{"product_id":"lonnie-holley-tonky-red","title":"Lonnie Holley - Tonky [Red]","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere are poets like the great Mary Oliver, who might\r\nsuggest that one's primary function when moving through the\r\nworld, for as long as they have life and the ability to move through\r\nthe world, is to play close attention to that which others may foolishly\r\ncall small, or quotidian. The brain and heart are both containers, with\r\nas much space as you wish for them to have, and to live is to create\r\ncollections of found affections. Sounds from your beloved and\r\nfamiliar blocks, movements of the trees and the people beneath\r\nthem, the way someone you adore may hold you for a few lingering\r\nseconds before releasing from a hug and vanishing into a crowded\r\ncrosswalk. To think of our living, our making, and our loving in this\r\nway means that, at least for some of us, we may be propelled forward\r\nby the prospect of what's next. What moment we can hold and place\r\nin our overflowing pockets.\r\nThe work of Lonnie Holley is, for me, a work of this kind of\r\naccumulation and close attention. The delight of finding a sound\r\nand pressing it up against another found sound and another until,\r\nbefore a listener knows it, they are awash in a symphony of sound\r\nthat feels like it stitches together as it is washing over you. Tonky is\r\nan album that takes it's name from a childhood nickname that was\r\naffixed to Holley when he lived a portion of his childhood life in a\r\nhonky tonk. Lonnie Holley's life of survival and endurance is one that\r\nrequired - and no doubt still requires - a kind of invention. An\r\ninvention that is also rich and present in Holley's songs, which are full\r\nand immersive on Tonky, an album that begins with it's longest song,\r\na nine minute, exhaustive marathon of a tune called \"Seeds,\" which\r\nbegins with a single sparse sound and then expands. Chants, faint\r\nkeys, strings, and atop it all, Holley's voice, not singing, but speaking\r\nplainly about working the earth when he was young, the violence he\r\nendured in the process of it all, going to bed bloodied and in pain\r\nfrom beatings. The song expands into a metaphor about place,\r\nabout the failures of home, or anywhere meant to protect you not\r\nliving up to what it sells itself to be, even if you tirelessly work at it,\r\nwork on it, work to make something worthwhile of it.\r\n\"Seeds\" not only sets the tone for an album that revolves\r\naround rebirth, renewal, and the limits of hope and faith, but it\r\nhighlights what Holley's greatest strength as a musician is, to me,\r\nwhich is a commitment to abundance, and generosity. He is an\r\nincredibly gifted storyteller with a commitment to the oral tradition,\r\nsuch that many listeners (myself among them,) would be entirely\r\ncontent sitting at the feet of a Lonnie Holley record and turning an\r\near to his robust, expansive storytelling. But Tonky is an album as\r\nexpansive in sound as it is in making a place for a wide range of\r\nfeatured artists to come through the door of the record and feel at\r\nhome, no matter how they spend the time they get on a song.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Alliance Entertainment","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54211945693513,"sku":"656605246833","price":0.74,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0970\/7329\/9785\/files\/4400442-3319226.jpg?v=1776400561","url":"https:\/\/vintagespinvinyl.com\/products\/lonnie-holley-tonky-red","provider":"My Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}