He had a No. 1 pop single with a song about racism. His songs have tackled such topics as class differences, TV evangelists and hypocrisy in high places, and his latest hit serves as a commentary on environmental issues. But few people would categorize Bruce Hornsby as a protest singer or social crusader-and that`s just fine with him.
”Certainly, there are issues that we think are important to discuss,”
says the singer, songwriter, accordionist and keyboard player, who writes most of his songs with his nonperforming brother, John Hornsby, and performs them with his four-piece band, the Range. ”There`s a whole bunch of them. We wrote about the environment in `Look Out Any Window,` and racism in `The Way It Is,` and class differences in `The Valley Road,` and hypocrisy in high places in
`Defenders of the Flag,` and TV evangelists in `Jacob`s Ladder.` ”
But, he`s quick to note, beating people over the head with issues just isn`t his style-which is why Hornsby is far better known for his inviting piano-driven melodies, evocative lyrics and engaging mix of pop, jazz, country and folk styles than for his occasional forays into social commentary.
”I think it`s really rather unartistic and not very clever to just go,
`Racism is bad! Acid rain is bad!,` ” explains Hornsby, who will appear with the Range next Sunday at Poplar Creek. ”To me, that`s just lame. It`s not interesting.
”Besides, I don`t think that people like to be preached to. I think that the best we can do as musicians is to help create awareness or heighten awareness of problems, and we try, in our own hopefully subtle fashion, to do just that. Our approach hopefully is more of a humble one. We`re not politicians, that`s not our trade, but there are some issues that we feel are important, so we write about them. I don`t know whether people listen to the lyrics or not, but even if they don`t, I wouldn`t want to write (songs with lyrics like) `Baby, baby` all the time.
”But that`s just part of what we like to do,” he adds. ”We also like to tell a story, like in `The Valley Road,` or paint a picture.”
The picture that emerges on Hornsby and the Range`s latest album,
”Scenes from the Southside,” is one of Southeast Virginia (also known as the Tidewater or Southside area of the state), where Hornsby and his brother grew up in Williamsburg. A longtime fan of Southern literature, with an especial fondness for ”hot, steamy, mysterious Southern short stories,”
Hornsby likens the album-which already has sold more than a million copies and hit the Top 10-to a collection of musical short stories, an evocation of scenes and situations from his native turf.
”The Valley Road,” for instance, a recent hit single that deals obliquely with class differences, was inspired by social mismatches he had witnessed. ”Every year, some rich girl would get involved with some country guy, and they acted irresponsibly and had to deal with the ramifications.”
Another song, ”The Road Not Taken,” deals with a visiting missionary teacher who embarks on a romance with a local girl. ”The Show Goes On” is about small-town gossips, and ”The Old Playground” hearkens back to the 6-foot, 4- inch Hornsby`s glory days on the basketball court.
”The first album we did was coming from pretty much the same place that this one is,” says Hornsby, whose 1986 debut album with the Range, entitled
”The Way It Is,” sold more than 2 million copies and garnered the group a 1986 Grammy Award for best new artist. ”But my brother and I tried to focus this one more and make it more all of a piece. That`s why we titled it `Scenes from the Southside`-we wanted to hit `em over the head a little bit more with it, because we think that our focus is one of our strong points.”
Some pop fans were surprised at the strong Appalachian musical feel to
”Scenes from the Southside,” but, Hornsby points out, ”our sound is still real piano-oriented. There`s more stretching out, and it`s more varied stylistically, but I just see that as a logical progression-the full flowering of a musical style. I don`t think of this as a musical departure; to me, it`s just the next step forward.
”Ever since I got real serious about music, I`ve always liked a lot of different styles,” notes the singer, who cites albums by George Jones, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Bob Dylan, the Band, Leon Russell and various bluegrass artists as being among his all-time favorites. (The name the Range was chosen for its ”rural” connotations.) ”And ever since I started focusing on the piano and my music, I`ve tried to fuse those styles together in the songs.”
Hornsby, now in his early 30s, ”got real serious” about music at the relatively late age of 17.
”My parents have a tape of me at age 3 singing `You Ain`t Nothing But a Hound Dog,` ” he recalls, ”but music wasn`t my main passion when I was growing up; basketball was. But when I was 17, I started playing the piano, because the music I was getting into at that point was really piano-oriented, and I think that`s what moved me in a lot of different directions; the piano is such a broad instrument. I started out liking Elton John and Leon Russell, and from Leon`s kind of gospelish, bluesy piano I got into New Orleans music and Chicago blues and Delta blues. Then I heard some Keith Jarrett records and moved over to the jazz world, and from there I got into modern classical music.”
After graduating from the University of Miami in 1977 with a degree in music, Hornsby returned to Virginia, put together a pop group called the Bruce Hornsby Band, and began trying to get a record deal. Two years later, the group was ”sort of discovered,” as Hornsby puts it, by Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers, who heard them performing in a bar. Eventually, through McDonald`s contacts, Hornsby landed a job as a staff songwriter for 20th Century Fox and moved to Los Angeles. John, who had just graduated from Stanford University, joined him and the two began collaborating musically in 1980, with Bruce generally functioning as ”idea man” and arranger and John contributing part (and sometimes all) of the song lyrics. Meanwhile, Hornsby continued his quest for a record deal.
”It took me a long time,” he says. ”I started trying in 1978, but I didn`t break down the door until 1985.”
A lot of would-be pop stars might assume that once a band attracts the attention of an established pop star-and said established pop star goes to bat for them-they`ve got it made. But Hornsby and the Range are proof that isn`t always the case. Even having million-selling pop singer Huey Lewis in their corner didn`t help them get a record deal.
”Huey was always calling up labels and waving the Bruce Hornsby flag around in the music business,” says the singer, who met Lewis in 1981 when Lewis wanted to record a song Hornsby had written. (”I`m a songwriter first,” explains Hornsby, whose songs have been recorded by Lewis, Willie Nelson and Don Henley. ”That`s how I make most of my friendship
connections.”)
”But even though Huey was really big then-he had the No. 1 album in the country at the time with `Sports`-it didn`t make any difference in the end as far as us getting a deal. What finally happened was that I made this little solo demo tape, just me and a drum machine and synthesizer and piano. I didn`t tell anybody about it, not even my band or Huey. It was a lot more piano-oriented than what I had been doing-it didn`t sound like anything you would hear on the radio-and I thought I might get Windham Hill Records interested in it. Ironically, the tape that I thought was so non-commercial wound up getting a couple of major labels interested in us.”
Despite his Grammy Award and two platinum albums, Hornsby still doesn`t feel much like a pop star.
”I would say that I probably feel a little bit uncomfortable with that notion,” says the singer, who recently moved back to Williamsburg with his wife and spends his free time playing golf or basketball or hanging out at local clubs with his friends. ”I certainly don`t think of myself that way. I just want to play music.
”It`s funny, when we do concerts now we`re getting a little bit of the thing where people are screaming and grabbing at me, and it`s kind of unsettling,” says Hornsby in a tone of disbelief. ”I think, Lord, why are they doing this? Because looks is not what our band is about. You can probably tell from our videos that image is not too important to us. I care about the music, and the rest of it doesn`t mean that much to me.”
