Can-Con 45 Of The Day - September 24

[radiofan]

Today's Can-Con 45 is from 1981 ... From his Talk Memphis LP, it's Jesse Winchester and "Say What" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_n6dGS-4CA

[Richard Skelly]

Talk Memphis was Jesse Winchester's last album on the boutique WEA or Warner Music-distributed Bearsville imprint. And it spawned his biggest U.S. hit Say What. Peaking at #32 on Billboard, Say What surpassed his previous chart outing, Nothing But A Breeze (#86). Talk Memphis was recorded in that Southern city at Royal Recording Studio with Willie Mitchell (of Al Green acclaim) producing.

Hard to say if Jesse's Bearsville contract expired. Or whether his leisurely pace of songwriting simply meant that he was suddenly minus a label when Bearsville closed up shop in 1984. Two years later, Bearsville's owner--legendary-notorious Albert Grossman--passed away.

The American-turned-Canadian-citizen's next album, Humour Me (note the Canuck spelling) didn't emerge until 1988 on Attic Records up here and folk-roots Sugar Hill stateside. All Jesse's Bearsville albums were re-released several years later by Edmonton-based Stony Plain.

Granted amnesty under the Carter administration, Jesse was able to tour America for more than two decades before moving to Memphis in 2002. US fans knew him as much for popular covers of songs like Rhumba Man as for Jesse-only tunes. He died in Charlottesville, Virginia on April 11, 2014.