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| This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen magazine #102 (October / November 2002). The magazine is available on newsstands and by subscription. |
James Talley
For a guy who sells commercial real estate for a living, James Talley sure has a nice singing voice. If only, he laments, he could make a living from that voice.
It began when he sent a tape to John Hammond, the legendary Columbia executive who signed Bob Dylan. A subsequent meeting in Hammond's New York office prompted him to introduce Talley to Jerry Wexler, who was planning a country division for Atlantic Records. But the idea tanked, and Talley found himself working as a carpenter in Nashville.
Coincidentally, Talley was remodeling a home for Frank Jones, a Capitol executive, and passed along an album that he was selling out of the trunk of his car. Suddenly the sun, moon, and stars aligned — Jones liked what he heard and offered Talley $5,000. Although it was a small sum even by early 1970s standards, Talley jumped at it. "I thought it was a good deal. I didn't know anything about leasing masters. But it was well received. Greil Marcus gave it a very good review in The Village Voice," he recalled with a wistful pride. "And I remember the label's vice president of sales seeing that review and wondering how it could be any good if they didn't pay anything for it."
But by the early 1980s, a strategic miscue left Talley without a recording deal. His (at the time) manager suggested leaving Capitol, but without another deal in hand. The blunder tagged Talley as a difficult talent around Nashville, making it hard for him to get signed elsewhere. Skilled at landing on his feet — he'd also worked as a horse wrangler and social worker before getting into music full time — Talley drifted into real estate. "It was one of those mistakes you make only once in your lifetime, and you live it the rest of your life," he said. "My career spiraled after that. I had to let my band go, and I started touring with just my guitar. But I had children, two boys, to take care of, and so, by accident, I went into real estate."
But Talley never stopped writing songs. He later released a couple of albums in Europe, which earned him a following and encouraged him to revisit his past. Although he hasn't been widely heard on these shores for some 20 years, the Nashville broker is working hard to reclaim his old audience and find some new listeners, too.
Real Estate and Real Music
by Ed Silverman
For a while in the 1970s, he did. Four long-deleted releases on Capitol — including the seminal Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money — established Talley as one of the bright, young singer/songwriting stars of his time. "Those were good years," he said, recalling an early string of good fortune.
Toward that end, he's released three albums on his own Cimarron label over the past two years, including his newest, Touchstones, which, in a way, is also his oldest. Unlike so many other artists who are releasing reissues or repackaging their biggest hits, Talley took an unusual twist: He re-recorded many of his favorite tracks from his four Capitol albums.
