This feature appeared in Huffington Post, September 2015

The internet is the jewel. For me, it is the link between me and my fans, who are like family. Back in the 1990s I kind of imagined what my audience was like. And 20 years later my idea of what my audience is changed. It may be only 500 or a 1000 people or more — but those people really care, and they get my jokes, and they want to hear from me. Tracy Bonham

I last spoke with Tracy Bonham in the year 2000 in a bygone era previous to YouTube.com, Facebook, Pinterest, Tinder, iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Ashley Madison, Twitter, and Huffington Post, among other modern day necessities — give or take a few. At that particular point in time, Ms. Bonham faced the daunting task of following up her pivotal debut album; the multiple Grammy Award nominated, highly acclaimed and most influential Burdens of Being Upright (1996) which featured the anthem which brought Tracy to the mainstream masses (and the Howard Stern radio show) — “Mother Mother.”

The album we discussed in the waning days of the Clinton administration was entitledDown Here — which was victim to the seismic shifts that eventually rendered the record industry as we knew it obsolete. Regardless, Tracy continued to wax music that mattered in the ensuing years. Bee (2003), Blink The Brightest (2005), and Masts of Manhatta (2010), and assorted EP and single releases which are all exemplary singer-songwriter efforts which traverse folk, pop, jazz, blues, and “alternative rock” — whatever that means.

She performed extensively with Blue Man Group, sang with Aerosmith, excelled in the violin chair with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, and she teaches music, to cite a few artistic endeavors. And Tracy is currently creating a children’s music education curriculum “ala School House Rock, but instead of themes like English grammar and U.S. politics it is about music theory and ear training. I am already teaching classes and have an album almost finished that I plan on releasing in the next year which will be posted and publicized on my website and my social media pages.”

For those of you who have never met Ms. Bonham, don’t let the “Mother Mother” legend intimidate you. (Tracy sounded genuinely surprised when I informed her that her seminal composition airs incessantly on 1990s retrospectives.) She’s very funny, given to self-effacing humor, greatly appreciative of her artistic and commercial accomplishments, and, in my opinion, is on a path wherein she can navigate this mess of a music industry into a something that artists of her ilk can actually work with. It takes a mother to fix things.
Nowadays Tracy and her husband split their time between their beloved Woodstock and Brooklyn, New York with their son, an Ethiopian boy which the couple recently adopted. Parenthood and family is a theme which runs through her new album Wax & Gold – a title which derives its name from Ethiopian literature and culture which details a way of telling stories that put forth dual meanings — “wax” for the superficial meaning, “gold” for the true meaning.

Lyrically there are a lot of specifics, but it’s mostly about how we all got here. I’m sure that mothers and fathers whose children came out of the womb and have been in the household from day one often look at their child and say ‘how did you get here? Who are you? For us, there is a lot of mystery but I do get this beautiful tapestry – there is a whole other history which he came from and we get to learn about it and we get to discover it and we get to bring our family history to his tapestry and we’re making this crazy colorful quilt, which are universal themes for all parents.

An intimate show at the Rockwood Music Hall in New York City to introduce Wax & Gold was a family reunion of sorts. I reconnected with a few former music industry faces, fellow musicians, and East Village dwellers who moved out of town due to the never-ending rent increases which continue to force artists out of the neighborhood which they made famous. Many now have families of their own and were thrilled that they found babysitters for a weekday evening. Accompanying Ms. Bonham on stage was an extraordinary cellist, Gabriel Royal — a dapper young dude whom Tracy discovered busking and crooning on the 2nd Avenue Subway. Bonham, ever the comedienne, chided him about his age and his good looks — which did not go unnoticed by the moms in the room who kept waitresses busy with multiple alcohol orders and applauded Mr. Royal rather fervently for his ace accompaniment, among other attributes. As Tracy rendered her new lyrics and melodies, the audience responded immediately. Apparently with age comes a shared wisdom.

Tracy’s family, and her family of fans also correlates to her family of peer artists and band members. “Well, as far as the Woodstock family sector goes there is an incredible mix of musicians – from the likes of John Medeski to Don Byron to Donald Fagan to Rachael Yamagata, Natalie Merchant, Mike and Ruthy, and Josh Ritter. The list goes on. People in general want to hide out when they escape from tour, or escape from the city and move to the country, so over the years it has been a challenge to get people to come out of their cocoons. But there is a venue that seems to have brought people together, the Bearsville Theater. It is a historic venue, built by Bob Dylan’s manager Allan Grossman as part of the Bearsville complex with a radio station, a recording studio and a few restaurants. This little hub of music inspired businesses over the years has brought in a multitude of national as well as local acts. Over the years, since Jason and I have moved there, I have been a part of several benefit shows, raising money for people affected by Hurricane Irene – which hit hard up here. These people come out to play together and that is when I feel like I am the luckiest person in the world to have a place in that community.”

From “potluck” dinners with her Woodstock neighbors to impromptu barn concerts transmitted over the internet, Ms. Bonham revels in her society of “musicians, misfits, and mystics.” Conversely we also have producer / guitarist / recording artist Kevin Salem, renowned for his work with Yo La Tengo and Boys Against Girls to name drop a few familiar references, to thank for Wax & Gold. A highly respected member of Bonham’s aforementioned musical community — it was Salem who proclaimed “Bonham, what’s your problem! Why does it take you five years every single time you put an album out!?” Bonham, who is quick with rejoinders when we converse every fifteen years or so admits that she had no answer.

As such Salem commenced Tracy on a three-day-per-week schedule to get the proverbial ball of Wax & Gold rolling. “I had known his name forever from the Boston scene” she notes “I enjoyed his music, I enjoyed his solo albums. When we met it was like we were best friends from day one. I knew he was going to be someone who was important in my life. He met my son and within minutes they were wrestling on the grass! I knew ‘Uncle Kevin’ had arrived.”

A lot of what transpires on Wax & Gold occurred organically. Case in point: while attending a Halloween party at her son’s school, Tracy heard a baritone sax and accordion playing together afar in a field. It was Jay Collins jamming for kids with a mutual friend, Marco Benevento, simply for the pure joy of entertaining the children. Tracy loved what she’d heard and invited Collins to a session wherein his horn and flute work transformed “Noonday Demon” from a bluesy groove exercise into a swingin’ jazz tune. Though she considers it to be somewhat of an anomaly, to my ears it sits well within her canon. “It’s my absolute favorite song, so I made it the first track… it’s a great way to start an album.”
An additional catalyst on the session dates was her longtime bassist Mike DuClos. “He tries out a whole bunch of ideas like a Paul McCartney free-for-all – and then he starts refining his parts — he’ll look at me on the first day and say “don’t worry — don’t worry…” He’ll see my eyebrows go up when I think ‘God he’s overplaying!’ Then he just trims the fat and I’m left with the most tasteful bass lines I’ve ever heard.”

Wax & Gold was borne of the Pledge Music crowd funding platform. That is, Tracy’s fans financed the recording and release of Wax & Gold. Depending on the amount pledged, fans received various versions of the “album “– ranging from the hard-copy CD and downloads to vinyl pressings to assorted bonus tracks, demos and other perks including an acoustic house concert, a full band concert, and “Karaoke Night with Tracy and Kevin Salem.”

As such Ms. Bonham is, in my view, is helping to redefine the concept of the album as an art-form and as a product in the market-place wherein streaming is now the norm and artists are paid pennies on pennies on pennies on the dollar.

Emphasizes Tracy “an album can be a lot of different things now- not just ten set songs. I’m not even sure if the album is valuable anymore.” Of course, Ms. Bonham had the benefit of mass exposure under the old record company business model, but she does stress that new artists can still earn an audience. Is it the best of times? Worst of times?
If you want to have creative freedom and you don’t want to deal with the big machine that was the music industry with moguls taking you out to dinner and making you feel like more than what you are, then drop you just as fast, and you don’t want to deal with the hyper-inflated bullshit; then this is the best of times. Because you can literally do anything you want. You can make a record in your bedroom, put it out, get a Twitter account and the world is yours. Sure there is luck involved but there is also perseverance and energy which you have to put into it.”

She pauses. “And that’s what I would tell a 20-year-old. Yet to somebody my age — I’m not going to say it’s ‘the worst of times’ — but the old model is obsolete — you just can’t look at it like that anymore — you cannot look at it from the perspective of the old days because that’s gone forever.”

Tracy’s Wax & Gold videos are accruing views aplenty, her gigs bring in the faithful as well as younger ears, and she’s found a business model that works. “It is a lot of work but I feel it is a conversation with people who ‘get me’ — and that’s the fun of doing this right now!”

Tracy Bonham Photo credit: Franco Vogt

This feature appeared in Huffington Post, August 2015.

Edward Rogers: “We’ve known each other for a long, long time…twenty years.”

J-F Vergel: “What! That long? Really?”

Edward Rogers: “Absolutely. I met J-F when he was in the band Rogue’s March. He was a friendly cat, we immediately hit it off. J-F and I shared a musical bond, a little bit more so than the other members. So, it all started when we’d run into each other. And I remember at one point he asked me to put some words to music that he had written…”

J-F Vergel: “No, no, no, here’s what happened – I was the Apollo Theater to see what’s his name?”

Edward Rogers: “Paul Weller.”

J-F Vergel: “Right. So, out of the corner of my eye I spot Ed and his wife about two rows down from where I was sitting. And it was really weird because I had been thinking about him, even though I hadn’t been playing for a long time. We chatted and I said to Ed, “I got a bunch of songs, do you want to put words to them?” And he agreed. I sent him a couple of tunes…I can’t remember how many.”

Edward Rogers: “You sent me three tracks…”

J-F Vergel: “No. Was it that many?”

Edward Rogers: “Yes. Now, I take writing assignments very seriously, especially from musicians I respect…

J-F Vergel: “Oh and Ed says ‘I’ll have them to you in a week!’ And he sends me something two days later. Two days! So now it becomes a race! I didn’t want Ed to get ahead of me.”

Edward Rogers: “Hey man, I got three hundred and sixty pages of lyrics that I’ve written in the last ten years!”

J-F Vergel: “Ah, so that’s how you did it so fast! Damn!”

John and Paul. Mick and Keith. Pete and Roger. Tyler, Perry. Axl, Slash. Page, Plant. Noel, Liam. Ray and Dave. To my ears, the best rock ‘n’ roll, regardless of its generational bent, is oft borne of odd couples. The Vagabond Hearts are no exception. A fresh, underground New York City super-group of sorts, the Vagabond Hearts are helmed by two veritable veterans of the local music scene: guitarist, songwriter J-F Vergel and singer, songwriter, recording artist Edward Rogers. Rogers, the well-tempered, well-organized British ex-patriot emerges as a stark contrast to Vergel, the street-wise, shoot-from-the-lip New Yorker. Naturally, they’re a perfect fit.

To extract a linear history of the Vagabond Hearts is nearly impossible, as evidenced in the above documented conversation. Not that it matters. As far as they recall, their first performance occurred at the home of May Pang – the jam sessions held at her soirees are legendary. “I had no idea what I was doing, and I was the one calling out the chord changes to the bass player” laughs Vergel. “Oh it was great, everyone loved it,” counters Ed. “We knew we had to take it further.”

The Vagabonds’ modus operandi is to work fast and grab the best players whenever possible and wherever available. I caught one of their early gigs with JD Foster in the bass chair at the Bowery Electric. With lead sheets and cheat sheets flying off the bandstand, Rogers and Vergel ripped through their repertoire with a reckless abandon that required years and years of experience in the rock ‘n’ roll trenches to perfect. Foster even regaled me with tales of his time working with Ronnie Lane while he and the Hearts’ performance was in progress – now you get the picture?

Recorded in two days, the Vagabond Hearts official bow is a five track EP aptly dubbed Two Jokers In a Pack – a title which arrived at the suggestion of Vergel’s significant other. “It’s a line from the song ‘Reckless’ -my wife loves that track, and she says that lyric perfectly describes Ed and I.”

With the only stipulation being that sessions take place during the daytime as J-F prefers to sleep at night, the Vagabond Hearts roster on Two Jokers includes guitarist/producer Don Piper, bassist Sal Maida, drummer/percussionist Boris Kinberg, keyboardist Matt Trowbridge, backing vocalists Tish & Snooky, and horn player Wayne Cobham.

Rather than reference each player’s laudable credits, their collective body of work includes albums, sessions, and concert performances with Willy DeVille, The Brandos, Roxy Music, The Sparks, Cracker, Ray Charles, Billy Cobham, Ben E. King, Michael Jackson, Wilson Pickett, and Blondie, to cite a very select few. Track selection for the EP was a no brainer.

Edward Rogers: “We whittled it down from twenty songs….”

J-F Vergel: “We whittled it down from seven or eight songs…”

Edward Rogers: “We recorded the first five songs we wrote together…”

J-F Vergel: “We worked with songs that sound similar…”

Edward Rogers: “The whole idea is that with these five songs there is a varying degree in styles…”

Exactly.

Waxed in a single vocal take, Rogers likens his croon on the jangle-pop opening track “Autumn Sun” to Monkee Davey Jones’ rendition of the Harry Nilsson penned gem “Cuddly Toy.” Vergel assumes the mighty guitar mantle of Mick Ronson for the defining motif of “Angel Share” – a title which the singer pinched from a Scottish film which he and J-F were familiar with and which refers to a potent whiskey distillation residue. “It gives a very surreal meaning to the song…it’s a clever wham, bam, thank-you-ma’am track” explains Ed. Maida and Kinberg set a slammin’ swing groove to “Bridge of Sighs” wherein Vergel’s melodies punctuate the vocal triumvirate of Ed, Tish & Snooky. And Mr. Cobham’s trumpet lines on the ballad “Age of Reason” abet J-F’s acoustic finger-picking and Rogers’ sentimental delivery rather poignantly.

The Vagabond Hearts’ current game plan is to put out music when the time is right – whenever that may be. Additional gigs in New York City will certainly transpire. As the record industry tries to sort itself out, the Vagabond Hearts will no doubt persevere regardless of how the masses consume music.

J-F Vergel: “We have a great relationship, it’s like being on Tin Pan Alley – we have a lot of songs, I don’t think we can use all of them, but they may be good for other artists. I like doing new things that I have not heard – it’s too easy to repeat yourself. My influences push Ed to places he’s never been…”

Edward Rogers: “The whole interesting thing about us writing together is that we’ll try different styles of music. I try to adapt as much as I can and J-F leads me in as much as he can…and that’s what a true collaboration is.”

Two Jokers In a Pack by the Vagabond Hearts is available now at Bandcamp .Com – www.vagabondhearts . bandcamp . com. You can also follow the Vagabond Hearts on Facebook. Com.

This feature appeared in Huffington Post July 2015

“Joey Ramone had an infatuation with The Ancients, which took me by surprise! Why would a punk rock legend have any sort of affection for what we did? But getting to know Joey as I did, I think the best I could tell was that Joey always wanted to be a crooner. He admired the way I sang, my voice, my delivery. I guess that’s what kind of drew him to the band. And I’m still very flattered by that. And he eventually became kind a crooner, especially on his later songs – which brought a smile to my face because I knew he had it in him!” Fred Schreck

Though we may have crossed paths as musicians on the same stages and studios sometime in New York City in the 1980s, my first official awareness of singer, songwriter, recording artist Fred Schreck was by way of John Ashton’s Satellite Paradiso – whom I interviewed (February 2014) upon the release of their brilliant self-titled debut.

Fred’s work with the former Psychedelic Furs guitarist is, in a word, extraordinary. If you dig heavy experimental rock with massive pop hooks and matchless musicianship- for lack of a better description – I highly advise that you seek out their first and only official release (as of this writing) which also features bassists Gail Ann Dorsey and Sara Lee, drummers Frank Coleman and Paul Garisto, saxophonists Mars Williams and Duncan Kilburn, cellists Jo Quail and Jane Scarpantoni, and guitarist Cheetah Chrome, among others.

As we communicate via social media, whenever Fred posts a missive I read it, listen to it, and/or share it. One morning Fred posted a track by his band The Ancients – an ensemble which I was unacquainted with.

When I heard the track, my immediate reaction was one of… joy! I revel when artists of a certain age make music that moves forward rather than replicates the past, as so many often do whether they are aware of it or not. Fred’s post took me back to the moment I first heard David Bowie’s Low album, which was co-produced by Tony Visconti, on the day it appeared in the Sam Goody bins in January 1977. When my friends and I dropped the needle on side one song one on that freezing winter day – we didn’t know what we were hearing: new sounds, new grooves; a new way of arranging music as a collage that somehow coalesced into a single burst of energy. We loved it. And we tried our best to make music like it. In those days, we expected recording artists and their producers to blow our minds. The Ancients blew my mind. So, I congratulated Fred on his new music and asked for additional info so we could talk about it. Like Bowie and Satellite Paradiso, Fred was making music that matters in the present tense.

However akin to his Paradiso pals Ashton and Coleman, Mr. Schreck has a refreshingly dry sense of humor. When he responded that this “new” album entitled Mind– a collaboration with composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist Morgan Visconti – was actually recorded two decades ago, I shrugged it off as one of his customary jibes. I worked as a bass player in recording studios and bands in those days and earlier -and tracks such as “Circa 1977” did not sound like that circa 1993 with regard to the mix and the arrangement – just to being with. To my ears The Ancients would have knocked Trent Reznor down a notch or two or three had this record dropped in the alternative rock era when NIN was all the rage. When I received the official Ancients press release which proved fact to what I thought was fiction, I demanded answers from Messrs. Schreck and Visconti!

Testifies Schreck: “The Ancients were conceived as sort of a solo project for me. I was in a band that was pretty popular in the New York City music scene in the late 1980s called Shoot the Doctor. We’d gotten a certain amount of notoriety though we failed to get that ‘big record deal’ which was the goal of every band in those years. The frustration of not getting the prize made some cracks surface within the band. Along comes Rob Sacher -who at that time was the manager of a club called Mission which was a pretty popular hangout for people who liked Goth and industrial alternative rock. He approached me one time at a gig, invited me down to the club to talk, and I think he initially wanted to guide along and help my former band – in the end we decided it was best for me to break off and take some of the songs that I’d written and think of them in a new way. That’s how the first Ancients album came about.”

Among Schreck’s associates for that first album was Morgan Visconti. Recalls Fred “Morgan was about eighteen years old, fresh from England and living in the city for the first time. He was being a bit of a bad boy, hanging out in clubs such as Mission. Rob plied him with drinks and asked him to take a shot and produce one of my songs.” The track “Release Me” emerged as the most recognizable cut on the record. As such Schreck and Visconti struck up a friendship, with Morgan joining The Ancients live line-up. “I knew that Morgan was destined for other things. I knew that eventually he was going to make a name for himself…”

Sessions for Mind commenced in the summer of 1993 at Morgan’s Manhattan studio. Visconti notes “We worked fast and furious during available hours, mostly nights and weekends as I was writing and recording music for television during regular office hours. Our inspirations although not very specific, included King Crimson, Killing Joke, Bowie, even Peter Gabriel and Genesis at some points – that combined with what we were absorbing at the time – Soundgarden , Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails. We didn’t want to emulate a 1990’s sound but we couldn’t help putting a bit of grunge on here and there.”
Among the players who contributed to Mind included Schreck’s former Crush bandmate Paul Ferguson (Killing Joke), his former Shoot the Doctor mates and guitarists Albert Zampino and Dave Tsien; drummer John Socha; guitarist Chris Sokolewicz; and singers Diva Gray and Robin Clark who had also backed David Bowie on “Young Americans.”

With regard to the striking relevance of Mind in the year 2015, Visconti theorizes. “It’s harder and harder to sound ‘this year’ as things change so quickly. But music is also cyclical, ‘the 1980’s strikes back’ may have just expired and maybe now is the time for the return of the 1990s! I think that because our influences were outside the box of the 90s, it never really congealed as a 90s record. We didn’t want to be those Seattle bands, I guess we existed in our own bubble.”

Schreck agrees. “The other explanation could be that at least lyrically, I tend to stay away from topical subjects. I think on one song I sing ‘turn the dial’ – which even then was antiquated. Morgan did such a great job producing. In the end what sounds good will always sound good!”

Among The Ancients’ admirers was Morgan’s dad, the aforementioned legendary producer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist whose list of Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame worthy credits include timeless recordings by David Bowie, Thin Lizzy, T. Rex, Sparks, and Morrissey to cite a very select few.

“I remember Tony being a proud dad when I played him my mixes” states Morgan. “But being a stubborn twenty- something, I was too cool to ask for further advice or help both musical and industry wise, which is something I regret now looking back. I was wary of nepotism. I wanted to blaze my own trail and all that. He’s always a very honest, no-bullshit critic of mine but I sensed that he thought I was doing all the right things in the studio. I remember he came to several of our shows and enjoyed them too.”

Consequently Mind was never released in its time. Schreck and Visconti’s personal and professional lives went in decidedly different directions. However they remained comrades, and Mind had always been on their minds.

Schreck: “Five years later, we’d talk and say ‘this stuff is great, we gotta do something with it …ten years later, fifteen years later….same conversation!”

Morgan: “For some reason, now in 2015 it was clear. We’ve just gotta do it.”

The Ancients Mind on the Human imprint is currently available on iTunes and Amazon.

This feature appeared in Huffington Post June 2015

“You ask the average person what a bass is, or what a bass sounds like, and most of the time, they don’t know. But remove the bass from any piece of music and suddenly it becomes the largest missing piece in the world! Whoa, fifty percent of the music just went away with one instrument! It is an instrument that is much more conspicuous by its absence than by its presence…”

A few weeks ago I interviewed Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer Dennis Dunaway upon the release of his memoire Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group – and among the many profound statements he imparted to me was “rock ‘n’ roll …if it doesn’t kill ya, it will keep you forever young.”

Which brings me directly to Michael Visceglia, an ageless cat who has plied his oft anonymous yet essential craft on recorded works and concert performances with such artists as Suzanne Vega, John Cale, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler, Phoebe Snow, and Christopher Cross, to reference a very few.

Shortly following his latest performance from the orchestra pit of Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein’s Tony Award Winning Broadway musical Kinky Boots on a warm spring evening, Mr. Visceglia is sitting across the table from me in one of those Italian restaurants that Billy Joel once portrayed in song to discuss his new book, which, as the most mesmeric works often are, is borne of “a labor of love…it was a completely non- commercial idea at first!”

As for the play, which was cited for Best Musical and Best Original Score, Mike’s grooves are worth the price of admission alone – but go see the production anyway. “For a Tuesday night” he enthuses, “this was a fantastic gig…the audience was really into it…everything clicked.”

In short, Visceglia’s terrific tome A View From the Side, negotiates many themes which may appear disparate at first, but they all resolve in the end – much like an effective bass-line that grabs an audience – even if they cannot fathom the source of the rhythm, harmony, and rumble by no fault of their own. His chronicles of tours with Suzanne Vega, Velvet Underground icon John Cale, the story of the mysterious Miss M as exposed in “The Fan,” and his paean to a friend and mentor entitled “The Many Lives of Jan Arnet,” are the stuff of Hitchcock films. And that’s just the first few chapters.

“The idea came from my experiences on the road…” exclaims Michael, “hey if this happened to me, there’s got to be a lot of other musicians who have really interesting things to say…but I kept it in the bass world, because I’m a bass player.” True that, but few scribes can capture the range of emotions that a bass player experiences given the tangible power of the instrument and the role these dedicated yet mostly unknown practitioners play in the music that touches the lives of millions.

“But, you don’t have to be a muso or a bass player to appreciate it…” emphasizes the bassist. “I want it to be for anybody who has an interest in the music business and beyond. There is value in these human interest stories. I stayed away from the usual topics of what amplifier or what instrument someone used on a record or a tour. I delved into the thought process, the creative process, how these players keep going in this ever changing business. How do they traverse all the different styles? It’s something everyone can relate to.”

Aside from the sometimes torrid yet always touching tales of his personal experiences, Michael’s candid conversations with bassists Will Lee (Late Show with David Letterman), Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, John Lennon), Marcus Miller, Colin Moulding (XTC), and the late studio legend Duck Dunn, among others, makes known much about the character of a bass player which will enlighten fans and aspiring musicians alike.

Visceglia’s in-depth exchange with James Taylor bassist Leland Sklar, another studio giant, emerges as a pop music history lesson hitherto untold- warts and all. “My goal was to get players from different parts of the country, from different genres…with Lee Sklar, you get a look through the window of how you can be with someone for such a long time and build a career for a star, and you think you are creating an everlasting bond with someone…but you’re really not. And I’ve found that out a few times myself.”

Visceglia also shares his expertise on the currently unhinged state of the music business, offering insightful analysis on the death of the record industry; the American Idol-ization of the pop music spectrum, along with practical advice on how to forge a career as a working musician regardless of the seismic shifts in how music is delivered, consumed, and valued by the masses. However unlike many veteran players who have seen it all and continue to pine for days past, Michael waxes wise and most positive.

“One thing that an audience always relates to, more than anything else in the world, is authenticity. Of course, there are a lot of fabricated stars out there…that’s fine. And it’s nothing new. But that doesn’t mean that every artist out there is defined by that. To experience the connection that happens between musicians, a song, a voice, an instrument, and an audience…all the people who are in it for the right reasons, and are committed to the art – we will always find an outlet for it. The other stuff, well, that’s just white noise in the background…”

With a Fender bass fawning forward by former teacher Gordon Sumner, better known by his stage name Sting – and moving tributes to his late father, without whom Michael would have never picked up a bass to embark on his incredible life journey, A View From the Side is among the most realistic, accurate and useful collection of essays for bass players, musicians, and fans that I’ve come across in many years. I’m not at all surprised that it was written by a bass player.

“The nature of the bass is supportive. It’s the only instrument that exists in three worlds – the rhythmic, the harmonic, and melodic worlds. In order to have longevity in this business, from my own experiences and from everybody I talked with, you have to be highly committed, highly flexible – you cannot have a rigid outlook on your life and the way you think things are supposed to be…because the script isn’t written that way!”

Michael Visceglia’s A View From the Side, published by Wizdom Media LLC and distributed by Alfred Music is out now.

This feature appeared in Huffington Post in January 2015.

“Yip wrote about universal human emotions and conditions, his lyrics have remained remarkably relevant. In every day and age we have had dreamers, lovers and soul searchers. But Yip was also a human rights activist and he viewed his songs as more than mere entertainment. Theodore Taylor – in a biography about composer Jule Styne – said Yip was often ‘caught at the art of sneaking social messages into his lyrics.’ Per Yip, ‘I am a rebel by birth, I contest anything that is unjust, that causes suffering in humanity. My feelings about that are so strong; I don’t think I could live with myself if I weren’t honest.”

Perhaps if Edgar Yipsel “Yip” Harburg had plugged in an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, we’d revere his canon as much as we do the works of Robert Allen Zimmerman. Nowadays the name of this iconic pop lyricist born Isidore Hochberg on New York’s Lower East Side in the year 1896 is mostly known among nostalgia buffs and theater musos, but not the masses. Yet Mr. Harburg was a “Bob Dylan” of his era – assuming a fresh new identity and penning lyrics to such classics as “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” all the songs in The Wizard of Oz including “Over The Rainbow,” “Old Devil Moon,” “April in Paris,” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” among many others, which deftly merged romance, clever observations of the human and social condition, and politics into a timeless libretto. Somehow Yip has evaded the perpetual hosannas routinely afforded his contemporaries Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, and Johnny Mercer.

Leave it to a British artist to once again to remind us Yanks of a neglected American musical treasure through an album before and after its time: Amanda Thorpe’s Bewitching Me. Ms. Thorpe, born in Derby, England, and currently residing in Paris, forged an impressive career among New York City’s indie pop royalty over the past two decades, releasing several collections under her own name, and as a member of the highly acclaimed Bedsit Poets with Edward Rogers and Mac Randall (who guests on one track), among other collaborations. As a recording artist, performer, and composer, Ms. Thorpe’s artistry traverses folk, rock, jazz, cabaret, and every conceivable variation thereof.

Amanda’s connection to the Harburg family essentially prompted the realization of Bewitching Me. “I had been working with Deena Rosenberg (Yip’s daughter-in-law via her marriage to Ernie Harburg) for a couple of years on various musical theater and tutoring projects” she recalls. “We had a meeting at DeRoberti’s old Italian bakery on 1st Avenue – which has since sadly closed after 100 years – for a holiday drink and to discuss future plans. As we supped on our favorite warm beverage and nibbled on select pastries, I suppose it was quite natural for Ernie, who is a champion of his father’s work, to suggest my considering covering some of Yip’s catalog…I laughed it off initially, I associated Yip with Broadway show tunes.”

Intrigued by the challenge, Amanda forged ahead with the project. The Harburgs opened their vast Yip archives to Ms. Thorpe – providing numerous recordings and compositions grouped by eras and various categories: moon songs, love songs, troubled love songs, rainbow songs, social songs, and then some. “One of the most important things for me was not to record an album that sounded like me singing jazz standards. Yip seemed dedicated to the exploration and joy of language – he had countless notebooks in which he would capture all types of phrases or words, and he would often rework a concept or a lyric approach multiple times and in different songs. He sounded like a fascinating man and a force of nature, so passionate and full of life and ideas. I imagine he saw the world in 3D Technicolor even before the Wizard of Oz! He could dig so deep into emotions and sprinkle them so lightly into lyrical vignettes. His mastery of words is pretty intimidating…”

By way of its modern Americana veneer, Bewitching Me emerges as a cousin to the recent commercially popular and critically acclaimed Lost On The River (2014) collection: an extraordinary archival based endeavor produced by T Bone Burnett which set new music to a recently recovered cache of hand-written Bob Dylan lyrics circa 1966-67. Burnett amassed an all-star ensemble dubbed The New Basement Tapes which features Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddons (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket), and Marcus Mumford (Mumford & Sons), among others, to complete Dylan’s mid-life musings with a contemporary resonance .

Ditto Ms. Thorpe, who enlisted her own local legend and long-time collaborator to helm Bewitching Me -producer, engineer, musician Don Piper whose list of indie credits on the New York City music scene is as exhaustive as it is impressive. “I do believe that a good song can be interpreted in many different was and still shine” emphasizes Piper. “The big goal was to remove as much of the ‘jazz’ out of it as possible. There are moments that are still ‘jazzy’ here and there but I think we made a well-rounded album that ventures into different landscapes in a natural way.”

With Piper behind the console, Amanda’s core band of drummer Robert DiPietro, bassist Rob Jost, and guitarist Tony Scherr afford Harburg / Thorpe’s song-cycle a sense of warmth and immediacy not often evident in studio recordings.” I wanted everything to be recorded as live as possible – for practical, and musical, reasons. Practically – we had 13 songs to record in a weekend. Musically- I’m a fan of spontaneous interactions of musicians! So the approach was ‘three takes and move on.’ Don set up drums, bass, and guitar in the same room, and me separately. He always manages to capture the intimacy of live recordings. There was no click and we recorded each song all the way through three times.”

Amanda’s organic rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” turns subtly anthemic upon the arrival of the chorus. “I Like the Likes of You” emerges as a pop confection worthy of Sonny & Cher lore. And Scherr’s exquisite solo on “Adrift on a Star” deeply echoes Thorpe’s seductive pathos. “Yip said, ‘words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.’ I do think these songs are great and have a magic to them. His work with Harold Arlen is particularly powerful, the melodies and words mesh perfectly. The fact that Yip can tackle such big issues with witticism, simplicity, and a unique lyric style make his work accessible to all.

Amanda’s Bedsit Poet partner Edward Rogers concurs- “a great song always helps, and with the right love and vision, the artist and the producer can create a wonderful interpretation that makes the listener believe the song was always meant to be heard that way.”