Song Premiere: Jim Keller, “Walk You Home”

The Artist: Jim Keller
The Song: “Walk You Home” from the album Heaven Can Wait
Fun Fact: Tom Waits once said “Listening to Jim Keller’s music makes me feel like I have big plans, no worries, and all of my hair.”
Songwriter Says:“I was in the midst of recording my new CD, Heaven Can Wait, doing some over-dubs in Brooklyn with producer Hector Castillo (Beck, David Bowie, Brazilian Girls) when Byron Isaacs (Levon Helm’s bass player and my writing partner and co producer) arrived late from a drive down from Woodstock where he’d been doin The Ramble. He was laughing at the insane traffic and started singing a little made-up tune about being “Stuck in Traffic”. As soon as the rhythm of the words came out of his mouth I picked up a guitar, turned the phrasing around and started sing, “Let’s Stop Talking And Let Me Walk You Home.” Hector slapped out a beat on his legs and Byron and I wrote the song right there. A fantasy about running into an old friend and becoming “reacquainted.”

We take the song to LA to record with a group of tracks using Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello and the Attractions), Bob Glaub (Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne) Glenn Patscha (Sheryl Crow, Rosanne Cash) and Chris Bruce (Solomon Burke). We’re set for a take when David Hidalgo walks in the studio as I’m running it down in the control room. He walks into the tracking room and picks up Chris’s Telecaster just to check it out so Chris grabs my acoustic and Hector pushes the red button and we cut it live. David had never heard the song. He went back in and threw some harmonies on my vocal and 2 weeks later we brought Marc Ribot into the Brooklyn studio to put some simple hooks on it. Done. I wish they were all this simple”