{"id":3527,"date":"2011-08-19T19:30:55","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T02:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3527"},"modified":"2011-08-19T19:31:04","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T02:31:04","slug":"bruce-hornsby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/bruce-hornsby\/","title":{"rendered":"BRUCE HORNSBY"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

BRUCE HORNSBY<\/h1>\n

For this restless keyboard innovator, the only constant is change<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Russell Hall<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been 25 years since my first album,\u201d observes Bruce Hornsby. \u201cMost fans who got on this train early on aren\u2019t there anymore. And that\u2019s fine. Those who wanted me to stay the same or keep making the same album were probably disappointed a long time ago.\u201d While many of Hornsby\u2019s peers have become nostalgia acts, his own career has indeed been characterized\u00a0by restless creativity.<\/p>\n

Bursting onto the scene in 1986 with the pop smash \u201cThe Way It Is,\u201d and earning a Grammy for Best New Artist, the Virginia native immediately demonstrated an almost perverse delight in defying expectations. More hits came\u2014\u201cMandolin Rain\u201d and \u201cThe Valley Road,\u201d among them\u2014but by the early \u201990s Hornsby had moved beyond the strictures of pop radio. \u201cIf you chase radio success, you will end up looking back on years of chasing trends and always coming up a bit late,\u201d he figures. \u201cI turned my back on that a long time ago.\u201d Hornsby instead turned his keyboard gifts toward a kaleidoscopic array of styles, including jazz, bluegrass, jam-rock and classical.<\/p>\n

Hornsby\u2019s latest, Bride of the Noisemakers<\/em>, features 25 songs culled from performances with longtime band the Noisemakers spanning 2007 to 2009. A bookend of sorts to the 2000 live album Here Come the Noise Makers<\/em>, the album touches on all facets of Hornsby\u2019s work, from majestic rockers (\u201cCyclone\u201d) to horn-laced funk (\u201cFunhouse\u201d) to show-tune excursions that defy categorization (\u201cMichael Raphael\u201d). True to form, what you won\u2019t find are any of Hornsby\u2019s biggest pop crossover hits. \u201cPeople who have followed us through the years would have thought, \u2018Why this again?\u2019\u201d he reasons. \u201cI wanted to include songs that have been overlooked. Most of our best music flies under the mainstream radar. Only the real hardcore fans know my best songs.\u201d Hornsby spoke to us about his iconoclastic career at his home in Williamsburg, Va.<\/p>\n

What was your concept for the album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wanted to document how our band sounds today. Our approach is very loose, improvisatory and spontaneous. We\u2019re constantly trying to make the music new. Consequently, if you hear a version of a particular song in 2003 and then hear it again in 2009, the two versions are\u00a0likely quite different.<\/p>\n

Why not include any hits? <\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the second live album with the Noisemakers. We did one 11 years ago that had four or five of those hits, so we\u2019ve done\u00a0that. There\u2019s a compilation album that\u2019s out, which I insisted be called Greatest Radio Hits<\/em> [2004]. The true greatest hits, in my view, are songs like \u201cWhite Wheeled Limousine,\u201d \u201cSpider Fingers\u201d and \u201cRainbow\u2019s Cadillac.\u201d People live for 80 years, and 60 of them are spent listening to what they liked until they were 20. I was already moving on by the time I made the third or fourth\u00a0album. It\u2019s about continuing to stay inspired, being a lifelong student and going where inspiration leads. I can\u2019t be that guy who supplies people with a stroll\u00a0down memory lane.<\/p>\n

What attracted you to the piano?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In high school my older brother turned me on to Tumbleweed Connection<\/em>, the second Elton John album. It\u2019s the only album of his that didn\u2019t have a hit, but it\u2019s my favorite. We were driving from Williamsburg to Yorktown and \u201cAmoreena\u201d started playing on the car\u2019s eight-track. It blew me away, and to this\u00a0day it still does.<\/p>\n

Did the piano come easily to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Music came pretty easily to me, in the sense that I had a good ear. I could listen to a song and play it pretty quickly. That was true of simple songs, anyway. The \u201cear demands\u201d get more intense, of course, with complex music. It\u2019s difficult to hear John Coltrane\u2019s \u201cGiant Steps,\u201d for instance, and instantly play it. But in the pop or rock world it\u2019s much more diatonic, and involves more of the white keys. I just wanted to play the music on these records I was hearing.<\/p>\n

Were you surprised \u201cThe Way It Is\u201d <\/strong>was a hit?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a wonderful accident. Everyone felt it was a B-side song. I don\u2019t think anything on my first album sounded like typical radio music. We were using fiddles and mandolins and hammered dulcimers, along with acoustic pianos. That was hardly standard then. It was a fluke that \u201cThe Way It Is\u201d broke in England. The record company wasn\u2019t pushing it. A guy on BBC Radio 1 [Mik Wilkojc] started playing it simply because he liked it. A lot of people have hits with songs they don\u2019t like. But \u201cThe Way It Is\u201d holds up well and has aged well.<\/p>\n

Did that song accurately represent you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The formula for my music was exemplified by that song, in the sense that it featured two piano solos. I was improvising, on the radio. And then that happened again with \u201cThe Valley Road.\u201d I was playing McCoy Tyner-esque stylings on the piano over a sort of Steve Miller-style rock beat. My music-school friends couldn\u2019t believe what I was getting away with. Of course I knew that would end. I think of \u201cThe Way It Is\u201d as a novelty record, but in the best sense\u2014it had a sound that was unique. It\u2019s pretty, it goes down easy and it\u2019s easy to like.<\/p>\n

Are you more a writer or player?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m equally interested in both. I probably spend more time working at the instrument. It seems more hours are required for that, for playing the instrument well. As for writing songs, I don\u2019t think you can spend as much time there as you can in practice.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your writing process like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no set way. Lots of times I write the lyrics first. A good example is \u201cWhere\u2019s the Bat?\u201d It\u2019s sung from the viewpoint of a woman whose husband is driving her crazy to the point that she fantasizes about taking a baseball bat to his head. One of my longtime musician friends told me a story about feeling that way. I told her it sounded like a song, and she said, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t write songs like that\u2014but you do.\u201d So I wrote it. Another song, \u201cThe Black Rats of London,\u201d stemmed from an article I read in\u00a0National Geographic<\/em> about Jamestown. Song ideas can come from anywhere. I have scraps of paper in my wallet with ideas scribbled on them.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your role as bandleader?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The guys in the Noisemakers rarely take their eyes off me, because I\u2019m always looking to change things up. And frankly that\u2019s because I\u2019m always trying to entertain the band. I\u2019m a lifelong musician. I\u2019ve been a sideman, and I know what a drag it is to have to play the same songs, the same way, the same order night after night. Our way of doing things is the exact opposite. We keep things continually new and challenging. My role as bandleader is to stir the pot, to have nothing set in stone.<\/p>\n

Do you review tapes of your shows?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. I\u2019ve listened to and assiduously graded hundreds of shows. I should have started doing that years ago. It\u2019s very educational. I now know all too well the sound of me sucking. (laughs<\/em>) I know what not to do. I also know the sound of our band hitting on all cylinders. It helps me make educated decisions about what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

Do you consider the studio or stage versions of your songs definitive? <\/strong><\/p>\n

People who consider their studio albums to be definitive are better record-makers than I am. I\u2019m a bit of a slow learner, and generally it takes me a while to figure out the best way to play and sing a song. There are some instances where the studio version holds up great, where we\u2019ve never bettered it by changing it. But there are many more examples of songs that have been improved upon through the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRUCE HORNSBY For this restless keyboard innovator, the only constant is change By Russell Hall \u201cIt\u2019s been 25 years since my first album,\u201d observes Bruce Hornsby. \u201cMost fans who got on this train early on aren\u2019t there anymore. And that\u2019s fine. Those who wanted me to stay the same or keep making the same album […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[2430,1634,2314,970],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3530,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}