The brilliant lyrics and jangling melodies of San Francisco Bay Area native Jimmy Silva are a superb fit for the often-abused tribute album format. Over the course of four luminous solo albums for PopLlama and East Side Digital, Silva would frequently step aside and let the lead-vocal spotlight fall upon singers as diverse as Sal Valentino of the Beau Brummels or Bill Jedrzejewski or Kim Wonderley, both members of Silva`s final band, the Goats. Jimmy Silva died tragically in Seattle in 1994 at the age of 42 from complications after contracting chicken pox. But his small legion of friends and admirers have never forgotten Silva and his sometimes stirring/often melancholy songs. Like New Testament disciples, they have banded together on From A Faraway Window (SteadyBoy) to celebrate the music their dear friend left behind. Rock journalist Jud Cost and Texas Music Hall of Famer Freddie Steady Krc along with ex-Goats Kim Wonderley and Eric Scott have rounded up selections from Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck of the Minus 5 (and R.E.M.), Jon Auer of the Posies, Roy Loney of the Flamin` Groovies, Freddie Steady Krc of Roky Erickson & the Explosives, Christy McWilson, the Jigsaw Seen, Sal Valentino of the Beau Brummels, Dennis Diken of the Smithereens, the Young Fresh Fellows, John Wesley Harding and Chris Eckman of the Walkabouts in a technicolor, extra-large mural depicting the very best material from the haunting catalog of Jimmy Silva."If Jimmy had been born ten years earlier he might have made a small fortune writing folk-rock smashes for the Byrds!" - Jud Cost " Silva`s backstory, as related in veteran journalist (and BLURT contributor) Jud Cost`s exhaustive, nine pages` worth of liner notes, included growing up in and around San Mateo, Calif., in the late 60s and early 70s, with the inevitable succession of garage bands soon to follow. Following a stint in the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army, he resumed music-making with his combo the Empty Set, and a transformative experience at a Flamin` Groovies concert circa 1978 further convinced him he was on the right path. Throughout the 80s he performed and recorded, frequently tapping Seattle connections he`d established through an old friend, Scott McCaughey (of the Young Fresh Fellows), who`d moved to the Northwest. Silva wound up splitting his time between Seattle and San Francisco, and his band The Goats, though never exactly burning up the charts, became a favorite on the West Coast and in the pages of in-the-know international fanzines such as Bucketful of Brains and The Bob. Along the way, Silva also picked up a lot of fans in the musician community, and it`s those fans who`ve now convened to pay tribute to the inveterate popster - everyone from McCaughey (with both the Minus 5 and the Young Fresh Fellows) to John Wesley Harding to Jon Auer of the Posies to the Smithereens` Dennis Diken to Roy Loney. With 24 tunes here (including a Silva track and one by The Goats; plus several Silva-related snippets/interludes), there`s an impressively broad cross-section to sift through."-Blurt Online.
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