Jesse Winchester
1944-2014

By Elaine Magliaro

According to Mandalit Del Barco (NPR), singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester had planned to become a lawyer after he graduated from college. In 1967, however, he got his draft notice and fled to Canada. Barco said that when he was in Montreal, Winchester—who was born in Louisiana and raised on a farm in Tennessee—began writing songs and singing, “always looking back to his roots in the American South.”

Barco:

In exile, Winchester released his first album, produced by Robbie Robertson of The Band. Music critics hailed him as the next Dylan, but he was not able to perform in the U.S. because he was labeled a draft dodger.

In 1986, Winchester told NPR that “he was always somewhat ambivalent about performing anyway.” Winchester added, “I have more a writer’s personality than I do a performer’s personality. I like to be by myself and that kind of thing. You have to love being onstage and preening and prancing and posing. That’s kept me from being a real big star. This is above and beyond any limitations my talent might have, and in that respect, we’d have to blame God, which I’d be more than happy to do.”

Winchester died earlier this year “following a battle with cancer.” He was sixty-nine years old.

I Wave Bye Bye

(Note: There are more videos below the fold.)

Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding – Jesse Winchester on Elvis Costello’s “Spectacle”

Just Cause I’m in Love With You by Jesse Winchester

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Jesse Winchester, Musician And Muse To Icons, Dies At 69 (NPR)

Jesse Winchester On Mountain Stage (NPR)

Remembering Jesse Winchester (NPR)