People often ask me for help in finding new music, or at least music that’s new to us, that they might enjoy.. Fact is, even if I can make recommendations, I have the same challenge.
Back in my younger years, I was wildly passionate about music and on top of most every album in popular music that came out. For a while, as a professional music journalist in the mid-to-late 1970s with a high profile outlet – a syndicated column that appeared in a few hundred daily newspapers – most every album released came to me in the mail.
The digital revolution has now upped the amount of albums that come out exponentially. But there’s far less I have any interest in hearing. I realize it’s clichéd and culturally self-centered to say the music I grew up with and enjoyed in my earlier adult life is better. But it was. I still get lots of press releases on new albums in the contemporary pop and rock genres. I read words of praise from young music critics on the stuff in the press releases and then go listen, and almost inevitably what I hear is dreck, drivel and tripe.
Alas, that bumper crop of chaff does get in the way of discovering the ever rarer wheat. And the fracturing of mass media like radio into far narrower genre bandwidths adds to the difficulty of hearing new stuff that, to censor the crude yet fitting term, knocks my d**k in the dirt. And sure, as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten pickier… or maybe it’s more discerning.
But when something I either haven’t heard before or heard that much of really grabs me, it’s a delightful feeling to dive into an artist’s oeuvre and just start binging. Doesn’t happen to me as much, but still feels as good as it always did.
And recently there’s an artist who drew me in like that. Ironically, I’d already written about his music twice here. And what won me over was an album he put out two years ago. It’s rock singer songwriter Chuck Prophet.
I wrote a column on how his 2009 release, “¡Let Freedom Ring!”, was likely the best political album that year. Then gave a Pick to his next recording, “Temple Beautiful”, which was written about the city where he lives, San Francisco. He collaborated on an album of songs with an artist I know well, Alejandro Escovedo, for which I wrote the publicity bio. I’ve been hearing Prophet since the early ‘80s when he was with the psychedelic-roots college rock band Green On Red. I’d heard him, liked him, but never really deeply listened.
I am now, as I make my way through his 14-album catalog. What sparked this was hearing the title song of his last album, “Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins,” less a rock anthem and more a snappy rockers’ theme song that begged for repeat plays on my Spotify daily playlist. Then I went to the album and more songs pulled me in. “Jesus Was a Social Drinker” is an ideal tune for progressive Christians like me. “Open Up Your Heart” is a concise, no frills plea for love. “If I Was Connie Britton” is a smart and contagiously bouncy way to express a crush on the wonderful actress who starred in “Friday Night Lights” and “”Nashville” (I have one) is an ingeniously sly and witty way.
My friend Tom Moon nicely describes the disc as “riding shotgun down some mythic highway with a rock true believer” in his NPR review. Mojo magazine praises how it’s “ageless rock’n’roll brio comes freighted with careworn sagacity.” I enjoy as I now move on to other Prophet albums how he finds much extant life and mileage in the rock combo sound of guitars, bass, drums and keyboards with the occasional string section. And writes smart songs dashed with cool humor that are totally free of any pretension; regular guy stuff from an irregularly intelligent and gifted fellow. I’m having a gas binging on his music and have become quite a fan. Which is what I live for from rock music.
So if you were to ask to point you to something that may be in some way new to you, I say give Chuck Prophet a try.
Documentary Film: “The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby” – Spearheaded by the onetime CIA Director’s son, this movie seeks to uncover truths about a man whose life was surrounded by secrets and how the personal feeds into the political.
Documentary Film: “The King” – The filmmakers travel the nation and the life of Elvis Presley in a Rolls-Royce he once owned. Though one might think Presley is an overdone subject, it nonetheless sheds new light on and opens new vectors into the rock music icon.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2019
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