WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . TUCKER ZIMMERMAN: He who never went away is back

It seems no matter how many diverse artists you seek out, follow their influences into obscure corners or go down blind alleys to chivvy out little-known singers, there's always someone whose name you have never heard before.

What makes it worse in the case of Belgium-based, American-born singer-songwriter Tucker Zimmerman – now in his Seventies – is that he was hailed by no less than David Bowie in 2003 as “too qualified for folk” and Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker has called him “one of the greatest songwriters of all time”.

Bowie included Zimmerman's 1969 debut album Ten Songs – the title an emblem of the artist's modesty? – among his 25 favourite records.

Although that debut is really folky – acoustic guitar, harmonica, angry folk-rock with a band – you can hear why Bowie might have been so affected by it: his own producer Tony Visconti played bass, guitar and produced; Zimmerman had an ambitious way with lyrics and was closer to Bowie between his Tony Newley phase and glam persona.

Zimmerman was somewhere between earnest lightlydelic Donovan and Tim Buckley although doesn't have the distinctive character of either.

It's not a great lost album although Bowie is right that Zimmerman, like the other one, was somehow bigger than folk: the bluesy folk-rock A Face That Hasn't Sold Out is a bit like the poetic, desperate and urgent Dylan of three years previous (with a rock band which includes Rick Wakeman on organ and drummer Aynsley Dunbar).

There is desperate anger in the Vietnam-era rage of Children of Fear but in its catch-all fury at his nation it ends up inchoate, and the rest of the album offers few reasons for Bowie's enthusiasm.

Perhaps in 2003 he was remembering an album that meant something to him more than 30 years previous.

Here's what Bowie said: “The guy’s way too qualified for folk, in my opinion. Degrees in theory and composition, studying under composer Henry Onderdonk, Fulbright scholarship, and he wants to be Dylan. A waste of an incendiary talent? Not in my opinion. I always found this album of stern, angry compositions enthralling, and often wondered what ever happened to him.”

Fair question.

Basically Zimmerman just kept writing and recording to no great impact, formed a trio with a bassist and his own son Quanah (Nightshift), turned his hand to novels, continued to compose music for short films, in 2021 released a double CD of poems and songs as A Feather Flies Out and . . .

He's back. Like Rodriguez, he's a cult figure re-discovered who never went away.

Confusingly however, it seems 83-year old Zimmermann has already been back this year: Spotify has a 2024 album I Wonder If It'll Ever Come True which is a compilation and doesn't appear on his Wikipedia discography.

Wiki has three other 2024 albums credited to the Tucker Zimmerman Trio (Dust in the Rising Wind, Angels in Disguise and Showdown at the Dairy Queen), none of which are at Spotify.

Bandcamp only has his new one Dance of Love, iTunes has eight, among them I Wonder but none by the trio.

His new album has come about through the agency of Big Thief's Lenker who has said Zimmerman's songs changed her life. Recorded in fewer than three weeks in New England after Zimmerman had opened for Big Thief on a US tour.

With Big Thief members (and some from the band Iji) providing backing and production, it contains material as catchy as The Idiot's Maze – which sounds like a more funky and folky take on something like Bowie's quirky Rubber Band with surreal lyrics – and the moving, fragile The Seasons.

It is a duet with Lenker, pedal steel and lyrics about the vicissitudes of aging (“the clocks go crazy telling lies and the sun is closing my eyes”) and being glad to be alive.

It's the time when “all your dreams of your dreams come true”.

The Seasons

 

Zimmerman writes ballads which, like the metaphorical Lorelei, gently force you to slow down to their slow, walking pace to fully appreciate his lyrics.

He also gets jaunty on The Rama-lama-ding-dong Song and in what might be a comment on his life and new career sings Nobody Knows ("what's going to happen").

Like suddenly discovering Nick Drake, Shawn Phillips (who recommended Zimmerman to Stills and Crosby as a third singer), Bill Callahan or Bill Fay, Zimmerman has a body of work worth exploring and a new album is both moving and amusing.

When Zimmerman isn't making you smile he's breaking your heart, and he is a beautiful discovery.

Zimmerman has a modest but admirable aim for the Dance of Love album -- which includes the simple Don't Go Crazy (Go in Peace) -- one the world seems desperately in need of.

“After years of writing and filling a box with over 500 song sheets,” he has said, “I had finally found my path, my originality, my voice.

“It had become clear to me that songs of only one kind were worth spending time on: those which had a positive message and a peaceful vibration.

“Just poetry. Little hums that perhaps might lift us all above our daily worries and fears, little hums that try to make the world a better place to live in.”

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You can hear and buy Dance of Love at bandcamp here

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For other articles in the series of strange or interesting characters in music, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . go here.