of Rosali Middleman
Tiger Feet
How the Chinnichap duo gave a road-hardened glam act their first No 1. “It paints a great picture... a party picture”
Excursions Into The Unknown
Sixty-five years on from his trailblazing debut album Blind Joe Death, JOHN FAHEY’s influence looms larger than ever. From his acoustic voyages to his latter-day noise-rock experiments, he brought a fearless, if often offbeat, sensibility to his music. Here, friends and acolytes help Tom Pinnock uncover the truth behind this contrary artist’s life and career. “Even at his lowest ebb,” we hear, “Fahey found ways to reinvent himself.”
NEW POSSIBILITIES
Atrip through John Fahey’s catalogue
Dion
He’s a rebel: the great American singersongwriter relives his long musical trip
MUSIC ART REVOLUTION
Kim Gordon, 2023: “She has never given a
Take It Easy
Despite finding peace and stability with his young family, Matthew Houck –the creative force behind PHOSPHORESCENT – still agonises over his intensely melancholic music. As his first album in six years surveys both his hellraising past and becalmed present, Houck guides Uncut round his Nashville haunts in search of answers. “The sign of agood record is that weird panic attack you have once it’s done,” he confesses to Stephen Deusner
BUYER’S GUIDE
With Willie Nelson at Farm Aid, 2009 AW
FULL MOON FEVER
Houck on Phosphorescent’s new covers album
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
TALKING HEADS’ 30 GREATEST SONGS
THE THIRD MIND + RAIN PARADE
Mississippi Studios, Portland, Oregon, January 11
DUKE GARWOOD
The Victoria, Dalston, London, January 11
SCREEN
Mads Mikkelsen rages in 18th-century Scandinavia; Drive My Car’s director returns; a Palestine back story; and more…
GETTING IT BACK: THE STORY OF CYMANDE BFI
8/10 From Brixton obscurity to belated global influence: how a unique, overlooked fusion band eventually found respect. By John Lewis
Sonic Boom
Your round-up of the best streamers
Not Fade Away
Fondly remembered this month...
Feedback
Send your brickbats, bouquets, reminiscences, textual critiques, billets-doux and all forms of printable correspondence to letters@uncut.co.uk
Crossword
One LP copy of Julia Holter’s Something In The Room She Moves
J Mascis
The Dinosaur Jr mainman shares his formative freakouts: “Nick Cave was my fashion icon in college”
The Archive
ALAN HULL
Singing ASong In The Morning Light – The Legendary Demo Tapes 1967–1970
SLEEVE NOTES
DISC ONE 1 Here I Am1 Here I
TYNE OF HIS LIFE
Three long-players showcasing Hull at his best
Q&A
Lindisfarne’s Rod Clements: “He was a poet” How
DANIEL JOHNSTON
Alive In New York City 8/10 + Daniel Johnston In The 20th Century (scores in panel, right) SHIMMY-DISC
AtoZ
This month…
THE CHILDREN’S HOUR
Going Home
GHOST
Batoh: dream weaver Masaki Batoh: “Police tried to
HELDON
Électronique Guérilla (reissue, 1974) BUREAU B
JOE HENDERSON
Mode For Joe/Power To The People (reissues, 1966, 1969)
The Waterboys
The Sea, The Moon & The Stars
With This Is The Sea, MIKE SCOTT’s restless musical quest finally came into focus. As a new 6CD boxset illuminates the spirit of his Big Music, Scott revisits the inspiration and perfectionism behind THE WATERBoYS’ first great album. Stand by for cameos from Tom Verlaine and Bob Dylan, rivalry with U2 and a witch’s book of spells. “I was full with the music,” Scott tells Graeme Thomson
Masthead
UNCUT
Kelsey Media, The Granary Downs Court, Yalding Hill,
ADVERTISEMENT
ROUNDHOUSE
roundhouse.org.uk
UNCUT
shop.kelsey.co.uk
CARGO COLLECTIVE
AEG
REAL LIVE WIRE
THE BEATLES2!
RECORD COLLECTOR
Real Estate Daniel
AOIFE O'DONOVAN ALL MY FRIENDS
ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO ECHO DANCING
UNCUT
UNCUT
CLASSIC FORD SHOW
CLASSICFORDSHOW.CO.UK
FORD FAIR
FORDFAIR.CO.UK
FORD FEST
FORDFESTSHOW.CO.UK
MISSED AN ISSUE?
Visit shop.kelsey.co.uk/uncut-issues
VOLKS WORLD
VOLKSWORLDSHOWS.COM
THE SOUND MACHINE
thesoundmachine.uk.com
Chrysalis
Chat
X
Pocketmags Support