A Classic Returns: 30th Anniversary Edition of Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, but We Sure Got a Lot of Love by James Talley to be Released by Cimarron Records on February 21, 2006

New double-CD edition features background essay by James Talley, vintage photos, complete song lyrics, and the original promotional-only interview album from the 1975 Capitol Records release.

"These songs have brought me some of my greatest joys in life as well as some of the greatest sorrows. They are my dreams, my creations, my children. To this day, I still believe in the power of these dreams. Dreams are our light, dreams are the impossible, dreams are our desire and our longing. Dreams are reaching for something beyond, something around the bend and over the hill. They propel us into the future. They sustain us and give us hope. I still have many dreams left to dream, and many songs left to sing."--James Talley

On February 21st, Cimarron Records is marking a milestone in country music history by reissuing the acclaimed 1975 debut album by James Talley, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love. This special anniversary package includes an extensive background essay penned by Talley for this occasion, complete song lyrics, as well as the first commercial release of a one-hour interview with Talley sent to radio and print media only as a means of introducing the then-31-year-old artist to the industry (the interview was conducted on May 5, 1975, by Mike Hanes, then music and program director at Nashville’s WKDA radio station). At the time of its original release in June 1975, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love gained numerous influential converts in the media who provided vivid testimony to the power of Talley's acutely observed, plainspoken tales of common folks trying to make it through a day with body and soul intact. Among these were Greil Marcus in the Village Voice ("It is as finely tuned as that of a mid-'60s Donovan album, and as unobtrusive as anything you might be hearing from Bob Dylan."), Robert Hillburn in the Los Angeles Times ("Talley is an important new country artist who offers a welcome alternative to the increasing slickness of the Nashville mainstream"), Nat Hentoff in Cosmopolitan ("...will establish James Talley as one of the most appealing country and folk singers of his generation"), and Peter Guralnick, also in the Village Voice ("[Talley's songs] do have a simplicity and clarity, an unprepossessing, almost light-hearted honesty that is at once disarming and instantly accessible. They are rooted in the specific, refer to comfortable, familiar, musical forms, and open up in a craftsmanlike, understated way to tell you everything you will ever need to know about themselves and their author."). In notes penned for this 30th anniversary edition, Chet Flippo, editorial director of CMT.com and one of the most respected music writers in the country, cites Talley as being "an inspiration to me for 30 years," and adds: "A man of quiet strength who believes so strongly in the vision of his work that he will do whatever it takes to allow that work to find a place to live and breathe. That is a very unusual man in these days and times. James writes and sings from the human wellspring, about as deep as a person can get, and I've always been extremely grateful for what he's contributed to us all with his extraordinary musical gifts."

Those "extraordinary musical gifts" have had an enduring impact on succeeding generations of artists; especially those now lumped into the genre called Americana, which didn't even exist in 1975. Coincidentally, Talley's seminal contribution to Americana is acknowledged in a new biography of Steve Earle, Fearless Heart, Outlaw Poet, by David McGee, who pinpoints Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love as embodying all the attributes that came to distinguish Americana artists, writing: “The consciously retro approach of Americana ultimately seemed a tip of the hat to the populist traditionalism of James Talley, who emerged from nowhere in 1975 with Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money But We Sure Got a Lot of Love, a powerful album of classically styled traditional country and country-folk tunes, his original songs bespeaking a poet's eye for the telling details of the common man's struggle. He came by his populism honestly. Born in Oklahoma to a family that knew only struggle, Talley had lived in the belly of the beast of want, and grew up not bitter but rather with a deep affection for those who made something, anything of nothing, especially in the face of obstacles designed to keep them hidden in society's underbrush. ... As stated in his Nashville City Blues liner notes, Talley's driving philosophy speaks to the essence of the artists under the Americana umbrella, who do not reap the riches of their mainstream brothers and sisters, but have reason to believe their calling is honorable and vital.

“Talley: ‘My hat goes off to those who have not made a fortune from their music, but who have continued to have something to say, and have persisted and survived: Steve Young, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and many others. It's harder to create, it takes more effort, without the comfortable cushion of financial success. Who is to say what will last into history; what will be important, what will be a footnote? The music making millions in profits today may well be tomorrow's footnote. The music business, like the healthcare business, has been taken over by marketing people with MBA and law degrees, by corporate America. These people can quantify, they can read computer sales printouts, and make decisions based on numbers, but can they create? Can they feel? Do they have a vision? Can they recognize dreams? Can they see what is important in the long run, or do they even care? Is that their job? Most of the music that will last from today may well be some of the most obscure right now, rather than what is fed daily to the public over corporate-controlled radio stations. Everything cannot be reduced to its lowest common denominator. Everything cannot be foretold with numbers. Time will tell, as it always does.’”

"I'm trying to preserve my legacy," Talley says of the reissue of Got No Bread... on his Cimarron label. "I want people to know I came through this world and tried to do something meaningful. The final link in the artistic process is sharing your work with somebody else. That artistic desire is, I guess, the reason I'm doing this.”

For review copies of Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love, or to arrange interviews with James Talley, please contact us.