MUSIC

It's McGonigel's Mucky Duck Holiday Songwriters Shows!  Two performances featuring Jimmy LaFave, Slaid Cleaves, Sam Baker.

Sam Baker? He’s an under the radar kinda guy of indeterminate age (we’d guess in or around his mid-50s), with long hair, a laconic turn of phrase and the kind of disposition that could well be the epitome of world-weary. Sam Baker's is a hard-hewn grace, transcendentally wrought with grit by a weary deliverance sought in common lives. Persistent in Baker's vision is an empathetic evocation of treading life's stilled waters, beauty welled in the dirt of daily endurance. His characters, drawn with the insight of Townes Van Zandt and John Prine, toil unglamorously, overlooked save for Baker's rough, sing-talk psalms giving them fitting voice.

Jimmy LaFave has been a “perennial presence” in the Austin music scene since he first landed here from Oklahoma in the late 1980s. Although he has lived in Austin for nearly 20 years, many people still think of him as being from Oklahoma, because of his strong musical ties to the state and what he often refers to as its “red dirt music.” Shortly after his arrival in Austin his career began to take flight when he was asked to help get a songwriter scene going at the now legendary Chicago House, which led to his first self-produced recording,Highway Angels…Full Moon Rain, which went on to his first Austin Chronicle Music Award.

In 1992, Jimmy released a self–produced record, Austin Skyline, which drew international attention to his songwriting and vocal talents, and led to a publishing agreement with Polygram Music.

Jimmy has built his reputation as not only a solid songwriter, but as an outstanding interpreter of songs by others, most notably Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, both of who are huge influences on his music. In the liner notes for his 1999 record, Trail, music journalist Dave Marsh noted: “Jimmy LaFave has one of America’s greatest voices, and this album is the story of what he has learned to do with it.

It’s a unique instrument, with startling range and its own peculiar sense of gravity, liable to swoop in and wreck your expectations at any instant.” He continues to record and tour consistently, meeting critical acclaim and widespread audience acceptance everywhere he goes.

At seven lines and a tight 19 words, the definitive Slaid Cleaves bio — written with humble but poetic economy by the artist himself — neatly sums up everything you really need to know about the man: Slaid Cleaves. Grew up in Maine. Lives in Texas. Writes songs. Makes Records. Travels around. Tries to be good.

Granted, there’s a whole lot of story and details that can be shoehorned in there to pad and flesh it out. But until “writes,” “makes,” “travels” and “tries” are all made past-tense and one final line is tacked on for an epitaph — hopefully something along the lines of, “Died full” — all that’s really called for, from time to time, is a footnote or two to bring folks up to speed on his latest batch of literate, sepia-toned Americana songcraft.