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This article was first published in May, 1999 when Cliff Eberhardt was about to
appear at the Rosendale Cafe. Cliff is appearing there again on November 10, 2000.
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An Upward Twist in the Road
Cliff Eberhardt steps up higher down in Rosendale
by Gary Alexander
Two outstanding
theme albums issued at about the same time last month
should push the responsible artists into a wider spread of recognition
for their admirable songwriting capabilities. Neither are quite what
you'd call a newcomer but both qualify to ride a surging wave of
renaissance in the so-called "singer-songwriter" category of music which
only the megacorporations seem thusfar to have failed to notice.
The Town Crier Cafe reports that singer-songwriters have become
their largest draw and venues just starting to hit their stride, like
the Rosendale Cafe, can tap into the best of what's happening on the
scene by booking solo performers while major label executives scratch
their collective head over the slump in rock, rap and alternative funk.
The day before The New York Times' Neil Strauss noted a marked lack of
excitement at the annual South by Southwest music convention in Austin
(3-24-99) the indie label Red House issued Cliff Eberhardt's Borders
album and Tom Russell's new cd The Man from God Knows Where began
getting some well-deserved airplay.
The theme plied by Eberhardt, who appears at the Rosendale Cafe on
April 10th, is stated in his title and Cliff finds his "borders" in
place, thought and emotion, even edging into Russell's theme of the
immigrant with the poignant "Land of the Free." It's a song which
quietly notes Lady Liberty turning her back to the harbor, observing
policy with a moan but without critical accusation. It's a theme
handsomely treated by today's crop of songwriters, as witness Richard
Shindell's "Fishing," Chuck Brodsky's "La MigraViene" or David
Massengill's "My Name Joe," among others, but it's only one facet of
Eberhardt's jewel.
Once upon a time it was Eberhardt's anonymous voice advising us to
drink Coca Cola or Miller Beer and reminding us that Chevrolet is the
"heartbeat of America" but now that voice has a congealing identity of
its own. After releasing albums on the Windham Hill and Shanachie/Cachet
labels Eberhardt self-produced 1997's 12 Songs of Good and Evil on Red
House and sounded like he hadn't just left his former labels but Escaped
them. (He met Red House label's owner at the wedding of his illustrious
friend John Gorka, who also converted to their stall). Borders is a
continuum of the direction taken with that step which, quite remarkably,
compels a refocusing on the flavors of Good and Evil, extending and
embellishing the voice he found in the effort and bestowing even greater
depth and definition to the earlier album. ("Just what I was hoping to
hear," he said when this was pointed out to him).
Cliff receives vocal support from John Gorka and Lucy Kaplansky at the
Towne Crier cafe.
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While the immediate impression is of an artist reinventing himself,
Eberhardt, who can lay claim to being closer to the matter at hand,
doesn't see it as quite that calculated a move; "I guess in a way it's
deliberate but I don't consciously think about it, so it can't be as
deliberate as it might seem," he laughs. "I don't know if it's
‘reinventing.' I think it's who I've always been. What it is finally I
have a record label that's letting me be the artist that I want to be."
This is not to say that there weren't good songs on The Long Road
(1990), Now you are My Home (1993) and Mona Lisa Cafe (1995); there
surely were and he revisits one of the most haunting of them ("Your
Face") on Borders. But his newer albums no longer convey the sense of
being a "product" as much as a work of art. In fact, he uses the
terminology of the visual artist in referring to the new work; "I had
decided, after some unpleasant relationships with some record companies,
that I didn't want to just keep putting out albums of just the 12 newest
songs. I'd done it for 3 albums and it was boring. Also, I didn't find
most of the stuff I was listening to to be very interesting, so I
thought picking themes, especially important themes, would guide me into
writing in a certain way, much like a lot of visual artists do things in
‘series.' I wanted to experiment with writing that way; to take writing
these kinds of songs a step further."
"Borders"
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This is dangerous turf simply because it's all too easy to milk a cow
dry with one squirt. It takes reasonable depth and diversity to explore
theme-linked angles and avoid lyrical or musical redundancy but, when
you do it with enough versatility and imagination, you emerge with a
whole that's so much more than its parts that you've brought it to
another level.
Another danger in Eberhardt's approach, which he triumphed over
magnificently in Borders, is the threat of "inbreeding" your sound by
not only producing but playing so many of the instruments yourself in a
home studio. He maintains the wisdom of recruiting just enough help from
the likes of Seth Faber, Liz Queler, Doug Plavin, Lucy Kaplansky, Carol
Sharer and Ray Mason on various tracks, to keep the dynamics and
interplay perking like fresh morning coffee. What emerges unsmothered is
the superb musicianship which makes him a popular fixture in the studio
schemes of other musicians. On tracks like "Anna Lee," "Why Is the Road
So Long" and others, we're treated to what has to be the sweetest and
most expressive dobro in the land, an instrument that takes on a
charged, expectant tone on "Everybody Knows."
In Tom Russell's immigrant song cycle, the author even enlists other
artists (like Iris D'Ment- the female Hank Williams and the ever
irrepressible Dave Van Ronk) for lead vocals. Van Ronk, who packed
Rosendale Cafe a few weeks ago, has never sounded better than he does on
Russell's brilliant song "The Outcast," really an instant classic.
I'd suggest arriving early for a good seat. It's a smokeless veggie
cusine with a modest but interesting selection of exotic beers and
there's no telling who'll show up. Ann Sternberg of WAMC's
"Rock'n'Roots" program (Friday at 11 pm for a studied fix on roots music
that puts 50 hours of work into a single hour of programming) was on
hand last Friday to catch two true masters, Paul Geremia and John
Herald, engaging the room with their unique stylings when, lo and
behold, Garth Hudson suddenly made a rare appearance on stage with the
pair of them, pushing his bearded chin into his chest behind the
accordion as his peerless intuition pulled his accompaniment out of the
soundwaves colliding between their guitars. There was a fine bone-deep
feel of the "good old days" in the air past midnight in a desperately
needed venue for the survival of "free'n'easy" music. Come on down.
Gary Alexander
is an independent journalist and scholar whose focus of
interests range through a variety of disciplines. Under various names,
he has written (and ghost written) upon history and current event;
science and technology, as well as music and the arts in books and for
national periodicals. While particularly attentive to the subtle and
complex impact upon cultural imagination and contemporary structures of
presumption which activity in the above mentioned topics tend to have,
Alexander treats his topics with a slightly more than occasional resort
to humor.
Posted on October 23, 2000
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