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Familiar name, right? But, no, this Zimmerman isn’t related to that Zimmerman. Tucker was born in San Francisco in 1941, the same year as his namesake Robert, aka Bob Dylan, and plied his trade as a folk singer. He cut his first album in 1969, and caught the ear of David Bowie. “I always found this album of stern, angry compositions enthralling,” Bowie later remarked, “and often wondered what ever happened to him.”
Belgium is one answer. Obscurity is another. Waggish suggestions that the two states are synonymous shall not be entertained here: the land of Jacques Brel does not deserve that treatment. But it’s fair to say that Zimmerman’s musical star hasn’t soared during his life in Belgium, where he moved in the 1970s with his Belgian wife. Based in Liège, he has continued performing and making albums, alongside writing fiction and poetry. For the few in the know, he is a cult troubadour at the fringes of the musical firmament: the lesser-spotted Zimmerman.
Dance of Love is his 11th studio album. It finds him in the company of a supportive band, rather as The Band were for Dylan after his motorcycle crash. The role is taken here by Big Thief, the Brooklyn indie-roots group. Adulatory in their praise for Zimmerman (“one of the greatest songwriters of all time”), they made the album with him in the US. Its cover shows the singer-songwriter with his wife Marie-Claire, who has a guest vocal spot on “Leave It on the Porch Outside”, an old school folk revival call-and-response routine.
The best track, “Nobody Knows”, is the most Dylanesque, a bluesy strummer about not knowing what lies around the corner. Zimmerman murmurs his verses like a genial beatnik wiseman while Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker does muted hollers in the background. The worst is “The Ram-a-lama-ding-dong Song”, a piece of antiquated folky fun that opens with Zimmerman asking, ominously: “Does anybody have a kazoo?” Like sports tours and trips to Las Vegas, what happens around the campfire should stay around the campfire.
Absent are the abrasive qualities that attracted Bowie to his debut (produced by Tony Visconti). Shuffling drumbeats, lolloping basslines and back-porch steel guitar cast a gentle musical glow. Zimmerman’s trembly, breathy voice is respectfully shadowed by Lenker’s backing vocals. The atmosphere is engagingly warm-hearted, if a bit too soft-centred.
★★★☆☆
‘Dance of Love’ is released by 4AD