Lulled by the Moonlight

Lulled by the Moonlight
Studio album by Mickey Newbury
Released	1996
Genre	Country, Folk, Rock, Blues
Label	Mountain Retreat
Producer	Paula Wolak, Jack Williams
Mickey Newbury chronology
Nights When I Am Sane (1994) Lulled by the Moonlight (1996) Live in England (Mickey Newbury LP) (1998)

Lulled by the Moonlight is an album by Mickey Newbury released in 1996.

Recording and composition

Lulled by the Moonlight was Newbury's first studio album of new compositions since 1981's After All These Years. It was recorded at the Record Club in Nashville, mixed in one night, and sold out of Newbury's house on his own label Mountain Retreat.^[1] "I'm having to poor-boy it," he explained to No Depression in February 1997. "I mixed it in one night, and did the graphics and the cover in two hours. Working like that is pretty hard, but when it's coming out of your own pocket, it's the only way you can do it. It costs so much money to cut these days it's unbelievable." It was produced by Paula Wolak, with three cuts co-produced by guitarist Jack Williams, who had accompanied Newbury on his 1994 live album Nights When I Am Sane. Beginning with Lulled by the Moonlight, Newbury would play little to no guitar on any of his recordings.^[2]

Newbury, who had been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 1995, still retained a richly textured voice that had grown noticeably deeper since the 1970s, despite his diminished lung capacity. As he had done on previous albums, Newbury recycled two earlier cuts: "Blue Sky Shining", which had appeared on his 1979 LP The Sailor, and "The Future's Not What It Used to Be", which had first appeared on his 1970 album Frisco Mabel Joy. Biographer Joe Ziemer writes that when he first recorded the latter "he was 30 at the time, ostensibly young for such a topic. Here at 56 years of age and sick with pulmonary fibrosis, he screams-sings the song, perhaps for the first time understanding the prophecy."^[3] Newbury composed "East Kentucky" in the early seventies just before leaving Nashville, which may explain the lines, "Dusty highway take me to Denver, I will not be coming back."^[4] The passing of time had not dulled Newbury's penchant for eclecticism, with the singer including elements of jazz ("Just Another Lovely Day"), doo wop ("Captured in Blue"), 19th century song styles ("Three Bells for Stephen") and hard rock ("Freight Train Howlin'"). Toni Jolene Clay, a singer Newbury admired, is solely featured on "Silver Moon", a cut she composed and produced on her own.

Newbury dedicated the album to the memory of Don Gant ("Foster Father of Nashville Songwriters") and his hero Stephen Foster.

Reception

AllMusic: "Lulled By the Moonlight was not a masterpiece, which necessarily made it a disappointment given the high standard of the artist's best work, but it demonstrated that he continued to ply his craft a decade and a half after he had given up on a full-time performing career, and that was encouraging."

Track listing

All songs composed by Mickey Newbury unless otherwise indicated:

1. "Three Bells for Stephen"
2. "East Kentucky"
3. "Captured in Blue" (Newbury/Jack Williams)
4. "Just Another Lovely Day"
5. "Blue Sky Shining
6. "Freight Train Howlin'(Newbury/Rudy McNeely)
7. "Shades of '63"
8. "Amen For Old Friends"
9. "Genevieve"
10. "Sailor Sailor"
11. "What Do I Do (In the Dead of the Night)"
12. "Ramblin' Blues"
13. "Workin' Man"
14. "The Future's Not What It Used to Be"
15. "Time Was
16. "Silver Moon" (Toni Jolene Clay/Jim Weatherly)
17. "Safe Harbor"

References

1. Zeimer 2015, pp. 261–62.
2. Zeimer 2015, pp. 263–264.
3. Zeimer 2015, p. 263.
4. Zeimer 2015, p. 256.