Wilson, N.C. – Jim Clark, the Elizabeth H. Jordan Professor of Southern Literature at Barton College, has released his second solo CD exploring the connection between poetry and music. The CD, “The Service of Song,” features Clark’s musical settings of twelve poems by north Georgia “farmer-poet” Byron Herbert Reece (1917-1958).
Reece, a mountain farmer from Choestoe, Ga., published four highly regarded books of poems and two novels during the 1940s and 1950s after being discovered by Kentucky writer Jesse Stuart. Tragically, he took his own life at the age of forty. Building on the strengths of his first CD of original poetry and Appalachian folk songs, “Buried Land,” Clark infuses his settings of Reece’s poems with a timeless folk/Americana authenticity.
The CD will be available online from Amazon.com and CD Baby. For this project, Clark again worked with his colleague Phil Valera, Director of Barton College’s Audio Recording Technology program. Valera served as co-producer, arranger, and engineer for the album, which was recorded in the Barton College recording studio.
For additional information about “The Service of Song,” as well as audio samples, visit http://www.jimclarkpoet.com.
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