Jimmy LaFave Biography
While still living in the small farming community of Wills Point, Texas, LaFave played drums in local garage bands. When his family moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma during his sophomore year of high school, LaFave played drums in the high school band, but eventually switched to guitar. An older brother showed him how to play a few chords and LaFave taught himself to play James Taylor and Bob Dylan songs by playing along to records. By age 15 he was writing and singing his own songs and the first incarnation of his band, The Night Tribe, appeared. After high school LaFave played music at night while working a number of day jobs. For a year or two he managed a club in Stillwater called Up Your Alley and recorded Down Under (1979) and Broken Line (1981) at Lamb Recording. During the early 1980s, LaFave traveled to several other cities to determine what the music scene was like. After visiting Nashville, Los Angeles, and Austin, he decided to move to Austin saying "I liked what was going on there."
Mixing blues, jazz, and country influences with the lessons learned from his musical hero, Bob Dylan, LaFave is both a perceptive songwriter and an appealing singer. The years in Stillwater, a town that LaFave said contained a magical energy, left their mark. Other Oklahoma musicians besides Guthrie who inspired LaFave include J. J. Cale, Chet Baker, and Leon Russell. According to LaFave, the college town of Stillwater, Oklahoma was a young city with a lot of bars and other places to play music. Many Austin artists, including Townes Van Zandt, Joe Ely, and Guy Clark regularly played in Stillwater. When asked if he thought a ley line ran through Stillwater, LaFave said "The dirt is real red there - which indicates the presence of iron, and that element certainly has magnetic properties."
In 1992 he signed with Colorado-based Bohemia Beat Records and recorded his debut, Austin Skyline. The album featured four Dylan covers and its title is both a tribute to Dylan (LaFave loved Dylan's Nashville Skyline) and his new hometown of Austin. In his review of LaFave's Cimarron Manifesto (2007) for the FolkWax E-Zine, Arthur Wood calls LaFave "one of the finest Dylan interpreters ever. Most of the songs on Austin Skyline were taken from live recordings of two shows LaFave played in Austin on two different nights at the Chicago House and at La Zona Rosa. Some of the songs were recorded in Marcia Ball's garage recording studio. The debut album was followed by Highway Trance (1994) and Buffalo Return to the Plains (1995), also on the Bohemia Beat label. In December 1995 LaFave won the Songwriter of the Year Award at the Kerrville Music Awards. In March 1996 he won the same award at the annual Austin Music Awards.
LaFave's visibility spread nationwide in 1996 with an appearance on PBS' Austin City Limits. He was paired with Lisa Loeb for an evening of "acoustic ballads and electrified folk-rock numbers" during the show's 21st season. In 1996, LaFave also made an appearance at a tribute to Woody Guthrie held at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. LaFave was hand-picked to participate in the celebration by Guthrie’s daughter, Nora. The 10-day celebration, held in September 1996, included other notable musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, The Indigo Girls, Ellis Paul and Ani DiFranco. DiFranco's record label, Righteous Babe, released a compilation of the event, 'Til We Outnumber 'Em, in 2000.
Between 1997 and 2001, LaFave released another three albums on Bohemia Beat, including the 1999 double-CD Trail - a 15-year retrospective of bootlegs, live performances, radio performances and studio outtakes.[5] LaFave left Bohemia Beat when he was signed to Red House Records and his first release on Red House was Blue Nightfall in 2005. In his review of Blue Nightfall for Freight Train Boogie, Bill Frater stated "This is his best work yet and if you don't know his work, a great introduction to an important artist." LaFave's second release for Red House was Cimarron Manifesto in 2007. On June 11, 2007 Cimarron Manifesto hit #1 on the Americana Music Association chart.
In 2003 LaFave produced a Woody Guthrie tribute show called Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway. The ensemble show toured around the country and included a rotating cast of singer-songwriters individually performing Guthrie's songs. Interspersed between songs were Guthrie's philosophical writings read by a narrator. In addition to LaFave, members of the rotating cast included Ellis Paul, Slaid Cleaves, Eliza Gilkyson, Joel Rafael, husband-wife duo Sarah Lee Guthrie (Woody Guthrie's granddaughter) and Johnny Irion, Michael Fracasso, and The Burns Sisters. Oklahoma songwriter Bob Childers, sometimes called "the Dylan of the Dust," served as narrator. When word spread about the tour, performers began contacting LaFave whose only prerequisite was to have an inspirational connection to Guthrie. Each artist chose the Guthrie songs that he or she would perform as part of the tribute. One of the songs Gilkyson chose was "Pastures of Plenty", while Cleaves chose "This Morning I Am Born Again" - a song he wrote using Guthrie's lyrics. One of the songs Paul chose was a song he wrote using Guthrie's lyrics - "God's Promise". LaFave said, "It works because all the performers are Guthrie enthusiasts in some form". The Ribbon of Highway tour kicked-off on February 5, 2003 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The abbreviated show was a featured segment of "Nashville Sings Woody," yet another tribute concert to commemorate the music of Woody Guthrie held during the Folk Alliance Conference. The cast of "Nashville Sings Woody," a benefit for the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives, also included Arlo Guthrie, Marty Stuart, Nanci Griffith, Guy Clark, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Janis Ian, and others.
