Bruuuce.com

Setlists in 2012 – and we need your help!

si — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:26:32 +0000

The 2012 tour schedule is now underway, and we’re looking for your help, please!

Any setlists, recordings, photos or reports are always gratefully received – please e-mail Si if you can help, and everything will be shared here on Bruuuce.com.

Setlists so far are now up from the early 2012 shows: 2012 setlists.

To find out whether Bruce is coming to a town near you, please visit www.brucehornsby.com/tour.

01/30/12 Glasgow Show for download

si — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:37:26 +0000

Bruce returned to the UK for the first time in seven years for a show each in London at the historic Shepherd’s Bush Empire, and the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall for part of the Celtic Connections festival. London was a solo show; in Glasgow he was joined by Jerry Douglas and Tim O’Brien (the latter of whom he only met that afternoon).

Photos from the show on the homepage and on the left are are from Dave Muckle, a teacher from Northumberland who specialises in piano and song writing/producing. His website is at www.dmuckle.com.

Please enjoy the recording from Glasgow posted below – a document of a great evening.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

2012

si — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:53:07 +0000

Please feel free to e-mail Si with any additions or amendments. Thanks to all those who have contributed below!

01/28/12 Shepherds Bush Empire – London, UK
Set One: (Shostakovich) > The Road Not Taken, Valley Road, Black Rats of London, Don of Dons, Soon Enough, Where’s the Bat, 20/20 Vision > Night on the Town, Catenaires > Talk of the Town > Charlie Woody and You, I Can’t Make You Love Me
Set Two: Country Doctor, Dreaded Spoon, Crown of Jewels, End of the Innocence, Hymn in C, Spider Fingers > Questions and Answers, The Way It Is, Fortunate Son, Mandolin Rain
Encore: What the Hell Happened
Encore 2: Standing on the Moon > Halcyon Days
Comments: first solo show of 2012.

01/30/12 Royal Concert Hall – Glasgow, UK
Set One: (Shostakovich) > China Doll, Lost in the Snow, Sad Moon, Song C > Sad Moon, Lost Soul, Heir Gordon, (Schoenberg), Neighbourhood Watch, (Don of Dons), Soon Enough, Mandolin Rain
Set Two: Valley Road > (Life of the Party), The Road Not Taken > (Hole in My Bucket) > (Working in a Coalmine), End of the Innocence, 20/20 Vision, I Can’t Make You Love Me, The Way It Is
Encore: What the Hell Happened, Spider Fingers > (Questions and Answers)
Comments: part of the Celtic Connections Festival. ‘Soon Enough’ with Jerry Douglas, remainder of show until solo encore was with Jerry Douglas and Tim O’Brien

02/07/12 The Strand – York, PA
The Road Not Taken, Harbor Lights, Who Takes Care of Mom, ???, Soon Enough, End of the Innoncence, Preacher in the Ring, The Way It Is, 20/20 Vision, Night on the Town, What the Hell Happened, Hooray for Tom, Fortunate Son > (Southbound)
Encore: Mandolin Rain, King of the Hill
Comments: Solo show

02/08/12 Grand Opera House – Wilmington, DE
Set One: (Shostakovich), Instrumental (from Red Hook Summer Soundtrack, upcoming Spike Lee movie), Sticks and Stones (Bruce forgot first verse, sang it after finishing Sticks and Bones), Heir Gordon, Lost in the Snow, Instrumental (Arnold Schoenberg), Paperboy, Look Out Any Window, Sneaking Up On Boo Radley, The End of the Innocence, Gonna be Some Changes Made
Set Two: The Black Rats of London, Sad Moon, The Show Goes On, The Dreaded Spoon, (Super Freak), The Way It Is (bluegrass version), This Too Shall Pass, Talk of the Town > (Catenaires) > Talk of the Town, The Valley Road (bluegrass version)
Encore: Mandolin Rain
Comments: Solo show

02/09/12 Adelphi University – Garden City, NY
Messiaen – Musique de Marseau > China Doll, Big Rock Candy Mountain > Candy Mountain Run, Holy Trinity, Where’s The Bat, Don of Dons, Soon Enough, End of the Innocence, Danny Boy, Catenaires > Preacher in the Ring Part 1, The River Runs Low, Mandolin Rain (Skaggs Version), Shadow Hand > Bach > Shadow Hand, The Way It Is > Bach Goldberg Variations > The Way It Is, 20/20 Vision > Night on the Town > 20/20 Vision
Encore: I Can’t Make You Love Me, Spider Fingers > Questions & Answers > Tighten Up > Spider Fingers
Comments: Solo show

02/11/12 Keswick Theatre – Philadelphia, PA
Song from Spike Lee movie, The Road Not Taken, 20/20 Vision, Night on the Town, Black Rats of London, Heir Gordon, Here We Are Again, Where’s The Bat, End of the Innocence, In the Low Country, The Dreaded Spoon, Valley Road, The Way it Is, Talk of the Town*, Spider Fingers, I Can’t Make You Love Me
Encore: Standing on the Moon > Halycon Days
Comments: Solo show. * denotes with special guest Bobby McFerrin

02/14/12 Carolina Theater – Durham, NC
Set One: Song from Spike Lee movie > China Doll > (Messaien) > China Doll, The Road Not Taken, Classical piece > Paperboy, Where’s the Bat, Don Of Dons, Valley Road (Grateful Dead style), Cyclone, I Can’t Make You Love Me
Set Two: 20/20 Vision > Night on the Town, Sad Moon, (Dirty Ground), Preacher in the Ring I > Catenaires, The Low Country, The Way It Is > Bach Goldberg Variations > The Way It Is, Mandolin Rain (minor key version), Swan Song
Encore: Spider Fingers > Questions and Answers >???,Soon Enough
Comments: Solo show.

02/15/12 Peace Center for the Performing Arts – Greenville, SC
(Shostakovich) > Sticks and Stones, 20/20 Vision (Jimmy Martin) > Night on the Town > Concerto (Schoenberg), Valley Road, End of the Innocence, Who Takes Care of Mom, Where’s the Bat, Big Rock Candy Mountain > Candy Mountain Run, The Low Country, The Way It Is > Goldberg Variations (Bach) > Way It Is, The Show Goes On, What the Hell Happened to Me, Hooray for Tom, King of the Hill, Mandolin Rain.
Encore: Talk of the Town > Charlie Woody and You > Caténaires (Elliot Carter), Standing on the Moon > Wharf Rat > Standing on the Moon > Halcyon Days
Comments: Solo show.

Unpublished Bruce interview from 2011

si — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:19:26 +0000

Thanks a lot to Paul Fuhr for contributing this interview that he conducted with Bruce last year. It didn’t make it to print as Paradigm Journal sadly folded, so Paul has very kindly shared it with us. You can also download the PDF version that was intended for publication.

An Interview with Bruce Hornsby

BY PAUL FUHR & JEFF PLANK

Showman. Genius. Virtuoso. By any name, Grammy Award-winner Bruce Hornsby has made a career of defying expectations at every turn and forging his own unique musical path. Hornsby’s body of work ranges from radio hits to acclaimed bluegrass albums, an off-Broadway musical to a full-fledged gig as a member of The Grateful Dead. Endlessly inventive, humorous and humble, Hornsby took time to speak with us about the release of his second live album Bride of the Noisemakers, his creative process, touring with Bela Fleck, and thirty years of looking down that old valley road…

PAUL: Hey, Bruce. Thanks so much for doing this. Congrats on your new album, by the way. I picked up Bride of the Noisemakers the first day it came out.

Well, thanks, man. You probably got it on Amazon for $3.99, didn’t you? Good for you, man. Well, that’s two records for $3.99 which works out to, what, about four or five songs?

Anyway, the tour’s going well. We’ve just done two shows with Bela [Fleck] and it’s a very natural pairing. Bela and I have been playing together for years. I’ve sat in with his band; he’s sat in with my band quite a few times. It’s a very easy hookup.

PAUL: Cool. We’ll be seeing you in a few weeks at your show in Columbus.

Well, good. You can see if we’re sucking for yourselves.

PAUL: Let’s start off with your musical SCKBSTD. How long have you been interested in writing musicals?

It was never something I was trying to do. It was never something I had much of an interest in, although we did write two musicals in high school. Then again, if you knew how to play an instrument, you were allowed to play. Our band played this pre- jazz-meets-sock-hop scene in rural Virginia. It was just a joke.

I got a letter out of the blue from Playwrights Horizons on 42nd Street. They’d heard three songs off my Halcyon Days record and they thought it sounded like show music, so they sort of commissioned me to do this.

So, I thought, “Hey, let’s give this a shot.” That was in 2005 and it’s years later. We ran one idea up the flagpole about a Civil War re-enactor which we thought was pretty funny: people dressing up and camping out.

We thought the whole scene was pretty interesting and amusing. Who knows? Maybe that will be my next gig. Anyway, we have some wind behind our sails and we’re in production in Norfolk, Virginia.

JEFF: How did SCKBSTD differ, approach-wise, than your albums? When you are going into the studio, are you doing a lot of demo work beforehand or are you seeing if things develop organically?

The process is not that much different: I write the songs, I demo them, and then I show them either to the band or, in this case, the producers of the play.

I just get feedback and go from there. It’s mostly about writing the song. It has to be something that is strong and interesting to me. If everyone thinks it sucks, then I don’t know what to do. Actually, the latest song I’ve written has gotten very mixed response. It’s a rather dissonant, sort of graduate-level piece of music.

Some of the less adventurous music listeners in our camp are going “Whoa.” “What’s this?” But that generally makes me think I’m onto something, if you know what I mean.

PAUL: Well, to that point, you once said “Playing a song straight is a real prison for [you].” Have you ever written a song as a foundation in the hopes of reverse- engineering it live and/or taking it somewhere different?

Well, that would be a really good approach, Paul. I wish the approach was that we’d write the song and play the song live a lot and then we recorded it. We did that once. It worked okay, way back in The Range days. For the record A Night on the Town, we played a few of those songs live first, but not that much.

The schedule had it that we weren’t able to do that so, that would be better for us because I’m a slow learner. After we record them and we start playing it live, that’s when we really learn how to play them. So, frankly, that’s one reason why we put out these live albums every once in a while, every ten years.

We get to the point where, in some cases, we kinda nailed it in the studio version but haven’t beaten it. In more cases than not, what a song eventually evolves into is way stronger to me.

A lot of it has to do, frankly, with the way I sing the song. Bride showcases that development where I write the song, I record the song, then I learn how to sing it–not just play it. That’s a really good reason to have Bride out there. It really shows the way I think songs should’ve sounded originally.

PAUL: I don’t think anyone’s ever asked you this: How did your appearance in the little-known Robin Williams black comedy World’s Greatest Dad happen?

Oh yeah, man. I was so happy to be part of that. It’s so funny. I got a call from my producer’s old friend, Bobcat Goldthwait. You guys know who he is?

BOTH: Oh, yeah.

Well, as is the case with a lot of people in modern popular culture, what most people know about him is not what’s he about at all: some shrieking, screaming comic from the mid- 1980s. He’s actually not that guy at all. Bobcat’s a really good independent filmmaker.

So, he called my friend and said “We’re doing a film with Robin Williams. We need a musician for Robin to be a fan of and we’ve picked Bruce Hornsby. How do I get in touch with him?” He said, “Well, I just about talk to him every day. I’m doing his record right now.”

So, Bobcat and I talked. That’s how it came about. It’s a hilarious movie. Where else can you hear lines like: “Bruce Hornsby is a fag.”“But he’s got kids, Kyle! “Well, you have children, and you’re a fag.”

Quite an offbeat, but—to me—well- done movie. There’s a hilarious scene with these two Goth girls fighting over my Spirit Trail record in the halls of a high school.

JEFF: Bruce, I’d like to switch gears a bit. There’s always the one recurring theme you have in interviews: You can’t seem to escape the Grateful Dead. Is there ever a day you wake up when you say “If I get asked one more goddamned question about the Grateful Dead, I’m going to snap?”

No, man, I don’t have any problem with that at all. I loved my time with The Dead. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I grew up as a Deadhead. My older brother was a Deadhead and attended a Deadhead fraternity at UVA where they used to drop acid, paint their faces, and go play intramural volleyball.

I mean we were even in a Dead cover band, so it must’ve been quite amazing for all the people who followed [Bruce’s band] “Bobby Hi-Test and the Octane Kids”, then cut twenty years later to Madison Square Garden, when I’m at a sold-out show in Madison Square Garden, winging it with no rehearsal with The Dead. No, I wouldn’t change it.

Now, I will say for many years—after ‘95 when [Jerry] Garcia died and The Dead stopped playing–it became a bit of an albatross around my neck because so many people would show up to our shows and scream for Dead songs.

Especially the song we did on the [tribute album] Deadicated, “Jack Straw.”That became a curse.

Obviously, that’s a drag when people expect you to be a cover band for someone else’s music. What’s to like about that? Nothing.

That’s sort of subsided, though. You still hear the odd “Jack Straw” request, but it’s not over half the people. They sounded so loud, it sounded like all the people. So, yes, there was a time.

And Garcia told me that if I started playing with them, a lot of Deadheads are going to come to my shows and start screaming for Dead songs. He said: “You have ‘The Curse,’ man. They’ll never leave.”

Well, they did leave but now maybe they’re coming back. But for the right reasons. Frankly, we prefer that audience to the older, lime-green pants and golf shirt crowd our old hits tend to bring. We’re not really a great vehicle for your stroll down Memory Lane. We prefer the people who are there to dance and have a great time. That’s the audience we want. Our aim is in more keeping with the Grateful Dead- ish audience than an older audience.

JEFF: So, that’s…

Wait, one more thing I’d like to add. So, no, Jeff – I don’t wake up every day and think that. I love the songs. There’s so many great songs. Hell, even Bride is bookended by songs written by [former Dead member] Robert Hunter.

JEFF: Thanks. From a personal experience, I managed to catch you at the Valley Forge Music Fair in ’93 and you did an extended “Scarlet Begonias.” Thanks for elaborating on that.

Yeah. Sure thing, man.

PAUL: You’ve been recording music 30 years … Where do you think the music industry is now?

Well, it’s unrecognizable from where I started. When I got my music deal in ’86, you could actually make money selling records.

Obviously, you still can, but it’s much more difficult now and the record companies are dying by the year and the business is contracting by the year.

All I can say is that I’m glad I had a good fifteen, twenty years during the time where people actually cared about buying music; back when people actually cared about albums. The percentage of people buying music is lowering by the year.

So, how do I feel about it? I wish it was the old way, where you could actually put out a record. I wish there were albums with album art. We used to like it when the art was big and we could put our buddies like Kenny Vance, from Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, then have us in the background playing a bar mitzvah. We liked it when people could be seen large and clear. So, hey, that’s regrettable, man. It just is.

PAUL: Well, now, you’ve moved from classically trained jazz, bluegrass with Ricky Skaggs, a musical, and a dozen studio albums. Is there a creative avenue you’d like to try out next, like maybe scoring a feature film?

Well, I scored a musical documentary for Spike Lee a couple years ago and that was fun. It wasn’t a feature film, but still. Spike and I are old friends. It was an easy score for me; I just enjoyed doing it. I’d welcome that possibility, but only if my situation was similar to that.

Not really, man. Mostly, these days, it’s modern classical music, which most people hate. There’s a little bit of that, even on Bride, and moving my songwriting into more harmonically complex songs.

For instance, that song I told you about that freaked everyone out. I’m moving in that direction. Less jazz. More modern-classic, simple traditional folk. I just want to jam, man.

PAUL: I know we’re out of time. Thanks so much for doing this, Bruce.

Sure thing. Thanks for being knowledgeable about my shit, guys. See you in a few weeks.

Piston Works for free download

si — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:34:39 +0000

Back in 2002, Bruce played at the home of then-Detroit Pistons coach, Rick Carlisle. Unknown to Bruce, the mini set was being recorded, and later made it onto the BruceHornsby.com website.

Thanks to Highway_61 and others for bringing this up on the Board – this recording is being sold in some rather nefarious quarters, so we’re happy to being it to you today in the spirit with which it was intended… for free.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

07/30/11 Woodinville show for download

si — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:14:57 +0000

To attempt to make up for the time lost recently, here’s a show from this past summer to download in its entirety. All credit to Dean Grabski for the recording.

07/30/11 Chateau Ste Michelle Winery, Woodinville, WA
Hot House Ball, Simple Prayer, Resting Place, Shadow Hand (on dulcimer w/ Bela and Sonny on the Washboard), Rainbow’s Cadillac, Continents Drift, The Road Not Taken, The Way It Is (bluegrass w/ Bela), White Wheeled Limousine
Encore: Mandolin Rain (just Bruce and Bela), Little Maggie > Birdland > Little Maggie (both bands playing)

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Beating the hackers

si — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 19:49:11 +0000

It takes all sorts to make the world go around, so they say…

Very sorry for the month or so that Bruuuce.com went missing, and for the week or so previous to that when people encountered some very strange behaviour on this site. You may have been taken to a “showbiz” website, or maybe something advertising shoes(!) – you couldn’t make it up…

Anyway, in trying to fix that, and multiple junk postings on the Board, things took a rather sinister turn when it started throwing up virus warnings and, eventually, deleting content. This was a deliberate and malicious attack on the site (I believe at random), as a message was left taking “credit” for all of the nonsense.

So – the last month has been spent reinstating all of the content, as far as it was possible. I’m still working on salivateCD.com, although I’m afraid DailyDoseDay.com is beyond repair. (Yep, they tried them all, as they’re all stored in the same space – like I say, it takes all sorts…!)

Anyway, I wanted to leave it a few days before posting this to check that everything was stable. All is now fixed, and I’ve taken the chance to make some improvements along the way also! There is more to come.

Thank you for bearing with me, and please keep coming back as we head towards a solo piano tour beginning in January!

New Bruuuuce.com store

si — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 08:40:31 +0000

To celebrate 25 years, the new tour AND the Bruuuce.com relaunch, we’re delighted to bring you the new t-shirts for 2011, including our first ever tie-dye variety.

Currently we have t-shirts only, with more to follow… check out the Bruuuce.com store!

Daily Doses

si — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:05:10 +0000

There are 82 files, weighing 531.3 MiB with 17,612 hits in total.

Displaying 1 to 20 of 82 files.

Posted on August 5, 2011:Continents Drift
» 6.8 MiB - 245 downloads
Woodinville, WA
July 30 2011

Posted on August 5, 2011:Shadow Hand
» 4.8 MiB - 276 downloads
w/Bela Fleck on banjo and Sonny Emory on washboard
Woodinville, WA
July 30 2011

Posted on August 5, 2011:The Way It Is
» 8.3 MiB - 301 downloads
Woodinville, WA
July 30 2011

Posted on August 11, 2011:Big Stick
» 4.0 MiB - 181 downloads
Charlottesville, VA
August 7 2011

Posted on August 11, 2011:Prairie Dog Town
» 5.8 MiB - 185 downloads
Charlottesville, VA
August 7 2011

Posted on August 13, 2011:See the Same Way
» 6.1 MiB - 266 downloads
Asheville, NC
August 11 2011

Posted on August 14, 2011:End of the Innocence
» 8.1 MiB - 248 downloads
Asheville, NC
August 11 2011

Posted on August 15, 2011:White-Wheeled Limousine
» 8.9 MiB - 247 downloads
Asheville, NC
August 11 2011

Posted on August 16, 2011:Resting Place
» 9.0 MiB - 256 downloads
Asheville, NC
August 11 2011

Posted on August 18, 2011:The Red Plains
» 6.7 MiB - 227 downloads
Charlottesville, VA
August 7 2011

Posted on August 21, 2011:Rainbow's Cadillac
» 7.5 MiB - 264 downloads
Charlottesville, VA
August 7 2011

Posted on August 29, 2011:Great Divide
» 6.5 MiB - 228 downloads
feat. Chris Thile
Vienna, VA
August 28 2011

Posted on August 29, 2011:Where's the Bat?
» 1.7 MiB - 230 downloads
Vienna, VA
August 28 2011

Posted on August 29, 2011:Prairie Dog Town
» 6.5 MiB - 216 downloads
feat. Chris Thile
Vienna, VA
August 28 2011

Posted on September 10, 2011:End of the Innocence
» 10.8 MiB - 179 downloads
Bruce and the band have been debuting a terrific reworked version of this old favourite...
New York, NY
August 31 2011

Posted on September 11, 2011:Cruise Control
» 6.1 MiB - 168 downloads
Portsmouth, NH
September 3 2011

Posted on September 12, 2011:Valley Road
» 5.0 MiB - 193 downloads
on dulcimer
Los Angeles, CA
September 10 2011

Posted on September 13, 2011:KFOG performance
» 12.2 MiB - 162 downloads
feat. Paperboy and Where's the Bat?
San Francisco, CA
September 13 2011

Posted on September 14, 2011:Levitate
» 5.4 MiB - 126 downloads
New York, NY
August 31 2011

Posted on September 15, 2011:Mandolin Rain > The Grand Tour
» 8.5 MiB - 192 downloads
for those who've been asking what Bruce is leading into out of Mandolin Rain recently...
Los Angeles, CA
September 10 2011

Page 1 of 5 1 2 3 4 5 »

A new Bruuuce.com!

si — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 04:53:24 +0000

Welcome to a new chapter in the thirteen year life of Bruuuce.com (we’re a teenager?). This is a complete reboot, from scratch, and I hope you enjoy it.

The idea is that Bruce’s career is now twenty-five years old, and as it kicks into its next phase, so does this website. A running theme in the months to come will be to look back over the last quarter-decade, and review what we were all doing. How do your musical tastes compare, even in the time that this website has been running? We’ve an easy way to answer that – I’ve scattered a lot of polls around the site which you’ll encounter at random, asking for your opinion on different records. in the future, I’ll compare those poll results with those from the past, and see what’s changed.

The main change is that you’re now able to comment on what you see. If you’re on the setlist pages, for instance, and decide you’d like to add or correct something that you’ve read, then you are welcome and able to do so. I’m working on a facility to upload your own photos as well, so that’s coming soon. Of course, the old favourite “The Board” is still alive and well!

This new design will allow for a lot more bells and whistles than the old site did, so hold tight for some new introductions in the months to come.

It’s still very much a work in progress for now, with a lot on the way. Some of your old favourites are yet to return, but I wanted to get as much as I could out there before I take off on a week long family reunion! In the meantime, please enjoy the new site, and feel free to leave your honest feedback. You can post on the pages, or on the Board, or contact me via the new link at the top right of the page. I’ll answer anything within a day or two.

Jump in!