Bruce Hornsby

25:59You know, there's nothing...

26:08That's... So they're very different. One's just kind of a groove thing, sort of a Steve Miller-ish idea, Valley Road. But they both have the... I guess particularly some suspensions, yeah. Yeah, right, that same chord that I was singing my song My Resolve over, that's in Ballet Row. That's kind of the first little harmonic trick, I guess. We've talked about, and you don't love it, what people say is the Bruce Hornsby sound style, which everybody's saying, I've got to play it like you now. Then you completely changed your style. People might not know what you're referring to. You're referring to a story I told you about running into Nashville piano players who would come up to me, running into them at airports or wherever.

26:56And they'd come up to me and say, man, all day long, people are asking me, hey, can you play a little more like Bruce Hornsby? And I would always say, man, I'm sorry. I'm not really, I'm not, you're probably not a fan of it either because you get asked to do it. And I'm not really either. It's too bright for me. It's just something that happened. But as I told you before we were filming. You should probably tell them, yeah, my record company says the same thing to me. What do you mean? Well, your record company would like you to play more like the Bruce Hornsby. More like what you did. Yeah. Well, but see, here's an interesting story that was lucky for me.

27:42So Paul Atkinson, the ex-Zombies rhythm guitar player who signed me at RCA, he and a lot of others thought that the way it is was a b-side they said because of the unexpected massive success of that record the big shots said well we we don't know what to do with this we we didn't predict this we predicted the opposite uh so they left me alone they did not pressure me in that way because again the song that really blew up was a completely unexpected piece of music so the next record scenes from the south side we had this, you mentioned Valley Road and that was also unlikely it's a song about a young city girl, society girl who gets involved with a young country boy and he puts her in the family way and they send her away to the school for unwed mothers, which is an old notion.

28:43I don't think that exists anymore, but it may. But again, hardly, it's sort of hardly standard pop fare, lyrically. And again, I'm soloing like crazy on that one. I'm playing McCoy Tyner, you know,

29:06what's called chordal harmony.

29:19You know, that sort of thing. Can you give us just a quick definition, chordal harmony? It's chords and fourths, yes.

29:29Yeah, the interval of the fourth. with one, four, four. So there's an extended. Wow, that sounds like my song, long, tall, cool one.

29:52So that's a different one. Right. So it was chordal harmony on the radio. What the hell? so I got away with this sort of thing twice Way at Is Valley Road and then I guess it was kind of I think of those records in a certain way as novelty records because they were in the best sense novelty because they were so different sounding and it was a sound that was not off-putting it was not incredibly it wasn't like it wasn't like that But that was it. That was all I was going to get out of the morning zoo crowd. Then later with, I think, Hothouse Spirit Trail. Right. Your playing takes a very different direction.

30:49That's right. Yes.

30:54I turned 40 years old in the late fall of 1994, and I thought to myself, okay, what are you going to do? Are you going to rest on your laurels like most of your pop star friends? or just kind of not really deeply involved in moving forward as a player, as a creator, and kind of riding along with the same stuff that you've been doing. Am I going to do that or am I going to push to a new place? Well, I took the second road. Back to Keith Sherritt. He had an incredible gift or skill development that I call two-handed independence.

31:47And he could play something in the left hand and then play something very rhythmically opposed to that. Sounded like two people playing this sort of thing. and I'd always open that door to a piano technique and go too hard, close it up. But this time I decided to try to deal with it in my own boneheaded way. And so I did that and I would get, I had a song on a spiritual record.

32:42So that's the thing, that independence, I'm playing very rhythmically freely in the right hand while hopefully keeping this left hand ostinato real solid. That took a long time. How did you go about that? Was it by writing the songs or was it playing other songs? No, but it made me write songs like that. I wrote, I think that song is called Sneaking Up on Boo Radley. Of course. You know the song? You know that? You're not going to believe it, but what do I have written right there? Sneaking Up on Boo Radley. So what made you write it down? I love the song. Okay, great. I heard the kind of Keith Jarrett left hand.

33:19I didn't know. Yeah, well, yes. I didn't know it came out of this exercise. Well, but you were right on the track. Yeah. It's a song about growing up in a small town with a mental hospital in which a lot of the patients were allowed to just walk around town. And when we were little nine, 10-year-old dumbasses, oh, we thought they were just hilarious with their crazy walks. And so we made fun of them. and it's very much like To Kill a Mockingbird with Robert Duvall's character and the way the kids were alternately scared and freaked out by him and also made fun of him. So I wanted to write this song because this was part of my upbringing, part of my past in Williamsburg, Virginia, Eastern State Hospital.

34:08I would say I would get this in. Watch me screw it up.

34:18You got to crawl before you can walk, before you can run.

34:42Now, what I did in that 50 seconds, it took me many, many months to go from the whole note to free playing like that. Probably about seven, eight months of dealing with it, doing it intensely. My wife said to me, I'd been doing this for about a week and a half. She said, man, what are you doing out there? Meaning in the studio, you spent enough time out there as it is, and now you're spending three or four hours more. I said, okay, I understand. Here's what I'm asking of you, Kathy Hornsby. I said, okay. First of the year came, and I called the Virginia Special Olympics and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to great philanthropic concerns.

35:39And I said, hi, this is Bruce Hornsby. I'm just calling you because I'd like to do a benefit for you, and I'd like to do it in early May. Can we schedule one for May 5th and one for May 7th? And so they said, yeah, okay, fine. We'll take the money. We'll do that. I wanted to schedule that to give me something to shoot for, a signpost down the road that would make me really deal with this because it was a solo concert. I hadn't done that much at all because I wasn't ready. I couldn't do it. I said to my wife, okay, I've scheduled these two things, these two concerts. Give me this four months, and then after the first one, just come back and we'll talk about this.

36:26So I did the first concert for Special Olympics in Richmond. It was a two-setter. I did one set. She came back with tears in her eyes and went, oh, my God, I'm so happy you did this. This is so beautiful, so great. She's a very musical person, and so she got it. She understood and was moved by it. So that's what made me deal with it. It's always good to have some public forum where you are charged with really having something together that you've never dealt with. So that's what I've been doing for years. But Spirit Trail was the first one. So good for you for understanding that. King of the Hills.

37:45You know, that sort of thing. So not doing it very well, but that's another version of it. Spiritual is chock-a-block with two-handed independence. When we started and I said, is it all just good luck or good fortune? I think we're seeing some insight into how you navigate these things. You like throwing yourselves against these. yourself, pardon me, against these challenges. Well, I was just, for instance, in this case, I just was always blown away by when I would hear someone do something like this in an improvisatory forum. And so I wanted to be able to do my own version of it. And it's simple as that.

38:25Look, all this work that I put in with that, it leads you to a place that guards against popularity because this stuff is not what the average person wants to hear in the popular forum. People want to hear a good song sung well with a nice, great production, hopefully. This isn't that at all. This is something completely obscure and obtuse and off-putting to the average listener. So I know that all this time I put in, It wasn't about becoming a bigger, playing arenas. This sort of thing doesn't work in arenas. It's kind of like jazz music. By the very nature of the way the drums play, it's hard for that to translate in a large space.

39:18Nobody's going... They're just going...

39:28so you know it's very free it's very open and if you're 60 yards away it's hard to feel that so uh so yeah i it didn't help me in that way but it's not what it's ever been about this is about a singular pursuit but you've also you do play songs like that in your concerts you've been able to bring your crowd oh i do well yes and no i've lost a lot of people who who want to have a nostalgic night out i understand it too i get it completely i'm like anybody else if i go to to a concert i'm probably going to that concert well if it's a pop concert or rock concert because i love more than a few of their songs so i guess i'm hoping to hear that their songs i'm maybe more open than the average person to something else because it's what I do.

40:24It's easy for me to want that. But most people do go to a concert for that stroll down memory lane. And I get it. I don't dismiss it one bit. It just can be a bit of a creative prison to feel like you're in a situation where you say to your band, here's the set list for the year. Because that's what a lot of people do. See you at the hotel. Yeah, right. It's just basically, you're hoping you're not phoning it in. There are people who are just great at doing that same set and they mean it every night and that's beautiful. It would be kind of hard for me, I think. The other thing you did during that period, I think starting with Harbor Lights, is you really, you brought in really challenging players to play with.

41:19Well, you're right. And people, that's the popular notion. But it actually, if you look at it, it really started with the third range record where I had Wayne Shorter, who I'd gotten to play on End of the Innocence. That's how I knew him. Charlie Hayden, Bela Fleck, Garcia on that, It's the Night of the Town. It's a good record. I love several of the songs on it, Barren Ground is great. Also using that same chord. I guess I'm repeating myself. Soon Nashville pianists are going to come up and say, everybody wants that chord. Yeah, it wants that A over D. So that's where it really started, where I really started stretching out.

42:02Sean Colvin is on that record. I think I've named five or six. and so but yes the next time somehow made more of a mark with the guests i don't know why pat metheny was a huge guest on that harbor lights record played so fantastic in fact i love that when i got to know the great justin vernon from boniver i learned that he at age say 13 had transcribed the entire pat metheny harbor lights guitar solo oh some of it playing over these crazy

42:43he's playing over the head

42:52it's hard to do uh he just nailed it because he's a freak of nature and i love him And then I can't remember the record it's on, White Wheel Limousine has him trading. With Bela. Yes, Bela Fleck, who we've had in here. Patton Bela, yes. Yeah, which is just an amazing section of that record. Love it, yes. They both are just killing it. The cover of that record was a depiction of Bruce's dream, which had Bill Monroe and Charlie Parker going at each. Of course, yeah. Going at each other. Yeah. And so Bela Fleck and Pat Metheny were modern archetypes of each guy. And that's the fun of it. Also two guys who like you just keep pushing it, like Bela Fleck's new stuff just keeps going.

43:43Yeah, yeah, right. Absolutely. So kindred spirits. Did you learn from playing with those guys? Did it change your playing? I was on this other thing where it's sort of not applicable. The two-handed independence thing is not something that they're dealing with. They're dealing with their own difficult issues when they're pushing the envelope. So I wouldn't really say that's true. I don't think anything. I think I was just in my own world with this, yeah. 2007 and I had to I kept staring at this thinking is this real that you did two albums that year very disparate one with the great Ricky Skaggs who I think plays every instrument but the piano how did you adapt I'm not sure if you adapted the piano to bluegrass or bluegrass to the piano it's not considered a piano is not a bluegrass instrument.

44:48No, it's not, but it can be made to sound very banjo-esque. Sometimes the piano doing something feels like, it can sound like banjo, so it fit in pretty well. Oh, it was so challenging because the tempos are insane. Mm-hmm. Zip-a-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba. You know, just... Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And these guys, Ricky's bands have always been freaky great. He gets the killer pickers of Nashville. When I was playing with him, he had these guys, Andy Leftwich and Cody Kilby and Jimmy Mills on banjo.

45:30So I was just hanging on for dear life. Every time I'd had a Skaggs Orangeby tour coming, I would take the metronome out and put it on ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I'm not even going to try it now because I'm totally out of practice with that. But if I did it, I would do it. I loved my time doing all that. We made two records in 2007, the studio record in 2013, this crazy jamming live record. What's he like to play with? What kind of a... Well, he's a joyous soul, a beautiful soul, and just warm person, funny too, ready for a laugh. Some of that country humor. It's nothing quite like it Often a little blue But great Very fun So yeah but just a consummate A player, a musician One of the great singers And also Like Garcia in his own way A true walking encyclopedia Of that music Of old time I probably mentioned this before we went on the air.

46:45He turned me on to Doc Boggs and Roscoe Holcomb and Clarence Ashley, and again, the Harry Smith anthology of folk music. It's such a deep well. So I learned so much from him in that way.

47:01He was very open. One time in the middle of a jam in Medford, Oregon in about 2002, one or two, we're in a sort of a minor key spacey thing with this kind of chords. And all of a sudden, this came to me fully formed. I went...

47:45guitar solo The song came and went Like the times that we spent Hiding out from the rain Under the carnival tent Laughed and she smiled It would last for a while You don't know what you got Till you lose it all again Listen to the man with rain Listen to the music on your leg Listen to my heartbreak Every time she runs away Listen to the banjo in a sad song drifting low Listen to the tears roll down my face as she turns to gold

49:03So I played that for him, and he went, Son, we have to record that. And because it was just something about it, it has that sort of deep mountain soul with that too. You know, it's sort of a combo thing that I would do. We're coming right back with more Bruce Hornsby.

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52:43these Skaggs Hornby concerts who wish I was not there. But I'm not doing it for them. I'm doing it for the groove, Ricky and the guys. And they've responded so deeply to that. And so we recorded, and it's a very beautiful version of that. So that was – and then there's the other one, 2007. Same year. Yeah. You did your jazz trio. Yes, Camp Meeting. with Christian Christian McBride, Jack D. Jeanette D. Jeanette, what was so this is the origin story I would run into those guys I would go hear the Keith Jarrett trio at Carnegie Hall with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack playing drums and I'd run into Jack backstage and he would say okay man, when's the hit?

53:37I'd say well I'll let you know running to Christian around somewhere. And he'd say, okay, man, when's the hit? It's as if they'd conspired. So I'd say to them, I would say to Christian, well, when I figure out a way to do this, to make a jazz piano trio record that is not just me doing my Bill Evans or Chick Corea or just fill in the names, Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, whatever, Bud Powell, it's not me just doing my replication, then yeah, I'll call you. Then the hit will happen. We'll schedule the hit. So it was a bit of a project, a backburner project that I would gradually work on over a three or four-year period and come up with certain things that felt fresh, felt original.

54:41And that's the word. Okay, so when I came to them, I called them both up and said at a certain point, 2006 or maybe late 2005, hey, I think I've got an idea. And they said, okay, please send us stuff. and uh so i did send them send them both the uh recording of me playing these seven or eight nine songs some were originals some were reworkings of old jazz chestnuts and it took them a good month to get back to me it's a long it's a loud silence loud silent months I'm thinking okay they don't like it it's fine well they called me up but together and they said man we really like this it's very fresh it sounds original it sounds like an original take on this music I said well okay thanks a lot that's great but they said you're not making you're not making on our playing level and so so there's that I said okay I humbly replied I got you we've got five months between the time between now and the time we're slated to do this down at my house in Virginia so give me those five months and come on down there and if you still feel the same way about my lack of ability, then we'll just shake hands and call it a day.

56:23So I dealt with it. Luckily, I didn't have a ton going on. And they came down and we started hitting. And they went, okay, you've done the work. You've got to back up. What was the work? Oh, the work was just learning how to, okay, to play well. Here's a perfect example. So we played giant steps, which is one of the insane hallmarks of the literature.

57:13So I'm re-harmonizing it in my own way, almost hymn-like.

57:40Thank you.

58:14Okay. So what I was just soloing over those, my reharmonized, semi-reharmonization, And I had to learn how to do that, but do it well. I haven't done that in years, so I tried to keep it real simple so I wouldn't just completely blow it. So that was okay. It wasn't great. So, yeah, if I was going to make a record of doing that, I need to do that times 50 and really get it so it's very... very, because you have to ingest it. And because that's a slow tempo. We went...

59:11You know, it's like that. That's... It's not under my fingers. so that's what I had to do I had to get to a point where it was so free I could play so freely and nail it I should have asked you this earlier do you practice every day? oh hell yeah I practice I probably do about two or three hours so for instance right now I'm working on music from my new record and I'll play you a little bit of it. This is a song called Silhouette Shadows. I was I love a Shostakovich piece for one of his fugues in his Preludes and Fugues collection that he produced. Beautiful. I have a Keith Jarrett record of Keith playing the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues.

1:00:13so i love the one in f sharp it's number 13 i think and i just i just love it uh it's so beautiful and after fooling around with it for a while i thought well i would like to do my own version of this right a sort of a semi fugue so i did this when i was scoring films for spike lee uh i threw this in there as he never picked it which is okay then a couple two or three years later I started writing for this record. This thing had been lying around for a little while. And I thought, let me try to write a song with words to this music. So I did, and it's on the record, and it goes like this. I'll try to play it.

1:01:17On TV, watching from my Boston street Into something's window as Nixon resides Good, good thing I'm tall Going back to my third floor walk up Sounds in the air, the SNM couple Beating each other and dreaming That summer like a rub in my room Beating each other and screaming That summer right above my room Let's try this

1:01:59Watching morning sitcom shows every day In the shift's house when I knew they were away Making sure they'd never noticed I had been there Couldn't believe I was doing this Was I needed a break from the music school and cry

1:02:31Silhouettes and shadows Ancient scenes and cryptic dreams Silhouettes and shadows I sort of remember in the dim light In the tarot outline A far-born cutout Shaded recollection One life in reflection And it goes on from there. So that's what I'm working on. Thank you so much for coming in. In the episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite Bruce Hornsby songs. Be sure to check out youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast to see all of our video interviews. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record Pod. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan.

1:03:22Our engineer is Ben Tallade. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.

1:04:09Thank you.

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