New Friend – Tim Grimm
“Grimm is an engaging, perceptive songwriter in the vein of John Prine or even Steve Forbert – highly literate, subtly nuanced and inventive while retaining a traditionalist’s love for classic folk and bluegrass.”
— The Herald-Times, Bloomington, IN
So maybe if I had visited the Wind River Records website and read the above quote or saw that in 2004 he was voted Male Artist of the Year by the Freeform Americana Roots DJs, it wouldn’t have taken me until a chance encounter yesterday on XM Radio for me to discover Tim Grimm. But boy am I glad I did. After hearing a song on XM Radio yesterday, I went to Rhapsody and the only CD they had was Tim’s 2000 release Heartland, so I loaded into the mp3 player and I found a new favorite. I’ve said before that I love story songs and the stories in this album are wonderful. They are a slice of Americana that reflects Tim’s rural small town upbringing in southern Indiana. Tim is the son of schoolteachers and the grandson of a farmer and love of that rural lifestyle is reflected in his songs! If there is a bad track on this album I haven’t found it yet. Some of my favorite tracks are the opening track “Better Days” about his rural upbringing and a neighboring farmer and for me it brought back memories of waiting at the end of Earl Blyler’s field to get picked up and taken for a ride on his tractor! “South of the Border” a song about having one’s job pulled out from under them and sent south of the border. The song “80 acres” is about land being passed down generation to generation. From his website:
** when my wife and I bought our old farm, I became fascinated with the deed– this leather-bound document with the names of all the landowners who’d ever called this piece of ground “home”. It dates back to the mid-1800’s and the first owner was Bailey Needham. I began to try to imagine who some of these people were– what brought them here, why they left…. And then, when we got the keys from the seller, Dortha Starnes, she told us the thing she’d miss more than anything about the place was walking the boundary line (on an old 80 acre farm, that’s a quarter mile by a half mile). That for me, was the last piece of the puzzle to finish the song….
I was listening to this song as I about Hunter’s Farm and Farm Market in Cinnaminson, NJ and I thought about that farm which Russell Hunter told me this year has been owned by the family since the 1700’s! “She Remembers” a touching song about the lose of a husband with the moving lines:
it’s been six months and counting, since her husband passed away,
she thinks she hears him coming back a little less each day.
Tim’s voice is great and suits the music like a glove. Heartland is Tim’s 2000 release other albums (all available at CDBABY.com) include:
Farm Songs (2009)
Holding Up the World (2008)
The Back Fields (2005)
Names (2004)
Coyote Dreams (2003)
Amber Waves (2000)
I can’t wait to meet all the people who live in these other albums. So if you never have heard Tim Grimm check him out! I am sorry that I waited so long to find him but boy am I glad I finally did! Here is the opening track “Better Days” from Heartland.
Original Post at Me, Myself, Music and Mysteries