Jim Ford

Odds are you have never heard of Jim Ford. But Ford, as they say, is the man.

Don’t take my word for it. Those who cite him as an influence or collaborator include Nick Lowe and Bobbie Gentry. It is a short list of musicians who qualify as Deluxe Cracker: white guys brimming with such soulfulness that their music transcends race and easy shorthand musical genres. The Band, Tony Joe White, Joe South, Delaney Bramlett and Eddie Hinton are a few of that exclusive club, and among them Ford’s recorded output remains the most meager. A single album, Harlan County, and a few 45s scattered among small record labels back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s is all there is in Ford’s name.

Leave it to German label Bear Family to revive the Gospel According to Jim Ford. The Sounds of Our Time compiles Harlan County with scattered singles and previously unreleased tracks. And the story the liner notes tell of tracking down Ford could be a movie for its twists and turns.

Yet it is Ford’s music that draws the listener in. Reflecting on his hardscrabble upbringing in Kentucky where he trekked over to neighbor Loretta Lynn’s house to listen to the radio, to a stretch living rough in New Orleans where that city’s sound got under his skin, to ending up in Hollywood where he tried his hand at the music biz to largely deaf ears, The Sounds of Our Time takes the listener on an epic journey.

The crossroads of country and R&B is Ford’s home turf. While some of the songs seem autobiographical (“Harlan County,” “Working My Way to L.A.” ), Ford also invests himself fully in tunes that point to a social conscience without ever dipping into the maudlin. Ford’s original “36 Inches High” – later covered by Nick Lowe – is here, but what we don’t get is equally intriguing.

Lowe’s old group, Brinsley Schwarz, recorded Ford’s epic “I’ll Be Ahead If I Can Quit While I’m Behind” and Ford is also the uncredited author of Bobbie Gentry’s Southern-noir classic “Ode to Billie Joe.” Neither of these gems are included. But the liner notes allude to boxes of unreleased material by Ford at his trailer park home in rural northern California. Let’s hope for a second volume. VS