I Came to Hear the Music

I Came to Hear the Music is the 1974 album by singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury, his fourth release on Elektra Records. The cover photography was by Norman Seeff.

I Came to Hear the Music was collected for CD issue on the eight-disc Mickey Newbury Collection from Mountain Retreat, Newbury's own label in the mid-1990s, along with nine other Newbury albums from 1969-1981.

Recording and composition

Produced by Chip Young, I Came to Hear the Music is arguably his most musically eclectic offering; as Newbury biographer Joe Ziemer notes, "The album is a seminar in musical diversity. We are taken from rock to country to mountain music to folk and chamber music to pop ballads.^[2] Newbury retains many of the atmospheric accouterments that had by now become trademarks of his albums - rain, radio static, traffic, and other sound effects - but the album was a departure in some respects; unlike previous albums such as Looks Like Rain and Frisco Mabel Joy, which explore themes of loneliness, despair, and failed relationships, I Came to Hear the Music contains songs that are more contemplative, with several pondering God and time. The music also displays an ethereal optimism, which may have been partly influenced by the birth of Newbury's first child (Newbury, his wife Susan, and their infant son Chris are pictured on the back cover). The title track is a prime example of the spiritual exploration that permeates the album, with Newbury plaintively asking "Did God make time to keep it all from happening at once?" (Newbury may have lifted the line from science fiction writer Ray Cummings, who wrote in his book The Time Professor, "Time is what keeps everything from happening at once"). In "Breeze Lullaby" he reiterates, "I believe in His wisdom God set aside this time to let us all go home to yesterday" while "Yesterday's Gone" includes the line, "Tomorrow the son will be born." The album is also notable for featuring several up-tempo rockers, such as "Dizzy Lizzy" and the rollicking "1 x 1 Ain't 2." Newbury spoke about the former at length to the Omaha Rainbow in 1977, explaining that Dizzy Lizzy was a disc jockey and the song recounts a concert that took place in Houston in the 50's:

The first verse was about Big Joe Turner. Just talking about the concert. "Dizzy Lizzy do you remember when Big Joe copped the night and stole the show?" "They say Clyde is back but he's not a drifter." That's Clyde McPhatter, who was home on leave from Korea and had split from The Drifters and was putting out a record of his own called Without Love. That's the reference, "Without love, good God, where will he go".

The second verse, Newbury explained, is about Johnny Ace:

The second verse has to do with Johnny Ace's death, which I won't get into in depth, but I don't believe he committed suicide. I think he was murdered. That verse says, "Dizzy Lizzy do you remember how Johnny pledged his love to you and me?" He had a big record called 'Pledging My Love' and was killed right after the record came out.

The third verse is about country singer George Hamilton IV, who played the same show:

What happened was the house went silent when he stepped on the stage, and somebody yelled at him and they booed him. That whole thing is about George.

The song, which contains the line "rock and roll ain't nothin' but the blues with a beat", plays like a musical history lesson in itself, with robust lead guitars, Stax-like horns, and a stone country breakdown in the third verse. In the same interview, Newbury claimed that "1 x 1 Ain't 2" was the "oldest song I've recorded" and speculated that he composed it in 1963 or 1964. The track "1 x 1 Ain't 2" is very much in the vein of the outlaw country movement that was gaining enormous momentum at the time - a movement that Newbury's previous work had been critical in shaping. "If You See Her" (which Waylon Jennings would cover), "If I Could Be," and "Baby's Not Home" are straight country, a genre Newbury refused to be pigeonholed in but remained an integral part of his increasingly mercurial sound. Throughout the production, Newbury changes genres to match the subject: "Breeze Lullaby" is presented as a Viennese concerto; "Baby's Not Home" rolls into a saxophone solo; and "Yesterday's Gone" closes with orchestration reminiscent of Cat Stevens and the Moody Blues.^[2]

Legendary vocal group The Jordanaires also contribute to the album.

Reception

I Came to Hear the Music was not a commercial success, although it was acclaimed critically. At the time of its release Country Music enthused, "The LP is elegantly soppy and properly brilliant 'let's-hear-that-one-again kind of music." Allmusic: "Alas, this album sold only as well as its predecessors, but it pointed its creator in new directions, or at least revealed the many simultaneous directions he'd been capable traveling all along." Peter Blackstock of No Depression magazine contends "Apples Dipped in Candy" ranks among the most ambitious and fully realized creations of Newbury's career.

Track listing

All tracks composed by Mickey Newbury

"I Came To Hear The Music" - 4:15
"Breeze Lullaby" - 1:51
"You Only Live Once (In a While)" - 3:28
"Yesterday's Gone" - 3:30
"If You See Her" - 4:14
"Dizzy Lizzy" - 3:54
"If I Could Be" - 2:52
"Organized Noise" - 2:22
"Love, Look At Us Now" - 2:58
"Baby's Not Home" - 3:47
"1 X 1 Ain't 2" - 5:01

Cover versions

"Love Look At Us Now" was recorded by Edward Woodward, Johnny Rodriguez, and Joe Simon.
"1x1 Ain't 2" was covered by psychedelic garage band Neal Ford and the Fanatics.
Johnny Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd released "Yesterday's Gone".
"If You See Her" appeared on albums by Waylon Jennings and Johnny Rodriguez.
Don Gibson performed "Baby's Not Home."
Glenn Barber scored a minor country hit with "You Only Live Once (In a While)."
Will Oldham cut a version of "I Came to Hear the Music."

References

↑ I Came to Hear the Music at AllMusic
1 2 Zeimer 2015, p. 167.

External links

Mickey Newbury Website

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