From his home in the mountains of western North Carolina, Malcolm Holcombe’s voice rolls across the phone in a graveled, folksy drawl. He deflects the conversation with questions of his own and offhand, down-home one-liners.
“I’m just trying to separate the wheat from the chaff these days, and live in my own skin, and try to provide for my family and be of service to my fans and my friends,” he says affably. “When I lived in Nashville, I got firsthand knowledge in the realm of proctology, so, you know, there’s two sides to every coin, but both sides of the coin are in the Big Dog’s pocket. If wanted to make money, I’d be selling encyclopedias door to door. But I’ve loved pickin’ and singin’ ever since I heard Flatt and Scruggs.”
As elliptical as Holcombe can be in his speaking, it still speaks to the essence of the man and his art, a vision he moans tremblingly on his latest album, For the Mission Baby (Echo Mountain): “No matter who I am, no one will understand. The sane man works to live within a bigger plan.” That balance of faith and frustration rents Holcombe’s music, an Appalachian-rooted folk and blues driven by his cathartic and scarring howl.
Holcombe’s resurgence since releasing 2008’s impressive Gamblin’ House is testament to his quiet perseverance. After a stint burning through Nashville in the Nineties as an acclaimed underground songwriter, and having his official debut, A Hundred Lies, stalled by major label Geffen, Holcombe retreated back to the North Carolina mountains with little notice. Broken, and fighting alcohol and drug abuse, Holcombe got clean nearly six years ago and went about his music on his terms.
“Well, I like to say, ‘You keep on hangin’ around the barber shop long enough, and you’re gonna get a haircut,’ ya know?” Holcombe offers. “I was grateful to be in Nashville – I was grateful to be anywhere then, because of the drinkin’ and druggin’. But I quit all that. I had spells of that on and off my whole life. When I lived in Nashville, I had a couple, three records out, worked at different places flippin’ burgers and stuff, but I’ve always been writing songs and playing guitar since I was about 13 or 14 years old. So you know, there’s an old saying, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.'”
Whereas Gamblin’ House reeled with fire and defiance, For the Mission Baby strikes a more hopeful, tender note, while not sacrificing his rough roots excursions. “Bigtime Blues” cuts low and mean, accented by the upbeat revelry of “Short Street Blues” and weary intimidation of “You Have It All.” Holcombe doesn’t shy away from hard realities and commentary like “Doncha Miss That Water,” but his softer edge shines on the album, accented at times by female harmonies (including Mary Gauthier) and impressive backing by the likes of Tim O’Brien.
Accordingly, Holcombe still lays a humble line, laughing about his music being dubbed by some critics as “neo-primitivism.” “Yeah, I ain’t got a clue what that means. There’s all kinds of cities, all kinds of towns, and, back in the hills and little bumps in the road, where people pick and sing and write songs, ya know?
“Folks back in these hills, around here, ever since the Irish settled up around the Appalachian Mountains, up and down through here, there’s been a lot of fiddlin’ and banjo, Old Time music, bluegrass, people being inspired through John McCutcheon to Doc Watson and even Piedmont Blues. Charlie Patton and Delta Blues, and even Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark down there in Texas, really inspired a lot of people, myself included. But around these hills, there’s still people that just pick over here, and people just come out of the woodwork with banjos and guitars and fiddles.”
Holcombe plays the Continental Club Gallery Sunday, Dec. 6, with Jon Dee Graham and Andrew Hardin.
This article appears in December 4 • 2009.
