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Jim Ford - Harlan County
Jim Ford - Long Road Ahead Nick Lowe couldn't believe it: they had found Jim Ford, after all these years, and they had asked him to do a concert with him! Nick considered Ford one of his greatest inspirations, but it had been at least 20 years since anyone had heard anything about him.
And yet, straddling the '60s and '70s, Jim Ford had written songs for people like Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, the Temptations... Tracks like "Nikey Hokey" or "Harry Hippie" that had climbed the charts, Sly Stone would cite him among his favorite musicians.
Jim was one of those white guys who accidentally happened to be born white, one like Bobby Charles or Dan Penn (I hope for your sake that you know who I'm talking about).
And he wasn't just a great songwriter; he was also a fantastic singer. But he managed to record only one album, "Harlan County," one of those splendid hidden gems among the mountains of useless records released every year.
A splendid album.
Funky Country, Jim defined it, which is like saying "eggplant chocolate," which sounds disgusting, but try eating it near Sorrento and then we'll talk...
But Jim got lost, cocaine, stories of insane parties, women, strange friendships, exploiters... In short, Jim spent all his royalty money. He reemerged in the '90s for a few concerts and then disappeared.
In 2006, a Swedish journalist, L.P. Anderson, tracked him down in a trailer in Southern California, where he had been living with the widow of Gene Clark, cleaned up from drugs, and found Jesus.
Anderson flew to see him and retrieved a lot of new material that would be added to a luxurious new version of "Harlan County" that Light in the Attic would soon release.
They decided to launch the album with a big concert near London, Jim was astonished, wasn't too convinced but accepted. So Nick Lowe was contacted and enthusiastically agreed.
But Nick, on that stage, would wait in vain. A few weeks later, the sheriff of Mendocino, called by some locals, entered a strangely still trailer with the doors open. Inside was the body of Jim; he was only 66 years old, having died in his sleep. Calm, smiling, tranquil, perhaps he was dreaming of a concert with old friends.
