BRUCE HORNSBY in Stone.’ for This Restless Keyboard Innovator, the Only Constant Is Change Are You More a Writer Or Player? I’M Equally Interested in Both
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MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN What was your concept for the album? “Giant Steps,” for instance, and instantly TOOLS OF THE TRADE I wanted to document how our band play it. But in the pop or rock world it’s much sounds today. Our approach is very loose, more diatonic, and involves more of the white improvisatory and spontaneous. We’re keys. I just wanted to play the music on these Hornsby originally played Baldwin pianos, constantly trying to make the music new. records I was hearing. but when the company encountered Consequently, if you hear a version of a fi nancial diffi culties in the 2000s he turned particular song in 2003 and then hear Were you surprised “The Way It Is” to Steinways. “They’re fantastic instruments,” it again in 2009, the two versions are was a hit? he says. “I have a Hamburg Steinway in my likely quite different. It was a wonderful accident. Everyone felt studio. I bought it in Switzerland. I played a it was a B-side song. I don’t think anything TV show in Zurich where I played 45 minutes Why not include any hits? on my fi rst album sounded like typical radio of solo piano on live Swiss TV. By the end This is the second live album with the music. We were using fi ddles and mandolins of the show I had become great friends with Noisemakers. We did one 11 years ago that and hammered dulcimers, along with acoustic that piano. They shipped it over to me and had four or fi ve of those hits, so we’ve done pianos. That was hardly standard then. It was it’s been my main piano ever since.” He also that. There’s a compilation album that’s a fl uke that “The Way It Is” broke in England. owns a New York Steinway. “Years ago Keith out, which I insisted be called Greatest The record company wasn’t pushing it. A Jarrett said you couldn’t play the blues on a Radio Hits [2004]. The true greatest hits, guy on BBC Radio 1 [Mik Wilkojc] started Hamburg Steinway,” Hornsby says. “For that in my view, are songs like “White Wheeled playing it simply because he liked it. A lot you need an American Steinway. I know what Limousine,” “Spider Fingers” and “Rainbow’s of people have hits with songs they don’t he means. There’s a certain guts and power Cadillac.” People live for 80 years, and 60 of like. But “The Way It Is” holds up well and to the New York Steinway that’s well-suited them are spent listening to what they liked has aged well. to the blues.” until they were 20. I was already moving On the road Hornsby uses a Model on by the time I made the third or fourth Did that song accurately represent you? D Steinway. He also occasionally plays a The formula for my music was exemplifi ed by vintage Korg M1 synthesizer. “Back in 1989 that song, in the sense that it featured two I found this sound called ‘Overture’ on the piano solos. I was improvising, on the radio. And then that happened again with “The ‘My role as Valley Road.” I was playing McCoy Tyner- esque stylings on the piano over a sort of bandleader is to Steve Miller-style rock beat. My music-school friends couldn’t believe what I was getting away with. Of course I knew that would end. Michael Weintrob Michael stir the pot, to I think of “The Way It Is” as a novelty record, but in the best sense—it had a sound that have nothing set was unique. It’s pretty, it goes down easy and it’s easy to like. BRUCE HORNSBY in stone.’ For this restless keyboard innovator, the only constant is change Are you more a writer or player? I’m equally interested in both. I probably By Russell Hall album. It’s about continuing to stay spend more time working at the instrument. inspired, being a lifelong student and It seems more hours are required for that, “IT’S BEEN 25 YEARS SINCE MY FIRST ALBUM,” OBSERVES Hornsby instead turned his keyboard gifts toward a kaleidoscopic going where inspiration leads. I can’t be for playing the instrument well. As for writing Bruce Hornsby. “Most fans who got on this train early on aren’t array of styles, including jazz, bluegrass, jam-rock and classical. that guy who supplies people with a stroll songs, I don’t think you can spend as much there anymore. And that’s fi ne. Those who wanted me to stay the Hornsby’s latest, Bride of the Noisemakers, features 25 songs down memory lane. time there as you can in practice. same or keep making the same album were probably disappointed culled from performances with longtime band the Noisemakers a long time ago.” While many of Hornsby’s peers have become spanning 2007 to 2009. A bookend of sorts to the 2000 live album What attracted you to the piano? What’s your writing process like? nostalgia acts, his own career has indeed been characterized Here Come the Noise Makers, the album touches on all facets of In high school my older brother turned me There’s no set way. Lots of times I write by restless creativity. Hornsby’s work, from majestic rockers (“Cyclone”) to horn-laced on to Tumbleweed Connection, the second the lyrics fi rst. A good example is “Where’s Bursting onto the scene in 1986 with the pop smash “The Way funk (“Funhouse”) to show-tune excursions that defy categorization Elton John album. It’s the only album of his the Bat?” It’s sung from the viewpoint of Kat Fischer It Is,” and earning a Grammy for Best New Artist, the Virginia native (“Michael Raphael”). True to form, what you won’t fi nd are any of that didn’t have a hit, but it’s my favorite. We a woman whose husband is driving her immediately demonstrated an almost perverse delight in defying Hornsby’s biggest pop crossover hits. “People who have followed were driving from Williamsburg to Yorktown crazy to the point that she fantasizes about expectations. More hits came—“Mandolin Rain” and “The Valley Road,” us through the years would have thought, ‘Why this again?’” he and “Amoreena” started playing on the car’s taking a baseball bat to his head. One of Korg M1 that I really liked,” he says. “Later I among them—but by the early ’90s Hornsby had moved beyond the reasons. “I wanted to include songs that have been overlooked. eight-track. It blew me away, and to this my longtime musician friends told me a found out that Bruce Springsteen, who’s a strictures of pop radio. “If you chase radio success, you will end Most of our best music fl ies under the mainstream radar. Only day it still does. story about feeling that way. I told her it longtime friend, uses it as well. I still use that up looking back on years of chasing trends and always coming up the real hardcore fans know my best songs.” Hornsby spoke to sounded like a song, and she said, “Well, I sound to this day. It’s very natural and organic. a bit late,” he fi gures. “I turned my back on that a long time ago.” us about his iconoclastic career at his home in Williamsburg, Va. Did the piano come easily to you? don’t write songs like that—but you do.” So It sounds a bit like a woodwind ensemble.” Music came pretty easily to me, in the sense I wrote it. Another song, “The Black Rats of Hornsby has also made prominent use of that I had a good ear. I could listen to a song London,” stemmed from an article I read in Wurlitzers, especially on his 2002 album ‘Our approach is loose and spontaneous. We’re and play it pretty quickly. That was true of National Geographic about Jamestown. Big Swing Face. “I played them almost simple songs, anyway. The “ear demands” Song ideas can come from anywhere. I exclusively on that album,” he says. “I also constantly trying to make the music new.’ get more intense, of course, with complex have scraps of paper in my wallet with ideas played Wurlitzers on a good bit of the Spirit music. It’s diffi cult to hear John Coltrane’s scribbled on them. Trail album.” 484848 49 M mag 11.indd 48 5/31/11 8:42:34 PM M mag 11.indd 49 5/31/11 8:42:19 PM MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN Onstage at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2007 Sean Smith ‘I can’t just be the guy who GRATEFUL FOR THE DEAD supplies people with a stroll down Bruce Hornsby toured with the Grateful Dead following the 1990 death of keyboardist Brent Mydland, eventually performing memory lane.’ more than 100 shows with the group. He cherished his time with Dead leader Jerry What’s your role as bandleader? I now know all too well the sound of me Garcia, who passed away in 1995. “Jerry The guys in the Noisemakers rarely take their sucking. (laughs) I know what not to do. was a walking encyclopedia of American eyes off me, because I’m always looking to I also know the sound of our band hitting folk music,” Hornsby says.