Newbury, Mickey / Heaven Help The Child

Drag City

MICKEY NEWBURY was a songwriter’s songwriter at the dawning of the era of the singer-songwriter, yet he was also an unknown name on the Billboard charts. Mickey Newbury found early writing success in Nashville, enabling him to pave the way for his friends and contemporaries like Kris Kristofferson, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and David Allen Coe. Even to this day, Newbury continues to influence the most championed songwriters. His songs have been recorded nearly 1400 times by more than 1000 performers including Johnny Cash, Scott Walker, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, the Box Tops, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Nick Cave. He is the only songwriter ever to have number one hits (with different songs) in the pop, country, R&B and easy listening charts within the space of one year (and three of those songs were in the charts simultaneously!). But Mickey Newbury himself was by far the best interpreter of his own songs.   Heaven Help the Child appeared almost two years after MICKEY NEWBURY’s ‘Frisco Mabel Joy album, pushing his expanded sound ever deeper and higher. In “Sunshine” the vermillion hues of ’Frisco Mabel Joy give way to shadows and light. Additionally, two classics from the Newbury songbook were in the flow: the soaring ballad “Sweet Memories” and the bluesy shuffle “Why You Been Gone So Long.” The title track raised his lyrics to new levels of poetic expression. This was the end of Mickey’s time exploring his inner space at Cinderella Sound. (STREET DATE - 5/17/2011)

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