Album Notes

Monday, May 22, 2006


Tim Bryant Is A Four Letter Word

We have just re-released my debut CD, Tim Bryant Is A Four Letter Word.
It came out originally in the fall of 1998, a year or two before Dave Sharp cristened me 2Take Tim. The title got some quizzical looks, but those who knew me had a laugh. I'm not about to suggest that I hadn't been called more than a few select four-letter words, but I always preferred to think of the name as an homage to the great "Al Green Is Love" album. The way I looked at it, if the Reverend Green was indeed love-- a notion I certainly couldn't argue with-- then, at least, I could be something close. And if love is a four-letter word, then the Good Reverend and I were only two degrees of separation apart.
Can I get an amen?

Looking back, this CD is not bad at all. In fact, I'm begining to think I peaked too early! But I had had several years to put these songs together, and a pretty decent collection it is. "Ernie Fields Blues" became a live favorite for several years. As did "Perpetual Motion." Those back-up vocals always did the trick. I remember one performance at the Neutral Ground Coffeehouse in New Orleans, where a gentleman came up and spontaneously started doing the response vocals. The more he sang, the better we got. It might have gone on for a bit longer than most of the audience would have wanted, but it certainly burned itself into my memory that night.
"War Dreams" is still requested to this day. I'm not sure I've ever done a show without it, in fact. And today, it holds more meaning than it did the day I wrote it.
And so I present to you "Tim Bryant Is A Four Letter Word." It paved my way to New Orleans, the home away from home that I didn't know I had. In doing so, it led to everything else that was to come. Hard Travelin' in the Big Easy. But that's another story.
If you've never heard these songs, I hope they will lift you up and never let you down. If you know them, I hope they will remind you of as many joyful times as they do me.

Thanks for listening,

Tim