A Beloved Troubadour Dies

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I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m moving but I’m standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear the murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there
— “Not Dark Yet,” Sung by Jimmy LaFave, Written by Bob Dylan

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Jimmy LaFave, a beloved singer-songwriter with an ethereal voice and a faithful following, died Sunday of cancer, just three days after a sold-out tribute concert at Austin’s Paramount Theatre. LaFave curated the concert, picking the performers and songs. Then, in a wheel chair and on an oxygen machine, he performed “Goodnight Irene” as the finale. It is doubtful there was a dry eye in the house.

As I write this, I’m listening to “Cimarron Manifesto,” arguably LaFave’s finest album and the first one I bought 10 years ago. As with nearly all his 15 albums, he recorded a Bob Dylan tune, “Not Dark Yet.” He was a grand interpreter of Dylan’s songs; my favorite is LaFave’s version of “A Simple Twist of Fate.” It is haunting.

LaFave, who died two months short of his 62nd birthday, was originally from Stillwater, Okla., and was known as the founder of Red-Dirt music — named for the soil of his native state and its mixture of a number of genres — blues, rock, country, folk, and that amorphous category, Americana. LaFave was a devoted fan of Woody Guthrie and performed often at the folk festival named after the famed songwriter and author of “This Land is Your Land.”

LaFave only recently revealed he had terminal cancer, a form of sarcoma in his lungs. For months, LaFave continued to perform as the cancer devastated his body — but not his will to perform. As another writer put it after watching him play at the Woody Guthrie festival in early May, “He looks cancer straight in the eye, then sings beyond it. He has taken us to the most vulnerable place in his heart and touched the deepest truth.”

He was beloved in the Austin music community, where he lived for more than three decades. He soon became one of the city’s best-known musicians, playing countless concerts at modest venues, such as Threadgills and Shady Grove. His singing style was strikingly unique, whether he was knocking out a cover of a Joe South tune or one of his own sparely written ballads. I read somewhere that LaFave never used a set list at a concert. He simply gauged the mood of the crowd and let his intuition take over. His repertoire was immense, and the music came from somewhere deep within him.

I only saw him perform live once, with my Beautiful Mystery Companion at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar in Austin seven or eight years ago. His performance was magical, transfixing, his love of music and intensity washing over the crowd. I wish I had seen him perform more than once — several near-misses over the years — but am grateful for that single opportunity.

Ten years ago, I popped “Cimarron Manifesto” into my truck’s CD player for the first time. The third song came on: “This Land,” written by LaFave and clearly in the Woody Guthrie tradition. The song begins:

Life is hard
Times are tough
And the ones who have too much
Seem to never get enough
Traveling through this land
Children dying
On some foreign soil
For God’s sake won’t you tell me
What is all this fighting for
Traveling through this land
It’s the only thing I know
To say my friends
I simply want my country back again

That morning, I had to pull over as tears filled my eyes, and I couldn’t safely see to drive.
Thank you, Jimmy.

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