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Gillian Welch Collects Live Peformances on DVD

Catherine Lewis reports:
Hot on the Converse heels of Pavement's Slow Century and Butthole Surfers' Blind Eye Sees All, alt-country songstress Gillian Welch is releasing a DVD on November 12th on her own label, Acony Records. The Revelator Collection includes both videos and live performances and was shot entirely in black-and-white film by still photographer Mark Seliger (chief photographer for Rolling Stone).

Welch, whose parents scored the music for "The Carol Burnett Show," grew up in Los Angeles listening to early bluegrass/country music like the Carter Family, and when she studied at the Berklee School of Music, she began performing her own material as a duo with fellow student David Rawlings. Together, they have recorded three albums: Revival (1996), Hell Among the Yearlings (1998), and last year's Grammy-nominated Time (The Revelator).

In 2000, Welch acted as the associate music producer for the Coen brothers' film O Brother Where Art Thou alongside T-Bone Burnett, who recorded Welch's first album. Welch had a small cameo in the film (the customer trying to find the sold-out Soggy Bottom Boys' record) and sang the sirens' trio "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby" with Emmylou Harris and Alison Krauss.

The Revelator Collection features all three videos from Time (The Revelator) and nine live performances, five of which are previously unrecorded songs: Welch's "Wichita" and covers of songs by Bob Dylan ("Billy"), Neil Young ("Pocahontas"), Bill Monroe ("I'm On My Way Back to the Old Home"-- sung by David Rawlings), and Townes van Zandt ("White Freightliner Blues"). The live performances were filmed on consecutive nights last November at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC, and the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville, TN. Tracklist:

01 Elvis Presley Blues
02 My First Lover
03 Revelator
04 April the 14th (Carrboro, NC 11/10/01)
05 Wichita (Carrboro, NC 11/10/01)
06 Red Clay Halo (Carrboro, NC 11/10/01)
07 Billy (Carrboro, NC 11/10/01)
08 Pocahontas (Carrboro, NC 11/10/01)
09 Revelator (Knoxville, TN 11/11/01)
10 I'm On My Way Back To The Old Home (Knoxville, TN 11/11/01)
11 White Freightliner Blues (Knoxville, TN 11/11/01)
12 I Want To Sing That Rock And Roll

Between now and the end of this year, Welch has one show planned:

12-06 London, UK - Barbican Centre

.: Pitchfork Review: Gillian Welch: Time (The Revelator)
.: Gillian Welch: http://www.gillianwelch.com
.: Mark Seliger: http://www.proofphoto.com
.: Originally published: 4 November 2002
.: Items mentioned above on Amazon.com: Revival (Gillian Welch, 1996); Hell Among the Yearlings (Gillian Welch, 1998); Time (The Revelator) (Gillian Welch, 2001); The Revelator Collection DVD (Gillian Welch, 2002); O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack (2000); O Brother, Where Art Thou? DVD (2000); Slow Century DVD (Pavement, 2002); Blind Eye Sees All DVD (Butthole Surfers, 2002);