My Jim Post Post

     True story.  A while ago my wife asked me if I had ever heard of the folksinger Jim Post, and I said why no, I haven't, who might he be?  She told me that he was singer/songwriter her parents used to like back in the day (the '70s, to be a bit more specific), and she remembered hearing them play this one record of his, but she couldn't recall what the name of it was.  The next day--the very next day, mind you--she and I went to one of our favorite Salvation Army stores here in town, and as usual I started scouring the record section.  Lo and behold, what should I discover among the musty 'n dusty stacks but the very LP she had mentioned--Colorado Exile, by Jim Post.  She just about fainted when I showed it to her.  Now, I don't mean to get all mystical and shit, but that's just a little weird, right?  Coincidence doesn't seem to do it justice.  Maybe I just need to find a better word for it and I'll be happy.  Actually, this kind of thing happens so regularly now it really doesn't seem that odd.  But it makes for a good anecdote.

     The album cover shows a man (Jim, presumably) with a little knapsack on his back, standing in the middle of  a rock outcropping in some mountains (in Colorado, presumably).  It's a pretty photo, and it wraps around the back of the album so you can open it up for a nice panorama effect.  I was kind of surprised (and happy) that I couldn't find it on the web--the picture above is from the inside, and I had to take a photo of it and post it 'cause I couldn't find that one either.  You gotta love it--he's holding a toad! (which is probably peeing on his hand--that's what they always did to me when I picked them up when I was a kid).  He put out another record later, called I Love My Life (remember, it was the '70s), and that album cover image is easy to find on the interweb--probably because it pictures him in the shower looking all beef-cakey (or trying to, at least).  Pretty laughably awful.  

     So, what about the music?  It ain't bad.  He has a sort of strange, high lonesome-sounding voice that was a little off-putting at first, but it's grown on me.  "Look Over Yonder" has some cool-sounding harmonies and nice strummy banjo.  "Colorado Exile" is one of those "gotta get out of the city & go to the country where everything's better" tunes, and it suffers a bit from the "Mr. Bojangles"/"Piano Man" chord progression, but it's still a decent song.  I like the "live by the river" part, with its yearning quality (I do a lot of yearning).  That makes me wonder--are there any songs in which the singer says that country living sucks & I can't wait to get back to the city?  I hope so.

Look Over Yonder--Jim Post

Colorado Exile--Jim Post