Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 24, 1993 TAG: 9304240049
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CARY DARLING KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ In rock 'n' roll, the piano has always deferred to the guitar. Always the usher and never the groom, the keys have had to play backup to the six strings.
Sure, there's Little Richard, Ray Charles, Leon Russell, Jerry Lee Lewis and Professor Longhair, but somehow the piano never has captured the rock 'n' roll imagination like the guitar.
But none of that matters to Bruce Hornsby, the lanky Virginian who has steadfastly refused to give up his 88s for a guitar or synthesizer. And now, with his fourth album, the exquisite "Harbor Lights," he's created a virtual homage to the piano's beauty and power.
Of course, Hornsby isn't the only singer-songwriter to be so closely tied to the piano. Steve Winwood, Elton John, Billy Joel and Randy Newman come to mind. But for them, the piano is a backdrop for their lyrics and ideas. With Hornsby, by far the best player of the group, the piano carries the burden of his identity. Hey, Hornsby even named his twin boys Leon and Keith - after Leon Russell and Keith Jarrett.
Hornsby came to the world's attention in 1986 with "The Way It Is," the title track from his debut album and a liberal's lament for the passing of the Great Society. But above and beyond the politics, what grabbed the pop audience's attention was the sweet, tinkling piano riff.
In an age of big-beat dance rhythms and booming synths, Hornsby's beguiling simplicity struck some as positively prehistoric. But others were charmed by a sound not heard much on pop radio.
And there was something else as well. Hornsby's tales of playing ball on the old playground and of fishermen on the southern Atlantic Coast were so suffused with a literate Southern Americana that a listener could almost hear the rustling of the breeze through a clutch of magnolias and feel the cloying humidity of a warm Williamsburg evening.
Still, interest waned slightly in Hornsby with his second and third releases, "Scenes from the Southside" and "A Night on the Town." Part of the reason might be that Hornsby decided to de-emphasize his piano in favor of a more straightforward rock-country feel.
But Hornsby is back to basics on "Harbor Lights," an album in which the performer indulges all of his piano dreams. In fact, "Harbor Lights" is his least rock 'n' roll album, having a distinct jazz personality.
On the surface, this smacks of pretension. Hornsby has the chops to pull off the idea, but so many people - from Sting to Digable Planets - are toying with jazz that it could come off as mere ersatz sophistication. To top it off, Hornsby gets all the "right" people to play with him. He's dismissed his old band, the Range, and inducted the likes of Branford Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Phil Collins, Bonnie Raitt and Jerry Garcia, to name a few.
And, no doubt, "Harbor Lights" will be the soundtrack for those middle-aged sophisticates who play their Sade, Sting or Gipsy Kings CDs softly in the background while tippling their lime-spiked mineral waters. But that some people use music as a lifestyle statement shouldn't detract from the music itself, and in this case it's quite wonderful.
Hornsby has said in interviews that "Harbor Lights" has such a sense of swing because he's always been a jazz fan and, as a guest keyboardist with the Grateful Dead, he found a chance to stretch his improvisational skills. All of that is evident from the first notes on "Harbor Lights," the title and opening track.
Throughout the album, the playing by Hornsby and his hired hands is first-rate. Just at the moment when a song seems as if it's going in one direction ("China Doll"), it veers off in unexpected ways.
Thematically, Hornsby hasn't changed at all. He continues his mix of fond recollections of growing up, small-town affections and pillow-soft social commentary.
He sings of an interracial romance ("Talk of the Town"), Atlantic fishermen ("The Tide Will Rise") and the slam-dunk wonder of a basketball hero ("Rainbow's Cadillac"). Hornsby doesn't really have anything new to say on these topics, but often he comes up with a particularly picturesque turn of phrase.
But what makes "Harbor Lights" work is the music - whether it's Marsalis' blasts on "Talk of the Town" or Hornsby's own Sam Cooke-style vocal phrasing on the elegant "Fields of Gray."
Sadly, unless there's a hit single, "Harbor Lights" may not fare much better than recent Hornsby releases. Acts who play pop music with an adult sensibility - Danny Wilson, Everything But the Girl, Prefab Sprout, Robbie Robertson and Lindsey Buckingham - have had trouble getting on radio and finding an audience.
That's too bad. "Harbor Lights" deserves wide exposure.
by CNB