Joe Purdy with Julie Peel
Where: Jammin’ Java, 227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna
When: 8 p.m. Thursday
Info: $12; 703-255-1566; jamminjava.com
It all started with “Julie Blue.”
The 2004 album by folk singer Joe Purdy gained the singer a fair share of prominence when the song “Wash Away” was used in the ABC television show “Lost.” From there Purdy moved ahead, placing songs on such high-profile shows as “Grey’s Anatomy.”
“With ‘Julie Blue,’ we recorded that way up the St. Lawrence Seaway in a [building on a] little river island,” Purdy said. “We recorded it with one microphone, that kind of deal. It was like a holy water [area].”
That yearning for simpler pleasures is arguably what prompted Purdy to leave Los Angeles a few years ago — despite continuing commercial and popular success — and relocate in his home state of Arkansas. Now he records and releases his albums himself and continues to tour, often selling out venues around the country.
A recent day found him preparing his home for winter before he left for the tour.
“It will be winter by the time I get back,” he said. “It’s been a pretty fall, but we’re going to have our first frost when we’re gone and I want to do all the things [needed] to prepare for winter. I have this old fiberglass runabout boat … and we wanted to get it out of the water and winterize it.”
Such simple stories about home, family, dogs and changing seasons are not just the stories Purdy relates conversationally but in his music as well, most notably on his just released album, “Last Clock on the Wall.” The 10 songs on the CD are all about childhood sweethearts, love, loss and wisdom told simply with Purdy’s vocals floating above the classic folk sounds, filled with such instrumentation as fiddle, banjo and harmonica.
The album was recorded in Scotland in what Purdy described as mill that was about 100 years old. Seems the perfect setting to create classic folk songs for an album that shows Purdy dressed in an antique-style military uniform on the cover.
“We had this batch of songs and I wanted a different sound,” he said. “They were done in one take; we said, ‘That’s the spirit of them. Let’s go with that spirit.’ I grew up listening to records and like to hear that reverb. That’s what I like … I want the songs to be timeless.”
