My Days of 58 is the latest record from singer-songwriter Bill Callahan. What does this record show? It is not only a document, but, as the title states, also an accounting of Callahan at a certain age, portraying who he is as a writer, a musician, a father, a partner, and a human being at a specific moment in time. He joins us to discuss a recent cancer scare, repetition, and visiting his musical heroes in his dreams.
Category: Bill Callahan
Bill Callahan :: Resuscitate!
Last year Bill Callahan brought Jim White along on a series of tour dates to make his intricate songs more visceral, and even just with drums, it worked extremely well. This live recording of a March 2023 show in Chicago takes that augmentation a step further. For this single show, Callahan added not just White but Austin guitarist Matt Kinsey, Chicago free jazz saxophonist Nick Mazzerella, the Congolese singer Pascal Kerong’A, keyboard player Nathaniel Ballinger and the core of Natural Information Society in Joshua Abrams and Lisa Alvarado. The set leans heavily on songs from YTILAER—seven out of ten tracks are drawn from that most recent studio album—but expands and unpacks them to the extent that you may feel that you’ve never heard them before.
Joan Shelley & Bill Callahan :: Amberlit Morning
Joan Shelley’s sixth lp, The Spur, is set to drop June 24th via longtime label partner, No Quarter Records. “Amberlit Morning”, a duet with Bill Callahan, is the second taste, accompanied by a video shot in Red Hook, Brooklyn by Cyrus Moussavi and Brittany Nugent.
Bill Callahan :: Cowboy
For the track “Cowboy”, off last year’s Gold lp, Callahan tagged up with filmmakers Anthony Gasparro and Mikey Kampmann to bring the song to visual life.
Below, we flip the script as Callahan catches up with the pair to discuss their working relationship, storytelling, synchronicity, rippling kindness and the power of the tuna melt as edible nostalgia.
Bill Callahan :: The AD Interview
June 14th marked the return of Bill Callahan, via his latest record — the double lp, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest. One of our favorite listens this year, we asked singer/songwriter Jerry David DeCicca to catch up with the artist on our behalf as they embarked a short west coast tour together. Their conversation, below …
Bill Callahan :: Tiny Desk Concert
Some friends and I drove out to the desert last week to see Bill Callahan who is presently touring behind his latest LP, Dream River . Yet another outstanding work, from […]
Bill Callahan :: Dream River
Dream River is a display of Callahan’s peak powers, a masterpiece work documenting Callahan’s aesthetic as a refined craft. Over his 20 plus years of making music, his voice has matured, […]
Bill Callahan :: So long, Marianne (Leonard Cohen)
Bill Callahan’s dark country & western croon takes on “ So long, Marianne ,” the opening track off side two of Leonard Cohen’s 1968 debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen . Slowing things down, Callahan and co. eschew the […]
Bill Callahan :: Apocalypse
“Once Bill was making extremely forward statements from behind a veil. Now he’s making veiled statements from a forward position. He’s fundamentally the same person, but stylistically almost everything has […]