Time (The Revelator)

After two failed attempts in Los Angeles and the sale of their label, Welch and Rawlings paid for the sessions themselves; Welch said she basically pawned the farm. Rawlings found RCA Studio B, a room that had hosted more than 200 Elvis Presley recordings, when he saw its door open while driving around Nashville. With engineer Matt Andrews they worked up the songs at home, then recorded them live facing each other, with no overdubs and often on the first or second take, on 2-inch 16-track tape through a Neve broadcast console. Tracking and mixing took a little over a month. I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll is the live recording from the Ryman concert filmed as Down from the Mountain.

Rawlings jokingly called it their concept record, their Tommy. The title came from Son House's John the Revelator, and the original booklet printed no lyrics, because Welch wanted the words heard rather than read. The closing I Dream a Highway, nearly fifteen minutes long, was assembled by Rawlings from her free-writing. It was the first album to carry his photo beside hers.

It reached 157 on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for the 2002 Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Mojo named it the fourth best album of 2001, Rolling Stone placed it at 348 among the 500 greatest albums in 2020, and Pitchfork rated it 9.6 in 2023. Robert Plant told the duo it was a masterpiece of the infinite, and Low sang about wasting their days with Gillian and Dave on Candy Girl in 2002. Rawlings has called it his favorite piece.