listening for my true musical roots...

As I was driving down to band practice last Sunday morning on Route 8 in CT, I found myself seriously mulling over who truly influenced my musical tastes? It is SOP for musicians my age to note that life changed completely after seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. That is no lie for me. In fact, that Sunday evening in February 1964 was my personal Pentecost: I finally felt as if life had meaning and I might be able to share with others a little of the beauty and joy this music gave to me. This is the song that pushed me off the cliff into rock and roll heaven.

On the first pass of musical mentors, it would have to be the Beatles, the Stones, Jimi Hendrick, Cream, Jeff Beck, Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead. Go a little deeper, however, and it becomes clear that Joni Mitchell was a huge influence as was John Fogerty. I am a big fan of Eric Andersen,Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson and Laura Nyro, too. The pop/gospel/country roots of Fogerty shapes the sound I seek to create. What he does with "Midnight Special," for example, defines about 75% of my aesthetic sensibilities.  
The poetry and innovation of Mitchell and Cohen drive my quest to marry playful lyrics with understated melodies and instrumentation. I hate overproduced songs saturated with sythn and strings! And has there ever been a more poignant and insightful lament written that this?

The music Andersen and early Kristofferson made merged Americana with the counter culture giving me a way to celebrate twang without becoming sentimental. And Nyro? Total blue eyed soul - like the Rascals or Little Steven and the Disciples. Sure I grooved to Motown, loved me some Linda Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur, and went to every Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert I could get to back in the day. But those cats don't drive the music I hear in my heart. "Captain for Dark Mornings" says it better than I ever could.
These artists are why I enjoy Springsteen and his various ensembles so vigorously: he creates roots music, too. Like Lucinda Williams. Both of those artists bring contemporary concerns to timeless sounds so that I feel grounded in a tradition even as I am carried into new territory. And that brings me to the last guy that I can't get enough of:  Bobby Weir of the Grateful Dead. He is not the world's greatest singer. Neither am I. But he plays the most creative rhythm guitar you will ever hear. And, he loves a good party when the band is cooking. So I would have to say this take on the Chuck Berry original, "Around and Around" (which I first heard on a Stones LP) is another essential for me.

It is a must to close this with Carrie Newcomer - another direction - as well as brother Tom Waits - and now for something completely different - as these two very different writers always take it deeper for me. Keep on truckin' friends.