Bryars: Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
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CD Details
Composer: Gavin BryarsConductor: Michael Riesman
Performer: Tom Waits
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1993-08-10
Music Label: Philips
Soundtracks:
- Tramp With Orchestra I (String Quartet) - Hampton String Quartet, , Michael Reisman, Tramp
- Tramp With Orchestra II (Low Strings)
- Tramp With Orchestra III (No Strings)
- Tramp With Orchestra IV (Full Strings)
- Tramp and Tom Waits With Full Orchestra - The Orchestra, Michael Reisman, Tramp, Tom Waits
- Coda: Tom Waits With High Strings - Michael Reisman, Waits Reisman & Orchestra, Tom Waits
Music reviews of Bryars: Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
Music Review: A Spiritual Experience
Rating: 5 Stars
I remember the day back in 1993 or 1994 when my friend Travis, who owned a record store, got this in with a batch of used CDs. I'd heard of it, and we were both Tom Waits fans, so he put it on the store's system. After our initial "?", we both became mesmerized by the sheer delicacy and beauty of this piece.
The story of this piece is well-documented--a found sound recording of a homeless man singing a hymn, with musical accompaniment added and expanded over the years.
What people often don't mention in their (justified) praise of Bryars' ever-deeper layers of strings and horns that he brings in over this song is the effectiveness of the tramp's voice. It's frail yet hopeful, and it serves as the base for the piece. Without this loop, Bryars' music would be good, but nothing special for a person without a classical background. With the loop, it transcends the bounds of minimalist classical music and reaches into our cultural zeitgeist, into ever-increasing melancholy that digs deep down into the soul of the listener, while retaining a sense of enlightenment.
For me, listening to this piece is a spiritual experience.
Tom Waits' musical contribution here is well done but ultimately negligible--some singing along with the tramp, then a solo bit in the coda. But it served to introduce me (and surely other fans) to this incredible piece of music, and that is his true contribution to the piece, in my opinion.
"Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" is an incredibly moving piece of music that still affects me as deeply today as it did all those years ago. Amazing.
Description of Bryars: Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
This late minimalist, 74-minute piece for orchestra and tape has had, and continues to have, a near-legendary effect on its audience. It's the rare work created specifically to tug gently at one's heartstrings that actually does, and not subtly, either. It starts with a found recording of a homeless man singing a halting, simple melody looped over and over. Then Bryars builds and buttresses this with a full orchestra brought in incrementally, from the first carefully placed short pendulum string sweep to, 10 minutes from the end, the gravelly-voiced singer Tom Waits joins in. It's an obvious but effective work--appealing to all the basics of our emotional nervous system, but still tragically beautiful. --Robin EdgertonGeneral CDs
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