Nimrod Workman’s astounding autobiographical song “42 Years” details a life spent in the coal mines of West Virginia and as a union activist, and stands as the most compelling performance on I Want To Go Where Things Are Beautiful. The first release from the Louisville, Kentucky, label Twos & Fews, I Want To Go was recorded by folklorist Mike Seeger in 1982, when Nimrod was 87. (Workman died in 1994 at age 99.) These 27 tracks are the memories of a Kentucky-born singer and raconteur whose thin, clear, astringent singing sneaks up on you. It’s refreshing, like a slender line of blue sky on an overcast day.
“He’s seen his best days/Both lungs are broke down,” Workman sings as “42 Years” unwinds. “He told me, ‘You seed your best days/Go back to the coal mine where they got you this way.'” Nimrod did just that, only to have the boss explain, “Our company don’t want you/And compensation won’t pay.” Workman eventually got his compensation, but it took until 1971 before he received it.
I Want To Go Where Things Are Beautiful is compensation plenty. Workman’s take on “Shady Grove” is a landmark of untutored interpretation, and what comes through on each track is the artist’s sheer, unbridled love of singing. As he says in one of the interview segments Seeger recorded, “I’d be loadin’ my [coal] car, and I’d sing ’til I’d get it loaded.” This is a valuable record: music presented as an activity absolutely necessary to life.
