Tom Pacheco in the Press:

FolkWax was "Sittin' In With Tom Pacheco

Tracy Grammer

Veteran singer-songwriter Tom Pacheco wears his world on his sleeve. In a career spanning more than 35 years and 2,500 original songs, Pacheco has addressed social and political issues, depicted a gallery of real and imagined characters from the past, pre sent and future, and created a living treasury of unforgettable images. On There Was a Time, Tom's twelfth solo album and first American release since 1996's Woodstock Winter, he adds still more memorable people, places and events to his son gbook, but it's a darker world that he describes. 

The Woodstock-based "quintessentially American songwriter" (Dirty Linen Magazine) whose greatest fame has come overseas in Norway, Japan and the United Kingdom, looks around with anger, irony and regret at corporate greed ("What About Us"), the betrayal o r failure of the American Dream ("There Was a Time," "Indian Prayer," "What We Left Behind," "Saint Christopher and the Cornfield"), and personal loss ("Provincetown," with its unforgettable refrain, "I can't bear the thought of rain falling on your grave "; the tender, resigned "If I Could Come Back"). But, as Tom writes in the liners, "there are glimmerings of hope and spiritual resurrection" in these and other songs on the CD. Tom still honors the brave and inspirational chance-takers around us ­ "Butte rfly" is a tribute to Julia "Butterfly" Hill, who took up residence in a giant Northern California redwood to save the tree and surrounding forest from a lumber company; "Heroes" thanks our professional guardians ­ police, firemen, soldiers ­ and their un paid everyday counterparts, those "waitresses and students, senior citizens and paper pushers" called to greatness by emergency situations, such as the passengers on 9/11's Flight 93 who battled the terrorists on their airplane, "defeating the face of pur e evil to crash the plane into a field" to save the White House. And There Was a Time ends with the exhortation and challenge, "You Will Never Be Afraid Again." 

"One of America's greatest songwriting treasures." ‹ Folkwax 

"If anyone deserves to be mentioned in the same hushed tones of reverence as John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Tom Russell, Guy Clarke and Steve Earle, it is he." ‹ Folk Roots Magazine 

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