Jay Bolotin is a singer-songwriter originally from Kentucky whose songs in the early 1970s were admired by the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Mickey Newbury, Merle Haggard, and other notable musicians. The commercial successes of his peers didn’t quite rub off on Bolotin. He recorded a debut album that was quickly shelved after its release, left the Northeast for Nashville, and then moved on to work in the field of visual art after a record deal never materialized. A track of his finally surfaced in 2009 on one of Numero Group’s Wayfaring Strangers compilations, but, despite the gravity of Bolotin’s weathered baritone and his sharp sense for lyrical and musical detail, songs such as “No One Seems to Notice That It’s Raining” have gone largely unnoticed by the public until now, with the Delmore Recording Society label releasing this remaster of the same name on 9 November.
Bolotin recalls that this song and two others (“Dime Novels” and “Message to a Snowman”) were written in Providence, Rhode Island, where he had attended the Rhode Island School of Design for a while, and were later recorded in New York City in 1970 for a second album that never saw the light of day. Of the song itself, he says that it “was perhaps a reaction to the ever-present war in Vietnam. It informed every day — in one’s mind and on the streets. I considered moving to Canada when I left RISD but then they had that lottery, and my number was 363 I think. I remember reading it on a post on some board in Providence. Of course, I was relieved, but it also made me sad for — well — for the whole damn mess.”