rest in peace terry callier
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rest in peace terry callier. i once met him briefly some years ago. such a great, humble guy and extra ordinary musician...
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Gutted
This is really sad news.
A great artist who really touched so many people with his music.
Rest in peace.
the definition of what an artist should strive to be
It was news to me that Terry got fired by the University of Chicago upon them finding out about his musical rennaissance in the 90s. Is this true?
PS: Checking on what I might need to fill any Terry Callier CD collection-gaps, I was immediately confronted with this Listmania on Amazon UK
I can not believe that there are no better Lists featuring Callier around.
The thing of his that I return to most is the aforementioned and eternal ???Dancing Girl,??? that slowly turning, hungry little cosmos defined so thoroughly by Terry???s vocal: On the one hand he???s cooing all bassy and godlike about planets and stars and space and time, and on the other he kicks that earthy little ghost-laugh right before chuckling, ???Well, welcome to The Twilight Zone?????? ; one minute he???s fraying his voice on dark miniatures of hard-knock life, and the next he???s dappling a scat solo that maps the galaxy. I???ve been listening to that song for many years now, and every time it???s just as new and just as inescapable
I always hear Terry???s voice described as ???fragile,??? but I don???t think of it as fragile so much as fine???detailed, sensitive, capable of nearly infinite extension. He always had this core of sympathy, this graceful solidity. Even up against a beautifully vengeful polymath like Charles Stepney or crushingly cool goth-soulies like Massive Attack, he never seemed outclassed, never seemed outgunned. He never failed to project an assured, down-to-earth humanity and brotherhood, despite clearly possessing a talent that was absolutely undemocratic.
The other thing I listen to a lot is his 1979 version of ???Ordinary Joe,??? because it???s so good to hear him sounding so happy.
Rest in peace.
My two big jams on the album come one after another -- "African Violet" and the almost too saccharine "Love Two Love" both speak to their time of the late-1970s with their smooth dancability but still are very much Terry Callier's own.