Nice article on Bill Kirchen by Joel Selvin in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. Excerpt:
… for the past 12 years, Kirchen has been pumping out a series of solo records featuring such songs as “Tombstone Every Mile,” “Rockabilly Funeral,” “Truck Stop at the End of the World,” “Womb to the Tomb” and “Poultry in Motion,” nominated in 2001 for a Grammy for best country instrumental — built around his twangy, rumbling guitar work and a lot of truck songs, although Kirchen is not exactly sure why.
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it,” says Kirchen, who turns 59 on Monday. “My interest in a truck goes no further than that. I don’t want to own one. Don’t want to drive one. Don’t know a Kenworth from a Peterbilt. Maybe it’s just that I spent a lot of time on the road and that sort of road image.
“There were a couple of records, and one of them in particular was that Red Simpson ‘Roll, Truck, Roll’ album, which had this ungodly fabulous guitar player, Gene Moles, who I’ve only recently found out who he was now that he passed away a couple of years ago — Gene Moles out of Bakersfield — and I started associating truck-driving songs with this real fluid, low-end guitar work.”
And here (again) is a photo I took of Bill w/ Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen at the Hollywood Bowl in July 1974.
Bill is celebrating the release of Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods at gigs on the west coast this week, starting Wednesday 1/31 at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. Tour dates are here.
I enjoyed Selvin’s article on Bill Kirchen and his Telecaster, which I had seen in Sunday’s print edition. I especially liked the part about how Bill always takes his daughter with him when he teaches each year at Jorma’s Fur Peace Ranch, since I know you will be teaching a session there this fall as well.
-DP