Whatever happened to Iris Dement?

From what I could glean of her on the brief occasions I met her, I'm not sure she was ever one for courting fame or the spotlight, however

She thinks all my jokes are corny
Convict movies make her horny
She likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs
Swears like a sailor when shaves her legs

He's got more balls than a big brass monkey
He's a whacked out weirdo and a lovebug junkie
Sly as a fox and crazy as a loon
Payday comes and he's howlin' at the moon

i still have the same tape of my life that i bought when it came out. still sounds great!

yeah i meant to get that and then forgot about it. it's good? (i imagine it would be.)

You'll love Lifeline. It's kinda hard to find. I haven't heard anything about a follow-up.

I'm finally going to see her Nov. 9. Anyone catch her tour?
I read earlier this year that she was working on a new album — where is it?

Good news. Is she writing again?

No idea. She's a mystery, but I'll let it be.

OK that was really bad.

Sometime in high school, her name came to me and I had no idea why it was there. "Iris Dement, Iris Dement," I kept repeating to myself. Later I discovered she was a singer-songwriter, but I couldn't remember the moment when I must've encountered her name.

So her show this Friday in Fall River, Mass. has been postponed to Dec. 1. Big surprise. She probably got upset about something Bush said on TV.
I'm not holding my breath over the re-scheduled show. Will I EVER see this woman sing?

wow, YouTube has some fantastic live clips of Iris:

Our Town
Sweet Is The Melody

For Sunday morning:
He Reached Down

With John Prine:
In Spite Of Ourselves

yes i've watched that sweet is the melody a bunch. love it. she's such a dear.

Iris DeMent

go on now, say goodbye to my town, to my town
i can see now the sun's gone down on my town, on my town

Any word of new stuff?

i dunno

how is Lifeline?

she's playing in August

WHERE

i read awhile back that she gave up performing in protest of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. she did play the hardly strictly bluegrass festival in san francisco this past year...
also, i agree with x'gau re: the way i should being an "A"

highline, i think

ohh, i see she's playing at the highline -- thanks!!

:)

i got tickets!

well, my aunt did, because i'm poor

i just saw that she is playing near me. i won't be going. sadly.

Last week in Montreal, however, DeMent played a good six or seven songs that seemed to be of recent vintage, igniting hope in a faithful fan’s heart that we’d hear a record of new tunes from her sometime in the 21st century. One was a touching anniversary song, “I Think This Love’s Gonna Last,” for her husband, folksinger Greg Brown...- Carl Wilson from an October 13 posting on his blog zoilus.com

new album of originals out in 2 weeks!

http://www.billboard.com/news/iris-dement-to-sing-the-delta-first-new-1007446952.story

Excellent. That's a holiday gift for my dad already spoken for, then.

16 years since she last released an album with self-penned cuts.

Free sampler of new tracks on NoiseTrade, which doesn't up my spam level noticeably. Haven't listened to this particular sampler yet, but I will tonight.

haven't spent a lot of time with the whole album yet but "The Kingdom Has Already Come" is really nice.

Lotta love for this fine alb over on Rolling Country.

Great album!

I'm off to see her in an hour, very excited. The new album, with songs based on Anna Akhmatova's poetry, has gotten hardly any attention.

ah man i saw her album at the store the other day but i only knew her from the leftovers so i passed. this is real good.

Well that show five months ago was cancelled but she made it up last night and it was wonderful. No Prince covers, but she did two Merle Haggard songs and said some things about this awful year that really spoke to the moment we're having in Minneapolis, I thought.

Did she do a lot from The Trackless Woods with its songs based on Anna Akhmatova's poetry?

She sure did. Guess my phrasing was clunky, just wanted to note that it's not an album of all new material.

Good write up of Infamous Angel on pfork this past Sunday.

One of my all time faves. Also enjoyed both of last year's songs (https://irisdementofficial.bandcamp.com/) -- "Going Down to Sing in Texas" is her "Murder Most Foul," I guess, though "How Long" is the one that nearly made my tracks ballot.

Notebook notes copied to Nashville Scene ballot comments (also maybe to Rolling Country 2012 or '13): Iris Dement, Sing The Delta: Don't want to say too much now, I need to listen more--it's really rich, deep, lots of turns in the syllables, imagery, piano--but gotta say something. First track reminds me of what I liked about Leon Russell: that rippling, bouncing/pouncing piano (thinking of his "Tightrope"), and what kept me at at armslength: those rippling, detouring syllables). But intriguing, and after that, more like Toussaint,Domino even, especially at her most country (reminds me, she played piano with Merle Haggard and the Strangers on tour; think she learned something from his sneakily flexible tightjaw, even though she can take such phrasing much further--usually I can follow her far enough, catch up with her often enough). And at least a couple, "The Night I Learned How Not To Pray" and "Mama Was Always Tellin' Her Truth" ("no back burners on her stove"), are like great lost Tom T. tracks. Would like to hear Lee Ann Womack, Miranda Lambert, Lucinda Williams cover some of these.

And then, from the Scene ballot re: 2015 releases:

ris DeMent, The Trackless Woods: Good name for it, because, though quickly engaged, I did have to learn to follow the way she (and alert friends) follow Anna Akhmatova's bitter, insatiable quests, all around and right through the messy zero (kind of like Elena Ferrante's charismatic outlier in the heart of the old neighborhood, Lina/Lila Cerullo). But dang if DeMent, as much a child of urban sprawl Southern-times-Southern California's indelibly migrant community as her old boss Merle Haggard, doesn't find and release the rolling countryoid confidence of these uncompromised lines---who knew? Of course the lines also find a release for the increasingly subtle vocal and piano melodies of an artist who became seldom seen, at least in part because she's become seldom satisfied with her own lyrics. Release and def points of departure, somewhere under the forest canopy, but with sufficient glints, and sometimes right in the heart. Wherever she is, she always sounds at home with the words.
Speaking of which, the CD's worth getting for the printed lyrics (also if you're getting tired of backing up back-ups of your back-ups of your back-ups). Not all of 'em come through the singing, not initially, although the way those bits gradually emerge can be quite an experience. The combination of sensibilities isn't **just like** Lina/Lila times her great friend and rival for life, Elena/Lenu Greco, because DeMent's persona is something else (but come to think of it, Anna A. can seem like both the Ferrante frenemies at once, scornful and dismissive and anxious and masterful and romantic, arguing, fighting with herself to toughen up for the next fool to come passing along, someday, beyond mere possibility)
Not to say that there might not be even (and a lot) more to Akhmatova than the way she (so far) comes across to me, based on this selection of translated poems, and the way they sound here.
Meanwhile, often enough, this trek turns up an illuminating emergence of new convergence--or at least traces---and always, we fans get that rousing sound, a bracing, measured dose of old patent medicine DeMentia. Her warble always seems like it might want to run wild, and could, but she keeps it on a fairly long leash, wherever she goes. Someday...
DeMentia! Yeah, like she didn't hear that one in middle school etc.

Xgau hangs w the Prine and DeMent set; good piece:
Really Glad to Be Here
John Prine and Iris DeMent were seated across from each other at a table for eight in Michael's on West 55th Street. Here BMI had convened a small party to celebrate George Strait's conversion of the obscure Prine copyright "I Just Want To Dance With You" into a hit that paid Prine's hospital bills while he fought off cancer of the neck in 1998. Prine is a genially impish guy who wears his grayish-black hair in a long crew cut.
https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/prine-99.php

Somewhere I've got a bootleg download of one of their shows.

great news

On February 24th, Iris DeMent contemplates the external and internal issues of our world with her 7th album, the inspiring Workin’ On A World.

Pre-order: https://t.co/iAeBIpaQ0W
"Workin' On A World" & "Goin' Down To Sing In Texas" out now. Listen:https://t.co/pSKl3mNpES pic.twitter.com/Vv3xgxjFja

— Iris DeMent (@irisdement) January 10, 2023

This is wonderful.

Very excited to listen and would highly recommend David Cantwell's New Yorker essay

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/iris-dements-new-album-is-a-sustained-political-statement

Good stuff indeed. She’s righteously pissed off.