Tom Pacheco in the Press:

Tom Pacheco Plays At Colony

Tom Pacheco is packing his bags…

IN TOWN

Pacheco at the Colony

Tom Pacheco is packing his bags. He’s off on a month-long tour of Norway to promote a new album he has coming out there, produced by his old buddy Steiner Albrightsen. But first, he’ll celebrate Memorial Day with one of his periodic concerts in Woodstock, that will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 23 at the Colony Café.
The compulsive songwriter and consummate wordsmith will bring a bundle of new songs to the show, in which he’ll be accompanied by his brother, Paul Pacheco, on guitar and Brian Hollander on the squareneck resonator. The songs can be about anything, from birds that get stuck in Wal-Mart to late night encounters in strange towns; from Rio Grande swimming immigrants to searching for the missing in North Dakota. Many have political overtones, but tender sentiments are included also. He can write about a corporation taking over a small pie company and the revenge that gets exacted, about an encounter with Hunter Thompson, about a man who said he killed Jack the Ripper; about the president, past and current, or Ché.
With his hypnotic churning rhythmic guitar, he’ll work for hours in a show, totally immersed, demonstrating a commitment to his music and writing that turns out convinced listeners.

TOM PACHECO RELEASES ANOTHER GREAT ALBUM

The Daily Freeman 12/19/08

Tom Pacheco releases another great album
By DAVID MALACHOWSKI Reviewer
ARTIST: Tom Pacheco  ALBUM: “Railroad Rainbows & Talkin’ Blues” (Bare Bones)  Local treasure Tom Pacheco, with merely his brother Paul on bass, has another great CD of cinematic stories and vivid characters — a trip through 21-century America, places people and stories, talking blues traditional folk songs  A cast of colorful characters emerge from a plastic dashboard Jesus (“Out in the Spooky Country”) to having Hunter Thompson pick him up hitching in (“Riding with Mr. Thompson”) and the timely reminisce of the good-old days of cheap gas (“10 Cent Gas”), Woodstock winters and “Donuts and Deer.” Pacheco’s deep vibrato echoes John Stewarts in “Ship of Light.”

Writing that Pacheco is a local treasure is an understatement of giant proportions.  Support this man.  Visit www.tompacheco.com.  Pacheco performs at the Rosendale Café Saturday.  David Malachowski is a guitarist, producer and freelance journalist living in Woodstock. The Freeman seeks CDs by local artists or artists appearing locally for review. Please send all CDs (please no CD-Rs or demo CDs) to Daily Freeman c/o Preview, 79 Hurley Avenue, Kingston, NY 12401

Loudon Castle Hosts American Songwriter

Loudoun Castle hosts American songwriter

Review From Kilmarnock Standard

11/21/2008 – Nov 21 2008 by Ian Russell, Kilmarnock Standard
AN Irvine Valley venue may be in line for a name check in a forthcoming edition of the best-selling Guinness Book of Records.
Legendary American singer/songwriter Tom Pacheco chose Loudoun Castle to perform the 3000th song he’s written, in a career spanning 40-plus years, at the weekend.
The veteran Woodstock troubadour performed at the old coach-house on Friday and Saturday, just yards away from the family theme park’s attractions.
So it was hardly surprising that he took his audiences on a rollercoaster ride of numbers spanning the years and the diversity of subjects his hardcore fans have come to expect.
From the humble penny to Barack Obama; doughnuts and deer to the Icelandic banking crisis; and a kitten and a seagull to brain-damaged victims of the war in Iraq – Tom even managed to fit in a reference to the weekend’s drugs-bust in Darvel in a couple of two hour-plus sets that had his old guitar screaming for a break and the crowd screaming for more.
He may be 62, but TP has lost none of his enthusiasm for live gigs, nor of course for penning songs.
Keen to return to the same fantastic venue in 2009 he remains reticent about his unparalleled, precocious songwriting abilities.
“Give me a topic and I’ll write about it,” says Tom. “I have more than 3000 songs under my belt now, but don’t know if that’s some sort of record or not.”
Pacheco followers are convinced it is.
That’s why a letter is on its way to the publishers of the Guinness book right now.
So what is TP’s record-breaking number called? Sadly, that’s the confusing part. The man has come up with so many it’s still under discussion as to which new song he performed at the weekend is exactly number 3000!

COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE 5 STAR REVIEW!!!

The Best of Tom Pacheco Vol.1 receives 5 stars!

Tom Pacheco is a prolific writer, a poet who in his early years was influenced by the writers of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Neal Cassady. At one point in his career Pacheco recorded two albums for RCA and was offered a writing contract with a major publisher in Nashville but he knew he could never be a 9 to 5 writer labouring over commercial jingles for others to record, so he cut loose to become a modern troubadour.
Pacheco writes and sings about subjects that interest him or cause him concern and is unafraid to express his views forcefully. There is no doubt that had he been writing these songs back in the early 50s during the notorious McCarthy witch hunts, he would have joined the likes of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and other dissidents in prison.
This collection is made up of 31 songs. Sub-titled “The Secret Hits”, they have been culled from numerous albums dating back to “Eagle In the Rain”, released some 18 years ago.
Pacheco is an absorbing storyteller who researches the life and times of his subjects meticulously before putting his own slant on events. For years he has taken an interest in the events and peripheral characters surrounding the assassination of the Kennedy brothers and he lays bare his thoughts on the mysterious “Jessica Brown” and in “Juan Romero” paints a picture of the young Mexican hotel worker who was frist on the scene when Bobby Kenndy was shot.
He is extremely blunt in his portrayal of Teddy Rossevelt, branding him a foolwhilst generating sympathy in recounting the life and death of Che Guevara in “Che” Little is really known about Jack the Ripper but, following a visit to London Pacheco became intrigued by the mystery and allows his imagination to run riot in “The Journal Of Graeme Livingstone (actually the name of the promotor who brings Tom over to tour Britain every year), in a fascinating, though purely fictional tale, of the man who killa Jack the Ripper before escaping to America.
Other examples of his ability to tell convincing stories are “Woody and Jack”, “Robert and Ramona”, “The Sacred”, “Cell Block One”, the poetic “Blue Montana Sky” and “Angel”. He expresses his anger and disillusion in the hard hitting “Merchants Of Death” and the caustic “Memorial Day”, his environmental concerns in the ironic “Last Blue Whale In The Ocean” his genuine empathy with the underdog in songs like “midnight Waters Of The Rio Grande”, “Norfolk, LIttle Rock, Memphis” and “They’re All Human”, and his heartfelt prayer for one of his sisters who was going through a hard time in “Shadow Of A Seagull”.
Pacheco came to Ireland in the 1980s for a short visit-and ended up spending 10 years in the country. On his return to America he discovered, to his dismay, that many things had changed. He expresses this disappointment in the poignant “There Was A Time”, “What Happened To The America I Used To Know”, “Bluefields”, “Hills Of Woodstock”, “Crazy Eyes” and the optimistic “I Had A Dream” and brings down the final curtain here with the wistful “If I Could Come Back”
Since many of the albums from which these tracks have been were recorded at different studios, the quality and sound levels are variable so Tom has spent many hours enhancing themto the point where they sound brighter and fresher than when first released.
As a bonus he has included the rocky “A Woman I Knew” taken from a six-track promotional sampler called “Dublin Girl” he recorded with a small group of Irish and American Musicians shortly after arriving in Ireland, of which there were only 200 cassette copies made.
Tom Pacheco has been sorely undervalued as both a writer and a singer. This collection is something of a snapshot of his skill in both fields and, had the album arrived a little earlier, it would certainly have been listed in this reviewer’s top five albums of 2007.
written by Al Moir

March 2008 Maverick Magazine 5 star review!

“Under-appreciated songwriter with 2 CD retrospective set

Tom Pacheco has been involved with music for the best part of his life. His late father Tony was a notable jazz guitarist who, before the war, toured extensively throughout Europe and played with the legendary Django Reinhardt. Tony Pacheco encouraged his son to take up guitar when he was around 10 years of age, and he tutored him.

Tom, an avid reader, was influenced by the work of early Beat Generation writers, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Cassidy and before long he too became something of a compulsive writer. The inspiration for his own writing came from diverse sources; newspaper headlines, radio and tv news programmes, history books, listening to first hand stories from friends-and total strangers, some humerous, some tragic, his own acute observation of people and events and, of course, a fertile imagination and the God-given gift of words.

He recorded his first album at the age of 19. Teaming up with Sharon Alexander, the duo recorded for CBS Records in 1971. By 1976 his talent as a writer and performer was recognised by Paul Nelson of Mercury records who wanted to sign him to the label, but although he failed to achieve that, he was instrumental in getting Tom a deal with RCA records, for whom he recorded two
albums.

1986 found Tom in Nashville where he was offered a writing contract with a major publisher but on reading the terms of his contractTom realised he would never be able to conform to the demands which would be placed on him to write for others and he turned his back on a deal which could have put more money in his pocket than he had ever seen before. The following year Tom embarked on what was intended to be a 6 week tour of Ireland, a ‘tour’ which stretched into a decade during which he wrote and recorded quite prodigiously.

So let no one imagine that Tom Pacheco has not paid his dues. He has always remained true to himself and is one of the genuine troubadours of our time but one who has consistently failed to earn the widespread recognition he has more than deserved.

Is he bitter about this? Not at all. Tom Pacheco has always been aware that there is little that is fair about the music business, but he doesn’t begrudge anyone the commercial success which may come their way, and whatever his personal feelings may be, you will never hear this gentle, philosophical man speak ill of any fellow artist.

His current release, a double CD comprising 31 tracks, is subtitled with a typical Pacheco irony, the Secret Hits. All but one of the tracks have appeared on various albums dating back to EAGLE IN THE
RAIN, his first release on Ireland’s Round Tower Label in 1987. His depiction of characters, both real and fictitious is masterful. Take for example, Jessica Brown, a fictitious name bestowed on a shadowy figure reputedly involved in the assassination of the Kennedy brothers.

Pacheco, a friend of Pete Seeger, consulted at length with the latter and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott who accompanied Woody Guthrie on his last tour across America before his lengthy hospitalisation, in order to piece together the events of that period in the absorbing Woody and Jack. He pulls no punches in his d**ning indictment of the career of Wood Roosevelt although he treats Che Guevara’s role as revolutionary more sympathetically in the lengthier Che.

Among the tracks all selected by Pacheco himself one will encounter a fascinating gallery of characters, the imaginary killer of Jack the Ripper, the star crossed Robert and Ramona, Juan Romereo the Mexican hotel worker who idolised the Kennedys, the protagonist in the redemptive Cell Block One, the black humour of an aging lady who grows marijuana in her back garden and a personal friend-the tragic Angel.

through this particular selection, those not too familiar with Pacheco’s work will come to discover his concerns with social, political, and environmental issues all of which he confronts with forthright conviction, and whether one agrees with his views or not there can be no doubting his sincerity and the articulate manner in which he presents his case.

So we have story songs, supplications, expressions of disappointment with the way life has changed over the past couple of decades, the highlighting of injustices and the plight of the underdog, potent protest songs and an optimistic view of the future.

The one exception mentioned earlier is A Woman Like You a song Tom recorded shortly after arriving in Ireland but which was recorded as a demo for potential promoters.

Only a couple of hundred copies were made on cassette only so this is something of a bonus for long standing fans. All the tracks have been painstakingly enhanced although nothing has been added to the original recordings.

THE BEST OF VIL 1 will be enjoyed by all, of existing admirers but could also prove to be an excellent starting point for those unfamiliar with the work of this talented and sorely under-valued singer-songwriter

WOODSTOCK TIMES 08/30/07

Subcultures and Time Warps

Subcultures, Time Warps
& Next Week’s News
Tom Pacheco Returns To The Colony Cafe
Saturday, September 1, 2007

by Irv Yarg
Photos by Ray G. Ring IV

The Colony Cafe
Tom Pacheco’s Official Website
Tom Pacheco on MySpace
Tom Pacheco on YouTube

Let’s take a poll… How many of you are familiar with the Raggare subculture? Raise your hands… No, there’s no skank-beat tempo here; no clear associations with reggae. It predates that emergence. It started, in fact, when televised images of American culture in the 1950s hit Scandinavia like a meteor and left a dent that was colonized by local inhabitants and boasts a valley population to this day…

No jive, hoards of people in pockets of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Finland and even Austria are still vamping the 50s in polished fintail cars, bouffant hairdos and ageless penny loafers. Even some of these terms are sci-fi to you johnny-come-latelys born after Rod Taylor appeared in a movie about H.G. Wells’ Time Machine, but performing songwriter Tom Pacheco, who will materialize on stage at The Colony on Saturday night, swears that he’s seen Raggare with his own eyes.

“There’s a huge area of southern Norway and western Sweden where everyone lives in the American 1950s, driving cars that look like they just came out of a 1954 or 1959 showroom,” Pacheco declares without a twinkle, explaining that he had seen it first hand while recording his 2004 Long Walk cd in Halden, Norway… I ran to the atlas and, yes, there is a Halden, Norway! But it gets even eerier… “They dress like 50s greasers; there’s drive-ins with roller skating car hops. These people are riding around there all the time.”

The topic came up because Pacheco had just finished work on the soundtracks for two films, one of them a drama set in the Raggare subculture which had already taken a Pacheco-written song as an audio theme. The tune, “I’ve Got Wheels,” had been popularized by Norwegian pop star Steinar (pronounced ‘Stainer’)Albrigtsen and filming had already started when the film makers met Tom and enlisted his input for the soundtrack.

Meanwhile, Albrigtsen, whose latest album Moment of Peace has been topping the charts over there (with a cover of Tom’s “A Million Stars” doing very nicely as a single), was recently asked to perform at the 70th birthday party of Queen Sonja of Norway. One of Steinar’s early hits, “She Belongs To the Rain,” from his 1993 Troubadour album, happened to be the Queen’s all-time favorite song and the singer graciously gifted the monarch with a custom-model guitar issued in his honor after his performance. The song was written, of course, by Tom Pacheco, who declined an all-expenses-paid invitation due to previous commitments. Okay, raise your hands- how many of you have had occasion to snub royalty? Thought so. But I can feel Tom’s wince from miles away.

The other film is a British-Norwegian production called Orion’s Belt which won the Amanda “best Film” award at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund in 1985 as well as the Film Critic’s Award. A Cold War thriller set on the North Atlantic island Svalbard, it’s rated among Norway’s best films of the decade and its score, which also took “Best Soundtrack” honors and became the best-selling soundtrack in Norwegian history, yielded a melody which has become a standard at weddings and other like events and which Pacheco was asked to transform into a full-fledged song that could be sung by a “big” voice. Although it is unclear whether the movie, which does have an English soundtrack, is being remade or re-released but Tom has already received a demo of his efforts rendered in the booming voice of the lead singer in a recent British production of Jesus Christ, Superstar. Albrigtsen, whose own vocals would be star-quality in the U.S. and whose guitar skills are nothing short of astonishing, plans his own version of the tune in what he terms “a more humble voice.”

While all of this is going on, Albrigtsen, who beautifully co-produced his going-to-gold Moment Of Peace, is working on the production of Tom’s next release- which takes its title from one of Pacheco’s most popular songs, “Shadow of A Seagull.” Working from 14 or so tracks Tom recorded in Oslo this Spring, Steinar has recruited some of Europe’s finest musicians to augment the tunes for a European release date early next year- possibly around the time Tom will be appearing at the Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis during February. Since American distribution options are still open, we’ll have to wait a bit longer for it here but advance copies of The Secret Hits of Tom Pacheco-Volume One two-disk, mind-boggling 31 song collection- which contains a splendid acoustic version of “Seagull”- will be available at the concert.

With the exception of the title track and a newly embellished version of Tom’s adieu to the current chief executive, “When You’re Back On Your Ranch In Texas,” all of the songs of Seagull will be new ones. Recently, the free MP3 download of the original “Ranch In Texas” at the TomPacheco.com website has been linked to by popular websites like Topplebush.com, 911Truth.org and others.

An unusual e-mail to Tom’s website earlier this year flirts with another subculture. A young woman named Maryleigh wrote “My boyfriend, Kody, has a t-shirt of yours and I would like to know if there is anywhere I can obtain more. On the front there is a picture of you and on the back it says ‘we are the people, we have the power/one day we will rise up and take back what is ours.”

Maryleigh, a music major with an English/creative writing focus at a sizable university, refers to a song on Tom’s 2006 Bloodlines album which addresses itself to contemporary politicians shredding the Constitution, violating the public trust and aiding the corporate plunder of national resources. She asks where a growing presence of Pacheco fans on her campus in a southern state can get a bunch of the t-shirts she mentions but also brings in the strange loop that her boyfriend was fired from his job in the medical division of a state institution for wearing the shirt under his uniform. Seems there was some discussion about tattoos and skinheads and Kody, not long out of active military life had been mistaken as “some kind of white rights activist” skinhead and Tom as a white supremacist leader. Those of you who know of Tom’s long devotion to the cause of human rights are blinking in disbelief but, through an intelligent and descriptive email I received from Kody himself when I decided to look into the matter, I learned that there are even human rights proponents within the skinhead subculture and that’s where the strange loop really turns itself around.

Kody related a conversation at work which “mentioned the ‘88′ tattoo which people labeled ‘skinheads’ would have on their forearm. I then made mention (of) the ‘Sharp Skin Heads’- an organization against racial prejudice… funny thing- founded in 1987 by Marcus Pacheco (no relation) in New York City…”

Indeed, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) opposes neo-nazi extremist elements within the multiracial skinhead subculture- apparently without the overt violence of the FSU fighting brotherhood described by Rolling Stone in their current issue. (See http://www.punknews.org/article/25159 ) SHARP has an international presence with a number of their own regional websites (including Glasgow) and Marcus Pacheco is a superstar tattoo artist now living in California. When last heard from, Kody said his former supervisor was working toward reversing the decision to dismiss him and return him the position he lost in the bizarre misunderstanding and Maryleigh wants still more t-shirts to press the point. Also, as of this moment, there have been no signs of concern from Maryanne at The Colony Cafe about where to put the mosh pit for Tom’s appearance Saturday night.

Tom Pacheco’s annual Labor Day performances at The Colony have been a happy tradition in recent years and he’ll be joined for this round by notable guest accompanists- the inestimable sportswriter, musician, former town supervisor, newspaper editor and frivolous conspirator, Brian Hollander, will be bringing his celebrated dobro; zesty Vern Miller of The Remains will have his stand-up electric bass in tow and former bassist who took the cure and now plays lead guitar, Paul Pacheco, will bend some strings.

The show will kick off Tom’s season-turning schedule- to be followed by appearances at the famous Club Passim in Cambridge; New York City’s People’s Voice Cafe and Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs before he heads for already sold-out bookings all over Scotland and England.

“The first show in Scotland will be at a reputedly haunted castle in Kilmarnock, in ‘Robbie Burns country’, who lived nearby and is to Scotland what Yeats is to Ireland,” Pacheco chuckled as he added that, after entertaining the crowd and a presumably spooky subculture glimpsed only on occasion, he would be sleeping at the thousand-year-old castle. Then, it’s on for a two-week grind of land travel between widely separated daily gigs. Grog willing.

Among new songs Tom plans to debut at the Colony concert will be his song about a chance encounter with Hunter Thompson in the 1970s.

“I didn’t write it until after he died,” Pacheco commented of the song, “because I knew if I didn’t write it then, I’d never have told the story.”

Another song on the playlist he’s never performed live before is “People of Conscience,” which was inspired by a drive-by kiss he felt mystically as he passed a Women In Black anti-war protest on the Village Green near the end of the last century and which was covered by Rick Danko on his posthumously issued Times like These CD. A song eulogizing our old friend Rick, “Light In the Window,” will also be publicly premiered as well a powerful tune from the upcoming album called “Horses.”

What more do you need to know? Be on time.

-Irv Yarg

Irv Yarg is an internationally published observer on cultural and political events who resides in the Hudson Valley area. His analysis of the recent and ongoing musical history of the region will be featured as a part of our coverage of the local scene.

Tom Pacheco, Paul Nelson and The Uptown show….

Kevin Avery

Back in 1976, Paul Nelson tried to sign Tom Pacheco to Mercury Records. For reasons that were commercial — as in “not commercial enough” — he failed. But Paul knew people who knew people and, as a result, Pacheco landed a record deal at RCA. About the first of those albums, 1976’s Swallowed Up in the Great American Heartland, Paul, who by then had left his A&R post at Mercury and returned to criticism, wrote: “Tom Pacheco spent most of his early years listening to wild Texas music in the snowbound towns of Massachussetts, and his songs combine the best from both worlds.”

Last evening, the forty or so people who filled the Uptown Coffeehouse at the Riverdale Society for Ethical Culture discovered that, over thirty years later, Paul’s words still ring true. Pacheco, whose songs have been recorded by the Band, Richie Havens, the great Rick Danko, and Jefferson Starship, performed the first set by himself and the second set with the Bloodlines Band: his amazingly talented guitarist brother Paul Pacheco (who played with Jimi Hendrix and Howlin’ Wolf) and his brother-in-law bassist Vern Miller (whose band Barry and the Remains opened for the Beatles on their final tour).

Pacheco’s quavering voice well serves his songs, which range from the wildly fanciful (“Big Jim’s Honey,” inspired by Sam Love’s novel Electric Honey, wherein the proximity of a beekeeper’s hive to a marijuana patch yields interesting results) to the heartbreakingly real (“Walter,” a worthy successor to John Prine’s “Sam Stone” in the returned-vet-as-damaged-goods genre). Political songs of Guantanamo Bay (“My Name Is Hamir”) and everything that’s wrong with America (“When You’re Back on Your Ranch in Texas”) were balanced by not-so-simple love songs and “The Journal of Graeme Livingstone,” an epic tale of an eighty-nine-year-old Florida hotel-owner who claims he killed Jack the Ripper.

According to Pacheco, Paul Nelson’s early interest and encouragement are the reasons he’s still in music today. A Woodstock residsent, Pacheco now has nineteen albums to his name and tours extensively in Europe. Paul, I think, would be proud.

FolkWax Review of Bloodlines

by Arthur Wood

In early 2005, Tom Pacheco’s beloved father and lifelong guitar teacher, Tony, passed away. Later that year one of his younger brothers, Paul, bassist in Pacheco’s early musical career band The Raggamuffins, survived a long, almost terminal battle with illness. Soon after completing the sessions for this recording Pacheco was rushed into the hospital with a ruptured appendix. A time-served road warrior, poet, and protester of the old school, within weeks of the operation Tom Pacheco undertook his annual U.K. concert tour.

If you’ve gathered from the foregoing that the theme pursued on Bloodlines is family, then you’d be totally on the money. The album was co-produced by Vern Miller (Pacheco’s brother-in-law, one-time bassist, and alumni of Barry Tashian’s 1960s band The Remains) and brother Paul (who plays lead guitar on this album). Also contributing, respectively, harmony vocal and keyboards are Pacheco’s Texas-based sister Patty (for whom he wrote “Swan With A Broken Wing”) and her husband Tony Sanders. Tom Pacheco is of the finest human beings and it’s been my privilege to meet and get to know him. It’s no big surprise that friends as well family have been warmly embraced in this project. On harmony vocals there’s Roland Moussa, the editor of the Woodstock Times with whom Pacheco co-wrote “The Indian Prayer”; Brian Hollander, picks some Dobro; while Paul’s girlfriend Marian Tortorella plays dulcimer. Oh yes, as if further confirmation was required that creativity courses through the Pacheco clan’s veins, there’s a Sue Pacheco Miller painting on the CD case inner tray.

True friendship isn’t affected by time and distance. To me each new Tom Pacheco album is akin to receiving a welcome letter, the contents of which reflect on the latest news both local and international. During the decade 1987-1997, Tom Pacheco lived in Dublin, Ireland. Another decade has almost elapsed since his return to Woodstock in upstate New York and “What Happened To The America I Used To Know?,” the opening cut on Bloodlines, is pretty much self-explanatory. Incorporating reference to “the grassy knoll,” the world’s increasingly apparent environmental woes, the gradual disappearance of “mom-and-pop America,” and the “homeland” theft of personal liberty, it amounts to a cautionary discourse on America circa 2006. Track Two, “I Love The Stars Too Much (To Ever Be Afraid of The Night),” is a personal declaration to live one’s life with vigour and valour.

The Moroccan-born narrator in the eerie, surely-this-happens-in-some-other-universe “My Name Is Hamir” is mysteriously snatched one night, bundled into a white airplane, hobbled by chains, and now wears an orange boiler suit in a place they call Guantanamo. I doubt it’s coincidental that “When You’re Back On Your Ranch In Texas” immediately follows. Disillusioned by the rise and rise of his nations manipulative military industrial complex, towards the close of Bloodlines, “We Are The People” amounts to a call for change – “One day we’ll rise up everywhere/And take back what is ours.”

Turning to personal issues Pacheco delivers the bluesy love song “I Guess I’m Lucky,” while “Every cloud crumbles, tyrants all tumble/The thunder rumbles and then it’s gone/I had forgot this, soaked in a sadness/That paralysed me for so long” launches “Part Of It All,” a lyrically optimistic and melodic number that Pacheco must have wrote for his brother Paul. The latter song stands as a sequel to the earlier “Hang On Little Brother” and the closing “Treasure all of my friends, lift them up when they fall/Make them feel once again, that they’re part of it all” is the killer couplet in this new creation. Recalling the information I imparted at the outset, “Dad’s Gone Now” is a truly heartfelt farewell: “No more birthday cards, Christmas cards or Father’s Day cards to post.” “I Am With You Still,” which follows with “In melodies and precious memories/I am with you still” could be interpreted as a reply to “Dad’s Gone Now.”

The refrain of “Bloodlines” runs to “I’ve been with you a long, long time/You make this old nickel shine/You keep my horizons all in line/Our histories are so entwined/It’s almost like we both share the same bloodlines.” While this is undoubtedly a song written for Pacheco’s beloved Annie, her contribution is “Good Vibes” according to the CD liner, an appealing universal aspect has also been woven into this lyric. Recalling the 1960s in “The Trees” Pacheco employs personification and at the outset enquires “Where are the young trees now?” and adds “Who’ll fight the battles that need to be fought/Pass on the lessons that need to be taught” and concludes “Who will carry on if there’s no one around/As the trees of the sixties begin to fall down.” Melodically, the self-explanatory album closer “Believe In Yourself” is another Blues-based number.

Arthur Wood is a founding editor of FolkWax

Folkwax review of 13 Stones

Arthur Wood

Modern Culture Through the Eyes of Tom Pacheco, (01/04/06)
13 Stones is the fourth episode of Bare Bones & Barbed Wire, a series of back-to-basics “voice, harp and acoustic guitar” recordings that Tom Pacheco first cut on “a hot night in August 1997” as his ten-year-long sojourn as a resident of the Emerald Isle drew to a close. Episodes I – Bare Bones & Barbed Wire and II – The Lost American Songwriter [1999] were two-CD releases featuring songs, old and new, while on the self-released, single disc Episode III – Year Of The Big Wind [2004] Tom presented all new songs. The recently released IV aka 13 Stones pursues the latter formula.
As you might surmise, this collection contains thirteen songs and it opens in Miami on a sun-drenched “South Beach.” The focus is on a sad modern-day seduction, the one where, on thin, surgically tight, tanned bodies, the young (and not so young) hang the latest items of fashion – as Tom attests these fashion conscious converts come from countries near and far to “catwalk down the sand.” Of course you need a considerable chunk of change to feed this affliction. As Tom savagely observes, wear last year’s Gucci shoes and you’ll stick out like a sore thumb in this company. Blinkered by self, the point these people miss is that “The world has drought and hunger/The planet itself is sick/But they don’t want to be bored that/They’re bored enough as it is.” Overseeing “this Babylon of perfect looks” are the ghosts of “fashion” entrepreneurs Versace, Warhol, and Rubell.

Until the closing lines of the final verse of “For What?” Pacheco’s narrator delivers observations on the negative aspects of current day society – marriages that no longer survive till “death do us part,” rigged elections, trash television and the couch potato culture, the environmental degradation of the planet, the needless death of Americans in foreign wars, heartless politicians, industrial pollution, and more, brings the closing, positive statement of intent, “The world is still worth saving/Just needs rearranging/And I’ll struggle to the day I die/I will not say for what/I’ll say that’s why.” Tom Pacheco lost his beloved father, Tony (one of Tony’s paintings adorned the front cover of Bare Bones II – The Lost American Songwriter [1999]), at the outset of 2005, and halfway through the year endured another family crisis. For a time his brother Paul, one year younger than Tom, lay in a Boston hospital bed his life hanging by a thread. “Hang On Little Brother” was written in that Boston hospital and as the song evolves the insistent repetition of the song title becomes a mantra, a prayer, a vote for life to continue. Paul survived the crisis and is pictured with Tom on the inside of the front liner card.
The narrator in “Looking For A Lighthouse” seeks the guidance that will help put his life back in order and save him “From the cliff edge where I cling.” Check out the rear tray picture – a painting actually, as there’s a line toward the close of the song “There’s a flag outside my window tangled in a tree/Cradled in the branches with it’s last breathe of belief.” Augmented by a fiddle accompaniment, the setting for “Memorial Day” is Arlington Cemetery during a parade. The narrator (a recent deceased soldier?) affirms that he would have willingly fought for his country during the American Revolution and in WWII, but clearly indicates that America’s recent military adventures in Vietnam, Somalia, and Iraq have proved to be needless wastes of life. “I did not give my life for my country/My country took my life away.” Pursuing further the increasingly more bleak result of America’s latest military action, an embittered almost twenty-year-old, wheelchair-bound amputee relates his own personal “Nightmare” – one that, in real life, has been repeated over and over and over…daily, and for the last thirty months.
In the wake of the floods that recently engulfed the city, with “Ain’t New Orleans Anymore” we have Tom’s take on the storm and its aftermath. “Why Can’t There Be Peace” is a self-explanatory title and is immediately followed by “Why Can’t I Be Happy” – a savage attack on the media-driven consumerism of the late 20th/early 21st century and the genuine listlessness that owning far too many possessions appears to bring. “Jesusland” is book-ended by the opening lines and melody of “Amazing Grace” and is an indictment of the power of the religious right in 21st century America. “The Reckoning” homes in on the imminent arrival in the West of a bird flu epidemic. Set in a KFC restaurant, the lyric focuses on a character that, according to Tom, is physically reminiscent of a younger Alfred Hitchcock. This look-alike is sat gorging on cooked chicken, but by the close of the song Pacheco attests that the birds will soon wreak revenge. “After A Night Of Heavy Rain” is a prayer directed at America’s politicians in the hope that they will come to their senses. Having, so far, largely featured unremitting doom and gloom, 13 Stones closes on a positive and “very much lighter” note with the sing-a-long “Sunny Road Up Ahead,” a song that seems to me “a ready made” Peter, Paul and Mary in-concert classic.

Arthur Wood is a founding editor of FolkWax

Dirty Linen’s Review of Tom Pacheco’s Rebel Spring

(Frog’s Claw Recordings FCR 002)

Tom Pacheco is, by his own admission, angry. The United States is at war, and American jobs are being lost to foreign interests while citizens working minimum-wage jobs languishing in poverty. It’s enough to stir anger in most anyone. Pacheco’s 19th album, Rebel Spring, offers a bitter declaration of 21st-century America, contrasting with a passionate and obvious love of his country. While the album’s title track may hint at a bit of optimism, Pacheco doles it out in very small doses and is unafraid to challenge his listeners with difficult questions about the world around them. Songs such as “Cheaper in China,” “God and Flag and Country,” “Six Bucks an Hour,” and “Not in My Name” leave little doubt about where Pacheco is coming from and where he believes his country is headed. Backed by guitars, bass, synthesizer, and occasional mandolin, Pacheco’s sound is folk-rock with a weathered enduring edge. (ACE)

Tom Pacheco Rebel Spring Album Review

Sing Out Magazine Vol. 49 #3

Tom Pacheco
Rebel Spring
Frog’s Claw 002

Rebel Spring, veteran singer-songwriter Tom Pacheco’s latest album is a compelling set of mostly-topical songs presented in acoustic-oriented folk-rock settings. Pacheco leads off with the title song which sets the scene for what’s to follow as he observes that much is wrong in the century and looks to his fellow artists – not just songwriters, but painters, poets, even web site pamphleteers – to bring forth the important issues being missed by the mainstream media. In “North Dakota,” Pacheco tells the bleak story of a missing girl who he’s almost come to know via the reports and ‘missing’ posters that he’s seen, and then in “God and Flag and Country,” he sings about John McCall, a soldier killed in the war in Iraq. Then, in “Not in My Name,” he sings directly to George W. Bush and condemns his war policies as an attack on the true spirit of America. In songs like ”Six Bucks an Hour” and “The Last Drop,” Pacheco sings movingly about the working poor and the environmental devastation wrought by greedy corporations in partnerships with uncaring customers.
Perhaps the most interesting song on the album is “Woody and Jack,” in which Pacheco tells the stories of Woody Gutherie’s final cross-country trip in the company of a young Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and then his long hospitalization as his body succumbs to Huntington’s disease. Pacheco based the song on conversations that he’d had with Elliott and Pete Seeger as well as a reading of Joe Klein’s biography of Guthrie.
Many of the songs on Rebel Spring are dark. Their darkness, though, is a reflection of our times, helping us understand the contemporary human condition. Perhaps, also, these songs provide a glimmer of light in the darkness. – MR

Rebel Spring

Arthur Wood

Tom Pacheco’s approach to composition is unique in the world of song poets; one minute his lyrics are frank and factual reproductions of real life events – many of them personal. Then, in a flash, Tom will take you on a journey into the world of “What if?” the results of which sound so genuine that the boundaries between veracity and fantasy become blurred. Examples of both approaches feature on this new release. A Woodstock, New York, resident (once again) these past eight years, Rebel Spring is the fourth Pacheco album to be produced by Band alumnus Jim Weider.

Subjectively, Rebel Spring is Pacheco’s darkest collection ever, a reflection of the troubled times we live in. The economies of the planet’s major nations balance precariously on a knife-edge, cataclysmic climatic changes are becoming apparent across the planet, lawlessness and disorder reign, foreign wars are launched upon a whim, while in the Western world the family unit is disintegrating … it’s time to wake up and smell the roses.

The album title track and opening cut is both a call to arms “Somewhere, we lost the reins of our destiny” and a prayer for the return to an America where fairness and honesty were rigid ethical benchmarks. The latter lyric mentions “the sweet songs of the shepherds we can’t see,” “sweet” being sarcasm, while the shepherd is not good but bad. The same evil character surfaces among “the fools who sent him there” in “God And Flag And Country,” and recounts the homecoming of an American soldier slain in a foreign land.

Penned by the dead soldier and subsequently scattered by the desert wind, the goose bump image in this lyric is of “an unmailed letter” with “bloodstains on the pages” that “no one will read at all.”

“North Dakota” was inspired by the November 2003 (The student’s body was eventually found in April 2004. She had been kidnapped and murdered.) disappearance of student Dru Sjodin. Following conversations with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Pete Seeger, Pacheco, the historian, created “Woody And Jack,” a snapshot of Guthrie’s final east to west road trip across America during 1954 (accompanied by Elliott). Already in the initial grip of Hunnington’s Chorea, as this part factual/part fictional tale evolves, Guthrie disappears for a period of six weeks. Once found, Woody is taken east to begin the final, thirteen-year-long phase of his life as an inmate of Brooklyn and New Jersey hospitals. A heartfelt lyric, “Uncle Joe” also finds himself incarcerated – the resident of an old folks home. The song contains fond recollections from the past and present, delivered by a nephew who obviously dearly loves the old guy. The struggle to exist on minimum wage is the ! focus of “Six Bucks An Hour,” and it’s another instance where Pacheco tongue whips the greed of the corporate beast.

The contents of this collection are not totally black. A while back a young neighbour asked Tom to capture in song “the meaning of life,” and rising to the challenge “That’s What Life Is” is the subjectively uplifting result. With a wink and a broad smile on his face, Tom penned “Freida’s Secret Garden,” the tale of a gracious old lady racked with rheumatism who lives “up in the mountains.” As a way of gaining relief from the pain, Freida grows and smokes her own. The story line includes visits to her home by the local sheriff – fresh out of cigarettes, and former Attorney General John Ashcroft. While the sheriff ends up “talking to the TV set” after smoking some of Freida’s finest, Ashcroft gorges on a plate of brownies and proceeds to dance the Macarena.

Once upon a time countless mill towns thrived in the States, but in this 21st century corporate world they’re mostly gone since manufacturing the same product is now “Cheaper In China.” “Winter Lament” is both a love song and a cry for environmental awareness. Maybe it’s not that hard to imagine – a corporate buyout of all the world’s drinking water resources is the “What if” scenario painted in “The Last Drop.” Niagara has become a dry cliff, the remains of the Titanic appear above the water as the oceans shrink, and plagues of locusts strip the final remnant of greenery from the Earth – I think you get the idea. A narrative concerning a cherished and historic family heirloom, in “Grandma’s Blue Blanket” Pacheco also reflects upon the positives of respect for one’s bloodline and heritage, and the negative issue of racial prejudice during the supposedly pious early twentieth century. The blanket’s blue cloth came from the uniforms of U.S. Cavalry soldiers. In the! closing track, “Not In My Name,” Pacheco calls for a return to honest and transparent government, and in the process invokes the name of the eighteenth century English-born, American independence pamphleteer and campaigner, Thomas Paine.

Tom’s father taught him to play guitar. Tony Pacheco passed away while this recording was being completed. In the liner booklet Tom dedicates this recording to his beloved father, and one of Tony’s paintings appears in the liner artwork. Meantime this recording is available on the web in North America from www.cdbaby.com while European readers of FolkWax can purchase the disc from Fair Oaks Entertainment at Roots2RockMusic.com.

Arthur Wood is a founding editor of FolkWax

Tom Pacheco Rebel Spring Album Review

Sing Out Magazine Vol. 49 #3

Tom Pacheco
Rebel Spring
Frog’s Claw 002

PACHECO DRAWS FROM REBEL SPRING

DAVID DAWSON

Beat Magazine, Australia, PACHECO DRAWS FROM REBEL SPRING
“Everything’s wrong; the winds don’t seem so free / there’s an unease in the
new century.” Rebel Spring, Tom Pacheco

World-weary Woodstock troubadour Tom Pacheco wrote and sang for four decades about famous and infamous characters changing world history. But his own life was decimated when he lost three friends in the World Trade Centre, his mother and then octogenarian father Tony on January 6.

Now, with the release of Pacheco’s 14th album, Rebel Spring (Frog’s Claw) he’s finding solace in song.

“It’s been a horrific two years but I’m back on my feet, fit and ready to fight,” Pacheco, 58, told High In The Saddle. “I wish I could live in a world where I would never have to write a dark song again. But I’d have to be an ostrich, burying my head in the sand to avoid a nightmarish tornado.

Til the last breath I breathe in the real world I expect to be out there in the barricades fighting and hoping for a rebel spring to bring a resurrection of ideals and dignity of true yearning for freedom deeper than the symbols meant to represent it and a kindness and wisdom of spirit to serve as a beacon to a world tortured by cruelty and deception.”

Pacheco, a master storyteller, is the voice of a generation fighting globalisation, greed, pollution, war and sharp spokes of rampant prejudice. He has banished vibrant vignettes about quirky characters living outside the law to a holding pen on this bleak epistle on society’s road to ruin. Instead he predicts an artistic uprising against the forces of evil in his title track entrée as he weaves a tapestry littered with victims of false promises. But his heroes are not insurgent militia armed to the teeth with bombs and guns.

“As troubadours sing with flutes and buglers / you can read revolution here today / in the DNA of the notes they play.”

Pacheco picks through the fabric of a society being torn apart by personalising the plight of displaced workers in Cheaper In China and Six Bucks An Hour, cannon fodder in God And Flag And Country and protest at fear driven political manipulation in Not In My Name. He details the struggles of Woody Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Pete Seeger, armed with songs of change, in Woody And Jack.

“His weathered old guitar the only weapon he could use / the songs he wrote so easily they came five at a time/ the golden well he drew from, a now a dust storm in his mind / twelve times he was arrested, in a span of just six weeks / for drunkenness and vagrancy / no one knew of his disease.” And his fears of a global crisis when the water supply is privatised is lampooned in The Last Drop “exploding populations turned the wetlands into malls / as people drove their Hummers without any shame at all.”

He tempers the plight of nursing home prisoners with poignant passion in the punch line of Uncle Joe “I pray when I’m that age / and turning the last page / I’m not trapped in a cage / I drop dead on a stage.” Pacheco uses Grandma’s Blue Blanket to trace a family thread from Custer’s Battle Of The Little Big Horn to his rebirth at Woodstock.

But there is a healthy dose of humour in Frieda’s Secret Garden where he reverts to farce to deliver his message on alternate uses of hemp. A wood chopping octogenarian uses the herb superb to ease the pain in her shoulders, legs and back from chopping wood. And she feeds homegrown brownies to a terrorist-chasing FBI agent who “ate them until he was well fed / he started dancing the Macarena / and quoting from the Grateful Dead.”

The listener becomes aware of superb production by Jim Weider, a member of The Band who also cut Pacheco songs. Weider plays guitars, dobro and mandolin and harmonises on a disc that features Meg Johnson on harmony, bassist Steve Rust, Bruce Milner’s keyboards and Pacheco on guitar and harmonica.

DAVID DAWSON enjoys repeats of Nu Country TV four times weekly on C31 and dreams of a level radio playing field for unsung heroes such as Pacheco. Further info: www.nucountry.com.au. Dawson is reached saddle@alphalink.com.au

Tom Pacheco , There was a time

Steven Hunt

There was a Time is latest chapter in the recording career of the grizzled troubadour whose first album was released way back in 1964. During all those years, Pacheco has “always looked to what’s next, not what’s been. This year was different…” In the twelve months leading to the writing and recording of this CD, the artist lost three friends in the World Trade Center attack, five close friends in untimely deaths, saw the passing of his mother and the physical incapacitation of his father.

Pacheco states in the liner notes, “Most of the songs in this collection reflect the year I have lived through. They are not meant to be depressing. On the contrary, there are glimmerings of hope and spiritual resurrection in all of them.” Not, one suspects, the easiest of albums to make then, and (despite the reassurances quoted above) the initial impression is that this won’t be easy to listen to, either. This is an album with a unifying theme running through it, but it isn’t primarily one of sadness and loss. Mostly, it’s about time.

Pacheco shrewdly bids for his audience’s attention by opening the CD with a new recording of “Indian Prayer (The Land I Love).” It’s one of his best known and most optimistic songs, which was covered by Richie Havens as long ago as 1974. It’s an arresting performance, which showcases the singer’s weathered, unaffected vocal style to great effect. Pete Seeger adds both his trademark, heart-skipping banjo, and a sense of validation through his very presence.

“If I Could Come Back” ushers in the album’s mood of sadness and resignation while delivering on that promise of “glimmerings of hope.” It’s a sparse, atmospheric arrangement with bass, lap steel, pad and drums behind the voice. “Broken Piano” explores the theme of lost love through an intriguing account of an abandoned piano. The instrument was used by (an unnamed) songwriter to compose a hit love song in the sixties. When the object of his affections left, he left the grand piano “in the heart of the desert,” where it stands as a home for rattlesnakes to this day. The song is a beautifully observed comment on this extraordinary emotional gesture, while the piano is described as “a shrine or a tombstone, depending on your point of view.” Scott Petito’s performance on fretless bass is particularly noteworthy in this arrangement.

“Butterfly,” is another true tale of a passionate individual doing something extraordinary. In this song we’re introduced to an environmental protester whose commitment to saving trees from the developers chainsaws led to her living for two years in the uppermost branches of a redwood. “What About Us,” is about workers who suddenly find themselves unemployed when a large company goes bankrupt. The booklet notes that accompany each song were written by Irv Yarg who observes that this song illustrates that “there is a difference between loss and theft.” The song is sung in the “voice” of one of the workers who notes “at 65 my family would be fine when I retired, ’til the day I got a voice mail telling me that I was fired.” The final line is “out in the Cayman Islands, or in Switzerland somewhere, there’s seven billion dollars for the boys in suits to share.” Pacheco firmly nails his own colours to the mast with the worker’s rueful comment “I should have voted for Ralph Nader.”

“There Was a Time” is a somewhat melancholy catalogue of society’s “ills” and a yearning for “the good old days” of yesteryear. For a man who states in his introductory notes “I have never liked nostalgia, it depresses me,” Pacheco sails perilously close to that cold, harsh wind here. However, there’s a definite impression that this was a “necessary” song for the artist to write, and there’s an honesty in the process of diagnosing the sickness before even attempting to prescribe a cure.

“Provincetown” (track seven), and “Saint Christopher and the Cornfield” (track ten), are songs that deal with the passing of friends and loved ones. There are plenty of past joys among the sadness, and while these are clearly autobiographical songs, Pacheco uses his enormous songwriting skills to articulate the emotions of anyone who has experienced similar losses. Sadly, but realistically, that means pretty much all of us, doesn’t it? “What We Left Behind,” is, in many ways, the follow-up song to “There Was a Time.” Here, rather than dwelling on the better time of the past, Pacheco looks for healing solutions in our use of time day to day. Making time for our families and taking time to get to know our neighbours rather than each family spending time watching TV are just two examples of the approach that he advocates. In short, he’s making an addendum to the old, ecological maxim “think globally, act locally,” by adding “and prioritise your time better.” “Heroes,” is a tribute to all those whose timely interventions in unexpected situations renders them timeless. The song briefly records individual acts of heroism by various people, (a fireman, a police woman, a trucker, a priest and others), before concluding with a verse about the passengers of flight 93, who overcame their terrorist hijackers and prevented the airplane reaching its intended target.

The CD closes with “You Will Never Be Afraid Again,” The journey that Pacheco has charted to this point of the album may have been one of sadness, anger, fear, loss and longing, but somehow all of that merely serves to vindicate the optimism of this final song. When Tom Pacheco declares “you will realise you’re not paralysed, from a well inside, a strength will rise,” you know that you’re listening to someone whose life and art are inseparable, and a singer who knows that the art of song writing is something more than putting together words that rhyme and setting them to a tune.

One of Pacheco’s many astute observations on this album is that too often a person’s success is measured by their level of “celebrity,” rather than the manner in which they live their lives. Tom Pacheco may not be a “star” in the MTV sense, but he shines like a supernova across the eleven songs on this complex, substantial and yes, “timely” piece of work. This isn’t an album with immediate, superficial “appeal,” though it definitely “grows” on the listener and reveals more of itself with each play, nor will it sit comfortably on most radio programmers play lists.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve been impressed by a “difficult” release from Appleseed Recordings, and this label company deserves a huge round of applause for releasing this CD. If their support of artists like Tom Pacheco results in their voices reaching a wider audience, then that too is about time.

Tom Pacheco’s Mountain of Songs

Gary Alexander

Maybe the planet’s largest kaleidoscope isn’t the one at Catskill Corners in Shandaken. Maybe it’s the one through which Woodstock songwriter Tom Pacheco views the world.

On his last three albums alone, two of them double CDs, Pacheco has given us more angles on everyday life than a jeweler could cut into a diamond. His box of visions is even more bulging than the swollen campaign chest of George “dub-ya.” Pacheco, who makes a rare local appearance tonight at Rosendale Cafe, brings perspectives of the world beyond the grasp of many of the most imaginative of today’s songsters into the reach of a guitar-driven tempo.

Rampaging through the works of today’s most revered and prolific songwriters, nowhere do we find quite the range of subject matter and concept than we see in Pacheco’s cascading output. Taking a look at just a few of the 77 songs presented on those three albums, we meet John Wilkes Booth fleeing from the scene of the crime; the would-be rescuer of a woe-be-gone racehorse, condemned like an old house; Beat icon Neal Cassady, who just happened to be there, wherever it was; mystery-wrapped bluesman Robert Johnson; the cast-off and ageing “main squeezes” of rock stars; a soul-sucking reverend; an edgy adulterer from Youngstown; Van Gogh’s landlord; George Armstrong Custer; the busboy who cradled the head of a dying Robert Kennedy and numerous other everyday heroes, losers, lovers and cads.

Pacheco, like many other artists, can charm with romance, tug with poignancy and amuse with wit but who else could or would write a fascinating song about sand or the characteristics of a single tear from the eye of a woman? Who else would stage a jailbreak from heaven or know the deepest secrets of a Vietnam vet killed in a holdup? Pacheco makes us feel the numbness of a disaster victim with a CNN microphone in her face, the annual silent awe inspired by the season’s first blanket of snow, the liberating force in having “crazy eyes,” the smothering emotions of a touring successful author’s encounter with her married high school sweetheart. These are intricate and delicate themes, common to this remarkable songster’s outlook, handled adroitly with distinctive and assertive grace.

A once-and-future Woodstocker who returned from a decade’s stay in Dublin several years ago, Pacheco is perhaps better known in Europe, where he still plays more frequently than he does here. His albums are consistently raved about in the foreign press and one of them, The Lost American Songwriter, draws its title from a reviewer’s puzzled reference to him as one of America’s unrecognized masters–(what’s the matter with those yanks?) Pacheco’s reaction, in the album’s title song, features a nondescript songwriter perusing a new town for places to play, not with bitterness but with a sense of privilege which is both humble and touchingly genuine.

Although one of Tom’s Australian reviewers recently observed that his music is “ignored by the feeble fuehrers who program the hits and memories mausoleums of the unlucky radio country,” Pacheco does receive airplay from livelier stations and well-deserved respect from his fellow musicians. Numerous artists in both Europe and America have recorded his work, including The Band on their last album, Jubliation, and even Bob Dylan was reportedly covering his “Midnight Waters of the Rio Grande” last year on a European tour. The record-holder for Pacheco-covers, however, is Norwegian star Steinar (pronounced stainer’) Albrigtsen, a household name in Oslo whose recordings consistently “go platinum” and who has included no less than 34 of his songs on albums, including one they recorded together in 1993. As this is written three record companies are bidding for a proposed follow-up to be recorded in Woodstock this Fall.

“Steinar wanted us to put down the basic tracks in a studio on a little Greek island you have to get to by boat from Samos Island,” Pacheco laughs, recalling the exercises of logic he employed to persuade Albrigtsen otherwise. “He had vacationed there this summer and told everyone it was a terrible place so it wouldn’t be discovered’ and spoiled by tourists.”

With Albrigtsen due to arrive next week to begin work on the project, The Rosendale Cafe’s Mark Morganstern, who is earning a reputation for attracting some of the finest contemporary talent from all over the country, sagely opened a local window wherein we can catch this extraordinary artist warming up for the climb. Some new songs are always a certainty at a gig by someone sitting on a mountain of notebooks full of unrecorded gems and still haunted daily by his ever-active muse. Singer Tao Rodriguez was anxious to capture some for his own repetoire when he first heard Tom perform just before Tao’s grandfather, Pete Seeger, went on at the Clearwater Corn Festival in Beacon last week. Rodriguez knew a place near where he lived in Nicaragua called “Bluefields,” which is also the title of a dazzling Pacheco song about the quest for true values in life. And who wouldn’t want to string jewels on their necklace that gleam with the sheer exhilaration of living like Pacheco’s “Fly With the Lightning” or tone with the chilling caution of “a place cursed by Pawnees” like the glance of a woman in his tune “Jessica Brown.”

Pacheco commands the passions of revenge, pangs of remorse and yearning, knots of twisted irony and an imagination that allows Adolf Hitler to meet Billy the Kid or an alien abduction to rescue the grandfather of Muddy Waters from the Klan. When other artists unload a bright and mindless escape to the countryside, Pacheco looks closer and sees a “soggy, foggy field of listless cows.” ANYTHING can happen in a song by Tom Pacheco. Come and see.

-Gary Alexander

Gary Alexander is an independent journalist and scholar whose focus of interests range through a variety of disciplines. Under various names, he has written (and ghost written) upon history and current event; science and technology, as well as music and the arts in books and for national periodicals. While particularly attentive to the subtle and complex impact upon cultural imagination and contemporary structures of presumption which activity in the above mentioned topics tend to have, Alexander treats his topics with a slightly more than occasional resort to humor.

A review written for the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange

Moshe Benarroch

Appleseed Recodings is dedicated to exploring the roots and branches of folk and world music, and sowing the seeds of social justice through music. These are the words we find in every release by this label, and it is just obvious and natural that veteran singer songwriter Tom Pacheco releases a CD with Appleseed records.

Pacheco started his career in the 60’s, in the US., but never really received more than a few lines in the history of American folk. He was “just” another new Dylan roaming the streets of Greenwich Village, getting a record deal here and there and disappearing for long periods and then reappearing again. He wandered to Europe and became a household name in Ireland, and a maker of hits and Top 10 CD’s in Scandinavia. Many of his CD’s are only available from U.K. small labels, or from even harder to find Scandinavian labels.

Mercury Records tried to re-launch his American career in the United States without success. So it is good to see that a small label is releasing another CD, in which America will be able to hear the mastership of one of its finest folk singer-songwriters; a songwriter of 2,500 songs, a collaborator of the Band, covered by Jefferson Airplane, and one of the longest careers in folk history.

I cannot tell you exactly how many records Pacheco has released, but I think that his peak is the two double sets Bare Bones Vol. 1 and 2 (on the UK The Road Goes On Forever label), in which he sings with his guitar 64 songs recorded in a minimum time, directly into a microphone without editing or overdubbing. He has also collaborated with Steinar Albrigtsen for two very successful CD’s, and has countless others you may want to look for on the web or in used CD stores.

There was a Time is a rather acoustic project, with very little drums, more folky than many of his more folk-rock oriented CD’s. The CD shows a strong influence of Irish songwriters, like Luka Bloom, Christy Moore, Jimmy Macarthy and others, but his Dylanesque voice still keeps his music clearly in American folk territory. His social comments have changed from the “power to the people” of the hippies to the social discrepancies of globalization. The wars are not in Vietnam these days but in New York, and the heroes are everyday people from Flight 93 on September 11. There is a very strong feeling of the mess in which the world is today, and that our hopes for a better future have to change drastically.

Pacheco can very well stand in a line of great folk singers, ranging from Woody Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Pete Seger, and Bob Dylan. There is nothing that makes him less relevant or important than them, except the demands of capitalist culture. Artistically he ranks very high, and with a similar career and fate as the great Eric Andersen.

Europe has already discovered and rediscovered the greatness of Tom Pacheco. There Was A Time is a lyrical and touching project and Pacheco is at his best. It’s a great place for the American audience to start listening to one of its best hidden treasures.

Tom Pacheco honors Al Aronowitz with a heartfelt tribute

Al Aronowitz

On a shelf of my apartment in Elizabeth, New Jersey is one of the works of art I treasure enough to have preserved it through my hazardous journey from refuge to refuge as I was fending off an army of demons to safely arrive at my present age of 76. The work of art is a wine bottle with a rural winter landscape painted on it by a neighbor of mine when I was a refugee in Bearsville.

Bearsville, a tiny community still within the municipal constraints of the town of Woodstock, New York, was then dominated by the presence of the late Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan’s brilliant original manager—the one who guided Bob to stardom. Albert had rescued me from the welfare rolls of Washington, D.C. and allowed me to take refuge—rent free!—in one of the houses he owned in Bearsville.

The neighbor was a talented artist and singer-songwriter named Tom Pacheco, who has since emerged as one of those destined for the singer-songwriter pantheon now ruled by King Bob and Queen Joni. At my Booksigning Party at the Bearsville Theater last June 4, Tom came and sang me some of his songs. Listening along with me was my old friend, Levon Helm, who’d been the drummer for my once-favorite group, The Band from Big Pink.

Listening also was my friend Babu from India. Who found Tom’s songs so compelling that he felt forced to accompany Tom, playing percussion on his khamak, a strange, stringed Bengali Baul drum. Only a small crowd showed up at my Bearsville Booksigning party. Of which Albert’s widow, Sally Grossman—however absent—played hostess, providing wine served by her old man, Michael Word.

But friends who failed to show told me they’d been confused by an article in the local newspaper that said the Booksigning Party was to be held a day later than it actually was held. And in its review of my book, BOB DYLAN AND THE BEATLES, VOLUME ONE OF THE BEST OF THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST, the article actually had the nerve to imply that I was the one who needed an editor!

Anyway, at one point, Tom read the following, which he said he’d written before arriving at the Bearsville Theater event, and I’d like to share it with you. —Al Aronowitz

I’m really honored and proud to be here in the presence of Al Aronowitz. I’m in the presence of a man who has been a living hologram of the musical culture of this planet for decades. For anyone who is too young to remember, there was a time when he was writing for the New York Post; when he was the most perceptive and taste-making journalist in New York. The New York Post in that era was not the right wing rag it is now. It was the closest mainstream New York paper we had that tilted left of center. Al’s column had a lot to do with that. When Al reviewed an artist, he wrote with the voice of a poet that often times was far more brilliant than the artist he was favorably reviewing. If the artist was bad or mediocre, you would know it in the subtlety of his writing without him writing anything malicious or cruel

You could trust his opinion. You could trust his heart. You could trust his ear. Without Al, the New York music scene would not have been as imaginative and innovative as it was. He was the Third Eye watching over everything. You could not get away with bullshit like you can now.

When Al walked into a club, people would notice. . . You could hear people’s voices whispering, “Al Aronowitz is here. . . Al is here!” What more could you say? He introduced Dylan to the Beatles.

I remember myself as a young struggling songwriter, still learning my craft and knowing I wasn’t very good, hoping he would never come to where I was performing—not that I feared I would get a bad review, but that I would disappoint him. That’s how much I respected him.

Without Al’s voice, there is a massive void in popular culture where nowadays journalists try to get you to love the things you hate and hate the things you love.

Al has a new book out. Al could write a thousand books. Al could tell you a million stories. He knows where all the bodies are buried. Al knows art cause he’s an artist. There’s no one like him and there never will be.

Buy his book!

Tom Pacheco: There was a Time

Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., All Music Guide

Tom Pacheco is an artist with something to say. Somewhere between a singer/songwriter and a protest singer, he concerns himself with issues ranging from the brevity of life to the environment. When the album opens with, “Under a plain smothered by shopping malls,” many listeners will feel comfortable pegging Pacheco as another left-leaning folksinger with good — though unrealistic — intentions. The remainder of the song, however, reads more like a poem, offering a prosaic rendering of the streams, grass, and sun of the plains, combining lyricism with politics. In “If I Could Come Back,” the singer wishes for no more than to return as a “summer night,” while “What We Left Behind” longs for a simpler way of living, one more connected to community and less connected to the television. Even when Pacheco wears his heart on his liberal sleeve, he adds a poetic touch to his compositions. “Butterfly” immortalizes Julia Hill’s two-year struggle to save old-growth redwoods, while “Heroes” speaks more generally about the need for contemporary champions. Most of these tracks are simply arranged with pianos and guitars offering a gentle underpinning to Pacheco’s poignant lyrics. When a track utilizes a noisy drum kit as on “What About Us,” it’s to emphasize the angry lyric. While political progressives will no doubt be attracted to Pacheco’s committed vision, anyone who enjoys good music and expressive lyrics will also want to pick up a copy. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., All Music Guide

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

Reviving Folk Tradition Tom Pacheco at The Colony, May 25

Story by Gary Alexander

Pete Seeger was eating a bowl of breakfast cereal in the kitchen of his home outside of Beacon last week when Tom Pacheco arrived with a crew of two to record the legendary folksinger’s contribution to Tom’s forthcoming album.

At 83, Seeger was bright, alert and filled with stories to share as the album’s producer, Scott Petito, and studio organizer Beth Reineke set up digital recording equipment in Pete’s living room. The pair’s target was the capture of that fabled Seeger banjo on two of the album’s tracks; “Indian Prayer”- an older Pacheco song covered by Richie Havens on his Mixed Bag 2 album but never before recorded by Tom and “What We Left Behind”- an uptempo alert on the cultural state of the nation which will likely be heard at The Colony in Woodstock when Tom plays there Saturday night.

Recently returned from a tour of England and Scotland comprised of 14 shows and a benefit for a mountain rescue foundation in Northwest Britain, Pacheco settled into a breakfast nook with the always active Seeger, his wife Toshi, and fellow performer Roland Mousaa. Over the kitchen table, Seeger spoke of his early days with The Weavers; of his first meeting with Woody Guthrie at age 20; of the initial emergence of “This Land Is Your Land” as a classic-to-be in surprising venues like children’s books; of the pre-McCarthy Era blacklist in the late 1940’s; of music and politics; of kings and cabbages…

Seeger aired his opinions about the unprecedented powers of the Bush administration and George Dubya’s role as “frontman for huge international corporations.” He saw today’s right-wing powers as meticulously organized and well-financed in comparison to opposition on the left- which he described as splintered and squabbling. He bemoaned portents as disturbing as anything you might read on emperorsclothes.com or thatsonofabush.com. As well-read, insightful and intelligent an observer of world event as in days of youth, Pete Seeger continues to maintain a vigorous interest in current affairs.

When conversation turned to Tom’s father, Tony Pacheco, a painter and visual artist as well as a musician who played with Django Reinhardt in his heyday, Seeger reached for his banjo and smiled; “Here’s one your father might like…”

Seeger then preceded into a lively version of the 40’s standard “Blue Skies,” playing chords and melody simultaneously and demonstrating that, although the years may have taken a bit of a toll on his singing voice, his musicianship was still at top notch.

“He was right. My father would have loved it. He played that tune himself,” Pacheco reflected with glee. It was a pinch-me moment for Tom. Here was the man who wrote the chords to the first folk song he ever played on guitar, preparing to add his charismatic expertise to Tom’s own songs. He found Seeger’s enthusiasm for what he had written gratifying and humbling.

An incredibly prolific songwriter, Pacheco gathered sixty songs from his more recent notebooks to consider for inclusion on the new album. After paring selections down to about 25 possibilities, he brought them to producer Scott Petito at NRS Recording Studio in Catskill to deliberate on their compatibility. Petito, a multi-instrumentalist whose reputation as an album producer has been on an upward spiral in the past decade, offered his input and ideas and, after several sessions, the list was down to 16 and, finally, 12.

Among musicians recruited to the project include Jay Unger, The Band’s Richard Bell and Jimmy Weider, Leslie Ritter, Kevin Maul and, of course, on a wide variety of instruments- Scott Petito.

Tom, with the models who helped create a sense of gaiety in times past for the perspective back cover of There Was A Time.

A key song in the collection, beyond the breath-taking title track “There was a Time,” concerns the plight of lower-tier employees of a large corporation which went bankrupt after upper management had urged underlings to invest heavily in company stock. Featuring some of the most dazzlingly brilliant percussive work we’ve heard in years by Jerry Marotta- a West Shokan drummer known internationally for his work with Indigo Girls and a number of other high-profile acts- the song, “What About Us,” is of course a fantasy which couldn’t happen in the real world. Rest easy, folks.

Another stand-out track tells the story of Julia “Butterfly” Hill, who climbed high into a California redwood and stayed there stubbornly in an effort to save it from an “old-growth” lumbering company. Riding on a melody that stays with you long after the song is done, Pacheco’s salute to the “counterculture” heroine nonetheless carries a message which undoubtedly would have caused record executives at mega-corporations some hesitation about releasing it. That factor is another part of this story.

In an age when diversity of opinion, once prized as essential to democratic principles, has become an increasingly endangered option in the face of corporate mega-media, today’s singer-songwriters must confront a “chill factor” which doesn’t even have to be spoken. If it were voiced aloud, it would sound like “When you sing, try not to say anything meaningful or critical… Take my advice, kid, keep it to the birds and bees… Otherwise, it’s not going to get played.”

With a handful of companies, often interlocked in partnerships, owning and controlling music labels, radio stations, movie studios, magazines, book companies, television and cable networks, Internet companies, newspapers and other sources of information and entertainment worldwide, there are ever fewer outlets for artists not signed into the combine. Program lists at radio stations are the rule and, when the company’s interests are logged into promoting their own properties and standards, competing viewpoints need not apply.

Tom Pacheco’s last American album, Woodstock Winter, was released on the Mercury label in 1997. Although he has recorded in Europe since then, (including two double-CDs in England and a fine joint effort with Norway’s celebrated Steinar Albrigtsen), since the Mercury release- critically attributed with a near “classic” status since its appearance- U.S. companies have not exactly beaten a path to his door. Between the time it was recorded and its release date, Mercury was acquired by the Polygram Corporation and, although it may be difficult to prove conclusively, many involved in the album feel they have cause to suspect that higher executives at Polygram felt its songs had too much to say and “privished” it.

As Kristina Borjesson defines “privishing” in her recent and vital book “Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press,” it is a way of suppressing a work without appearing to by installing publication limitations to insure curtailed exposure. Such practices give lip service to concepts of free speech. Fortunately, a small, independent but internationally distributed label, Appleseed, will be releasing There Once Was A Time in August. The label, which also carries albums by Tom Paxton, former Woodstocker Eric Andersen, John Stewart, Dick Gaughan and other songwriters of high regard, demonstrates the courage of its convictions by continuing to air views which might furrow the standard corporate brow.

The Pacheco playlist contains tunes which address the human situation with tenderness and humor. They are typically thoughtful, imaginative and moving. Do they contain dangerous ideas? Ask yourself “dangerous to whom?” and don’t wait until August to hear examples of this powerful new collection. Be at The Colony on Saturday night…

-Gary Alexander

Folk Music Leeds: Tom Pacheco

This is the man who went off to see Jack Kerouac as a teenager after reading his book “On The Road”, and he’s never been off the road himself since, writing and singing his own songs for the past thirty years, and passing through Leeds at The Grove …. He has a fan club in Britain and Wayne Stote edits the magazine, which contains articles, news and reviews and comment on Tom’s music. Contact Wayne through us if you’re interested.

Wayne writes: “He doesn’t play many folk clubs so that we were delighted to have him at the Grove for the second successive year. We were sold out. People came from far and wide, Preston, Leicester and Barnsley specially for Tom, and by the time 8.30pm came around the room was buzzing with anticipation. An array of talented singers both regular and occasional visitors whetted our appetites before Tom took the stage to tumultuous applause.Tom is a story teller: from heart-rending pin-drop moments of Angel to the comedy Sci-Fi of Birdseye Heaven we were gived a magical mystery tour of the human condition.”

And Sean Ruffel, who would like to follow on the same path as Tom, “You could see it in his eyes before he even played a note!”