Dance of Love, the eleventh album from Tucker Zimmerman, wouldn’t exist without the advocacy of Big Thief. The neo-folk group coaxed the reclusive singer-songwriter out of his seclusion in Belgium, the country he’s called home for over 40 years, to join them in a cabin in New England to write and record Dance of Love, the album that will introduce the 83-year-old musician to the largest audience he has ever known.
Arriving 55 years after his debut, Dance of Love is also effectively Zimmerman’s first album to receive an initial release in his native America. Raised on beatnik poetry in the 1950s, he spent the 1960s wandering on the fringes of the folk and blues revivals, landing a co-writing credit with blues harpist Paul Butterfield on his 1967 LP The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw with a song called “Droppin’ Out.” Zimmerman took his own advice, departing America for Europe, and studied music in Rome on a Fulbright scholarship before heading to London to sing folk music. A stroke of luck brought him into contact with Tony Visconti, a fledgling record producer fresh off his first collaborations with Marc Bolan’s Tyrannosaurus Rex. The pair made his debut, Ten Songs, an earnest and sober collection that hinted at Visconti’s majestic orchestrations but not the homespun style Zimmerman later cultivated.
Ten Songs did find one prominent champion in David Bowie, a friend and lifelong collaborator of Visconti’s. Bowie touted the album in a list of “25 albums that could change your reputation” for a 2003 issue of Vanity Fair. There is so little writing on Zimmerman that Bowie’s 107-word blurb is often cited as descriptions of the singer/songwriter’s music, particularly the assessments that “the guy’s way too qualified for folk” and “I always found this album of stern, angry compositions enthralling.” It’s possible to hear what Bowie heard on Ten Songs: earnest and internally adventurous, its yearning poetic bent is saved from austerity by Visconti’s imaginative production. With its trippy echoes, sincere strums, and occasional fuzz freakouts, it’s a period artifact, the kind of record that feels perched on the precipice of discovery.
Zimmerman didn’t follow any of the possible avenues outside of Ten Songs. Faced with an uncertain future—dodging the draft, he was intent on not returning to America—he chose to retreat with his wife Marie Claire to her homeland of Belgium, where they established a creative enclave filled with art. Although he continued to compose music, Zimmerman walked away from recording in the early 1980s, not long after he released Square Dance, the 1980 LP Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker happened to hear when getting a tattoo not so long ago. Entranced by its intimacy, Lenker played Square Dance for her bandmate Buck Meek, who also became a fan. The pair attempted to enlist Zimmerman as an opening act for Big Thief’s European tour of 2022, a plan that evolved into Zimmerman and Marie Claire agreeing to join Big Thief for two weeks in a New England cabin where they recorded Dance of Love.
Dance of Love reflects its intimate origins; it sounds as if a bunch of musicians were captured playing in a living room on a Sunday afternoon. Big Thief’s gentle sway warms and illuminates Zimmerman’s songs, adding spectral space to the meditative “The Season” and bringing a rustic ramble to “Old Folks of Farmersville.” The atmosphere may be subdued but the collective, often aided by guests Twain (aka Mat Davidson) and Iji (aka Zach Burba), don’t quite settle into coziness. Whenever Zimmerman brings out a blues shuffle, Big Thief emphasizes the backbeat, giving “The Idiot’s Maze” a tangible swing and even lending a measure of grit to “Nobody Knows.” Lenker’s tender, quivering singing provides a striking complement to his weathered, not worn, voice. Countering each other’s lines as often as harmonizing, the pair are an imperfect yet comfortable fit; their imperfections lend a sense of grace to the gentle lilt of “Lorelei” and a keening longing to “Burial at Sea.”
Lenker and Zimmerman aren’t the only voices on Dance of Love. Marie Claire sings the verses on “Leave It On the Porch Outside,” answered by the rest of the group on the ragged chorus. Her presence underscores the communal cheer at the heart of the album and also highlights the humor and humanity that run through these ten songs. Unlike Zimmerman’s previous Ten Songs, these tunes can’t be characterized as “stern, angry.” They’re warm, welcoming, and forgiving, a testament to how Zimmerman settled into his skin when he found a home far from the spotlight. Even so, no knowledge of his long, shadowy history is needed for Dance of Love to work its charms: Its understated joy and gratitude are palpable.
