Produced by Dave Pomeroy, background vocals The McCrary Sisters
Bandits, Ballads and Blues is James Talley’s fifteenth album, recorded in Nashville, TN, at the legendary Sound Emporium, home to many of his recording projects over the years. Produced by dear friend, longtime collaborator, and talented bassist, Dave Pomeroy, the album features backing vocals from Regina, Ann, and Alfreda McCrary plus Jason Kyle Saetveit, Doyle Grishman on guitars and pedal steel, Mike Noble on guitars, fiddle from Billy Contreras, Dave Pomery on bass and Mark Beckett on drums. Andrew Carney plays trumpet.
His family was from Oklahoma, but eventually settled in New Mexico, where Talley spent most of his formative years. Many of the songs on this album are part of a group that he wrote about New Mexico and life in the Southwest. Back and forth between Nashville and New Mexico, these songs were either started or completed at Talley’s home in rural northern New Mexico. Americans have always had a fascination with the New Mexico outlaw, Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War. In the album’s opening track, “The Love Song of Billy The Kid”, Talley has the Kid tell his life’s story to his querida, his beloved. Tom “Black Jack” Ketchum, although not as well-known as Billy the Kid, was a train robber and horse thief, with a bandit’s heart at the end of the 19th Century. He was finally caught, tried, and hanged in Clayton, New Mexico. Talley also tells the story of a Vietnam Veteran, his friend and former neighbor Frank Archuletta in the song, “For Those Who Can’t.”
James Talley moved to Nashville in 1968. He worked in the state’s social services department and as a carpenter, all the while honing his songwriting craft, paying attention to the world around him and following the advice of Pete Seeger, who told him to write what he knew, write about his family. That’s how it began on Talley’s first album, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, but We Sure Got a Lot of Love (Capitol Records, 1974), he continues that tradition with the new songs he’s written for Bandits, Ballads and Blues (Cimarron Records, Inc., 2024).