<div dir="ltr">The man responsible for this:<div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY05YUWpxE4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY05YUWpxE4</a><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 11:00 AM, Allan Balliett <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:allan.balliett@gmail.com" target="_blank">allan.balliett@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br><br><br>Robyn Hitchcock Salutes Gillian Welch And David Rawlings<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/09/18/441417024/robyn-hitchcock-salutes-gillian-welch-and-david-rawlings" target="_blank">http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/09/18/441417024/robyn-hitchcock-sa<br>
lutes-gillian-welch-and-david-rawlings</a><br>
<br>
Robyn Hitchcock presented Gillian Welch and David Rawlings with the<br>
Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting at the Americana Music<br>
Association Honors and Awards Show on Sept. 16, 2015.<br>
<br>
Gala event tribute speeches are often so much fluff—in the right hands,<br>
however, they ascend to the level of the poetic. On Wednesday night in<br>
Nashville, Robyn Hitchcock's paean to his longtime friends and<br>
collaborators Gillian Welch and David Rawlings hit that high mark. Handing<br>
them a Lifetime Achievement prize at the Americana Honors and Awards,<br>
Hitchcock wove a tale that was also a dream history of American roots music<br>
itself. It was so good we decided to publish it. Do they give awards for<br>
awards show speeches? The man in the polka-dot shirt deserves one.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
  "We live, we die. Our earthly remains become compost from which<br>
eventually new bones may sprout; some demented gasoline for an as yet<br>
unsoiled future. We live and we die, but unless we drown in our own<br>
progress, or are pulverized by a whimsical asteroid, our culture goes on<br>
forever. Aside from expressing her or his response to the shock of<br>
existence, the artist gets to embed themselves in that culture: to become<br>
part of our own psychic compost.<br>
<br>
  "The artists we honor here tonight are a distillation of many before<br>
them, and of their contemporaries too. The deeper your roots, the broader<br>
your branches. Jimi Hendrix, the Louvin Brothers, the Pixies, Emmylou &<br>
Gram, the Stanleys and the Alpha Omega that is Bob Dylan are all present<br>
and roosting in their songs. Yet they sound like none of them.<br>
<br>
  "They've distilled so much of what America herself has distilled<br>
musically, time out of mind from the lake of mirrors that goes so deep you<br>
can't distinguish anything. Their alchemy has refined it into something so<br>
simple that nobody ever thought of it before, and now they're being openly<br>
copied by their many admirers.<br>
<br>
  "Like a jewel they have many facets. They may appear as an old time<br>
Appalachian pair, stood by a wooden wagon. Or as '90s indie rockers,<br>
finding the essence of a Radiohead song. Or they may strike you as a jam<br>
band. I've seen barefoot kids Dead-dancing to them in Golden Gate Park.<br>
She: the rhythm section, hair flowing like a Munch painting, slumped in<br>
spent ecstasy over her guitar. He: spinning out a cascade of notes from<br>
beneath his Freewheelin' Franklin hat, like an oddly sober Jerry Garcia.<br>
<br>
  "They are two beings in one entity. They are what John and Yoko might<br>
have been if they'd both played the guitar. They are whom I turn to for<br>
late night insomnia texting, for three-hour conversations about Dylan, for<br>
cover artwork and for high grade hoots in West L.A. Ladies and gentlemen,<br>
they are Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings."<br>
_______________________________________________<br><br>
</blockquote></div><br></div>