The Tempest Rose High

The Cinch Review

There are many lovely versions of the great old song, “Drifting Too Far from the Shore,” written by one Charles E. Moody. There’s Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, and Emmylou Harris, for starters. In the documentary “No Direction Home,” Bob Dylan credits his first hearing of this song, as a child, with igniting a kind of mystical experience for him. When he heard it (it was a record left sitting on a record player in the house his family had moved into) he says he felt like he “was somebody else.” (You might even say he was kind of transfigured.)

Anyhow, the version embedded below via YouTube is by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and Tony Rice. And it too is lovely. (From an album titled The Pizza Tapes)
Continue reading “The Tempest Rose High”

Drifting Too Far From the Shore

The Cinch Review

It’s one of the most moving for me of what I like to think of as the sacred songs from the hills. It tugs at something deep within. It was written by Charles E. Moody in the 1920s. Famous versions exist by Hank Williams and Emmylou Harris. No less than Bob Dylan has credited his hearing of a version of this song while a child with altering him on some indefinable but vital level. Continue reading “Drifting Too Far From the Shore”