How Big Thief became Tucker Zimmerman’s backing band: “An extreme honour”
There are few greater emotions than that of discovering a piece of music for the first time and in it, hearing a timeless resonance. Even if a song or an album were released decades ago, their emotional weight finds you at the perfect time in your life, just as it is meant to. The first time the members of the indie folk band Big Thief heard veteran folk artist Tucker Zimmerman, they experienced a similar sensation.
As Big Thief guitarist Buck Meek tells the story on NPR’s World Cafe in 2025, vocalist and guitarist Adrianne Lenker was getting a stick-and-poke tattoo in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains when her tattoo artist friend played Zimmerman’s 1980 album Square Dance.
“We met up shortly after that for a tour, and she couldn’t wait to show me that album, and we listened to it a bunch on that run,” Meek remembers. “I just really fell in love with those songs. The song ‘Brother John’ really floored me because it reminded me so much of one of my best friends back in Texas; it felt like it had been written for him.”
Zimmerman’s career had spanned over half a century before the members of Big Thief discovered his work for themselves. Born in San Francisco, California, but based in Liege, Belgium, Zimmerman grew his classical training as a young musician into a professional music career. In the late 1960s, he travelled across Europe and North Africa, eventually meeting his future wife, Marie-Claire Lambert, in Rome. The musician was not just avoiding United States draft-dodging charges, but was actively in pursuit of his goal of becoming a recording artist.
Landing in London in 1967, Zimmerman would meet producer Tony Visconti, who would produce his debut album, Ten Songs by Tucker Zimmerman. The album would become a favourite of David Bowie’s, who later worked prolifically with Visconti. “The guy’s way too qualified for folk, in my opinion,” Bowie told Vanity Fair in 2003, naming Zimmerman’s debut on his favourites list, before continuing, “A waste of an incendiary talent? Not in my opinion. I always found this album of stern, angry compositions enthralling.”
After falling in love with Zimmerman’s songwriting on Square Dance, Big Thief decided to reach out to the musician who, by then, was in his 80s and living in Belgium. The band wrote a long email to Zimmerman, inviting him to join them on stage at a show in London. After an initial silence from Zimmerman, their persistence proved to intrigue him, and after watching footage of Big Thief’s performances on YouTube, he took them up on their offer.
“The very first day we met him was in London,” Meek recounts, “and I think before we even went on stage, you’d invited us to join you for a song or two. And then after that show, I believe, was when Adrianne mentioned the idea of making a record together.”
Settling to record in a New England cabin in 2024, the two generational talents came together in a moment of kismet, with Big Thief becoming Zimmerman’s backing band on the resulting collaborative album, Dance of Love. Recorded in just two weeks, Lenker contributes vocals on a number of songs, including the tune ‘Leave It On The Porch Outside,’ sung alongside Zimmerman’s wife Marie-Claire in its chorus.
“It was an extreme honour to make a record with one of the greatest songwriters of all time,” Big Thief stated, upon Dance of Love’s release. “We believe in this music with all of our hearts, and we hope it brings you joy.”
Tragically, Zimmerman and Marie-Claire died in a house fire earlier this month; Zimmerman was 84 years old, and the pair had been married for over 50 years. His legacy remains grounded in his chronicling of a life lived with authenticity, favouring love above all else.
“After years of writing and filling a box with over 500 song sheets, I had finally found my path, my originality, my voice,” Zimmerman stated of his songwriting evolution that began in the 1970s. “It had become clear to me in the previous year that songs of only one kind were worth spending time on: those which had a positive message and a peaceful vibration… Just poetry. Little hums that perhaps might lift us all above our daily worries and fears, little hums that try to make the world a better place to live in.”
