New Jim White Live EP

Plus Joe Henry chats a bit about Jim.

By Blurt Staff

Luaka Bop's neo-southern and country-gothic Jim White will release a live EP titled A Funny Little Cross to Bear.

Called a "six-song gem" of "roadside rarities," the disc was recorded by Jim at indie record stores, radio programs and concert halls across the world. Among the songs are "Jim 3:16," where he postulates that "a bar is just a church where they serve beer" and a live unreleased version of  "Stranger Candy," a beautiful song left off last year's Transnormal Skiperoo (Luaka Bop).

Elsewhere, Joe Henry has been thinking and talking about Jim White. Henry produced White's Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See. Here's what he had to say:

"I wanted nothing to do with Jim White when, years ago, I first had his demo pressed upon me. I mean, another singer/songwriter-a poet of a particular dark and Southern sensibility (and one that my own wife alleged to be "brilliant and strange" even as she held the aforementioned cassette at arm's length, as if a bit afraid of residue)...

"I sat quiet and I listened. And then I rewound the tape and played it again... And thus began my association and working relationship with Jim White: singer, songwriter, author, actor; Florida native; Georgia taxpayer; former New York City cabdriver and runway fashion model; would-be seminarian; the father of two and, generally speaking, a holistic artist intent on moving forward while seeming to walk backward...a veritable disco moonwalker dressed like Tom Joad. With sideburns."

And here is Joe Henry on the new EP:

"And now here he is, offering a new "live mini album," as if he thinks he'll trick us all into thinking the small gesture doesn't itself draw a plenty-wide arc, doesn't have grand ambitions of its own....

"He must think we're crazy. Or stupid. In any case, I for one refuse to be fooled. I hear within this 7-song collection much ghostly conjuring and revisionist theorizing upon life, liberty and the pursuit of truckstop angels with crooked teeth, checkered pasts, and Jesus programmed on the speed-dial of their cell phones."

A Funny Little Cross to Bear will hit stores on October 14th.