Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got A Lot of Love

James Talley | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 21, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Cimarron Records
• ASIN: B000CIXDYU
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,825 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #86 in Music > Indie Music > Country > Country Folk

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. W. Lee O'Daniel and the Light Crust Dough Boys

2. Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love

3. Red River Memory

4. Give Him Another Bottle

5. Calico Gypsy

6. To Get Back Home

7. Gig Taters in the Sandy Land

8. No Opener Needed

9. Blue Eyed Ruth and My Sunday Suit

10. Mehan, Oklahoma

See all 13 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. 1975 Interview

Editorial Reviews

Review

This spring marks the 30th anniversary of Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, but We Sure Got a Lot of Love, the debut of singer-songwriter James Talley. The album stands as a monument to heart, modesty and nuance. It also just might be the one country album made in the last 30 years that's loved by people who don't especially care for country music, notably rock critics.

When Got No Bread first came out, it wasn't the press in Nashville that heralded it as a classic but a chorus of rock scribes led by Greil Marcus, Peter Guralnick and Robert Christgau.

An unvarnished wonder steeped in the music of Woody Guthrie, Bob Wills and Merle Haggard, Talley's record sounded nothing like what was coming from the Nashville hit mill at the time.

When Got No Bread came out - a time when pop stars like Olivia Newton-John and John Denver were cleaning up at the country awards shows - the album sounded a note of judgment about how far country music had strayed from its rural, working-class roots. Not that those roots weren't exposed enough in American life. The nation was in the throes of a recession, with gas rationing and long lines at the pumps. The war in Vietnam had ended a year or so before the record's release. Poor and blue-collar families across the country were mourning casualties, both living and dead.

Talley hails from the same resilient Okie stock as Guthrie and Haggard. And given the ever-widening gap between haves and have-nots in this country - indeed, throughout the world - Talley's old blues are still relevant, prophetic even. --Bill Friskics-Warren, The Washington Post, April 23, 2006

James Talley's debut sounds as revelatory now as it did then [1975]. With roots in Oklahoma, Talley writes simple, straightforward, folk 'n' western workingman songs that embrace and extend the Woody Guthrie tradition... this quietly proud album evokes a time and place and a way of life like very little other music before or since. --John Morthland, No Depression, March-April 2006

Pete Seeger had told him to write about the world he knew, and so he did. The sound and spirit of the album that resulted, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got A Lot of Love, wasn't nostalgic; Talley's western memories were more real and rich with promise than his Music City home. --Roy Kaston, The Nashville Scene, March 2, 2006

Product Description

This Oklahoma songwriter's 1975 Capitol LP was too rural and honky-tonk to be a hit, but it scored big with critics and is a stunning debut. So much heart here as James blends country blues and Western swing on Red River Memory; Give Him Another Bottle; Take Me to the Country , and more. In print for the first time in 25 years in the U.S. with a bonus interview CD!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Portrait of Artist as a Young Man, July 5, 2006

By 

David Collins - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got A Lot of Love (Audio CD)

The 30th anniversary release of singer/songwriter James Talley's "Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Whole Lot of Love" is far more than a nostalgic event - though it is certainly that. This release provides a whole new generation access to a truly important piece of art.

For old fans of James Talley, this collection of songs (aka "album") needs no commentary from me. I offer these thoughts to those who may not know of Talley's art, or have discovered it long after the release of this album in 1976.

First, it is well that we note the era. It was at this time that singer/song writers like Jimmy Buffett, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson and many others were breaking the bonds and traditions of Nashville C&W, exploring new forms, both in their poetry and music. The album "No Bread" is as fine an example of this experimentation by a serious artist as any available.

The range of styles and influences packed into this collection of 11 original works spans much of the possible. From the country blues influenced Mehan, Oklahoma, to the pure Nashville country of "No Opener Needed", the country swing of "W. Lee O'Daniel", classic western of Red River Memory" or melancholy ballad style so well represented by "Take Me to the Country", Talley demonstrates an intuitive feel that allows him to explore new combinations of form that would provide a foundation for his art - and that of many other performers - for 30 years to come.

Talley is a poet of the first water. He describes himself as a teller of stories and I think that is an apt characterization. Each of these poems-set-to-music tell a story and each story is a slice of life as experienced by darn near everyone who works for a living.

In this album, Talley is clearly interested in history and roots. The opening song, "W. Lee O' Daniels and the Light Crust Dough Boys" provides a clear window on a time gone by when the musical influences of western and jazz collided in the dance halls and emporiums of the depression era. Then there is "Give Him Another Bottle", an up tempo depiction of a man whose way of life was dying before his eyes as the era of the steam locomotive came to an end. In true Talley form, with a sincere appreciation of what the life of working women and men is like, we are called on to be understanding of this man's plight and give him another bottle to help easy his mind.

In several of these songs Talley shows his artistic insight as he explores things passing, like the trains, rural life and the ways of an earlier, seemingly simpler age. Of course, this was a topic of much interest to his peers of the time. As Talley was writing "Give Him Another Bottle" Jimmy Buffett was writing about the passing of trains in his and Jerry Jeff Walker's "Railroad Lady" and Guy Clark was thinking about the passing of the steam engine as he wrote "Texas - 1947".

Looking back across the 30 years, considering this work by a young and exceptionally talented artist (whose art has continued to grow and mature with the passing of those years), I am struck by the durability of lyrics and music. Only one tune on this album, actually one of my favorites because of the classic double entandre in the title and refrain "No Opener Needed", requires knowledge of the time in which it was written - the advent of the first "Pop Top" beers cans when the advertisement "No Opener Needed" was printed on each can of brew. That kind of durability only emerges from a talent with deep roots and genuine compassion for the human condition as experienced by working folks.

James Talley is such an artist.