ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605100023
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
In a business that too often rewards nonconformity with equal parts critical praise and commercial obscurity, it is no surprise that Kevin Welch is not a household name. Have you ever heard of him?
Probably not.
That's why he's still playing smaller-sized nightclubs, like Roanoke's Iroquois Club, where the Nashville singer-songwriter and his band will perform tonight. But Welch is somebody you should have heard of. Maybe you will.
He's a guy with three major label records under his belt. He's part-owner of his own renegade record company that promotes other like-minded independent artists you probably haven't heard of either, but who are testing Nashville's status quo.
And yes, he's a critic's darling.
Billboard magazine called his last album, ``Life Down Here On Earth,'' a ``musically textured and lyrically satisfying'' work from one of Nashville's most gifted singer-songwriters.
People magazine wrote that he ``weaves together strands of folk, country and rock, coming up with a novel brand of mostly acoustic contemporary pop, as listenable as it is tough to define.''
And the list goes on. The Associated Press, Philadelphia Inquirer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Country Music magazine all have sung Welch's praises, labeling him one way or another as a major new talent.
So, why is this guy so unknown?
Probably for the same reason that Garth Brooks has sold 80 million records, while John Prine can't fill the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium. There is no logical reason. It's all marketing and bad taste and senseless stupidity.
Welch, 40, is an Oklahoma native who settled in Nashville in 1978. He found a home as a staff songwriter at Sony Tree, where he penned tunes for such luminaries as Waylon Jennings, Trisha Yearwood, Ricky Skaggs, Moe Bandy and The Highwaymen.
In 1990, he went out on his own, releasing a self-titled debut album on Warner Reprise. The critical praise started then, quietly. It grew louder with Welch's second effort, ``Western Beat'' in 1992.
The album was appropriately titled, given that ``western beat'' was the term used a few years back to label a disparate group of Nashville artists, like Welch, whose music was an alternative blend of country, rock, folk and pop.
The album's title also was derived from the beat generation writers such as Jack Kerouac.
Last year, Welch broke from Warner Reprise to release ``Life Down Here On Earth'' and start his own record label, Dead Reckoning, along with some of his iconoclastic peers Mike Henderson, Harry Henderson, Tammy Rogers and Kieran Kane.
The critics praised his third outing the loudest.
One reviewer for New Country magazine even went as far to say: ``Someone should corral all those mustachioed crooners scampering around Music Row, tie them up to little chairs in some abandoned grade school classroom, and force them to study `Life Down Here On Earth.'''
Welch has since been touring in support of the album, which is being distributed through Rounder Records. At the same time, he is looking at passing along some of his songs again to the bigger household names.
His most recognizable hit was perhaps Trisha Yearwood's ``That's What I Like About You.''
A repeat of that success would be nice - even strangely liberating.
``I've recently become interested again in writing songs for other people,'' he said in an interview last year. ``It's good to keep your hand in. As long as I make my living as a songwriter, I won't be pressured into something weird as a performer.''
Something akin, maybe, to conformity.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Kevin Welch weaves "strands of folk, country and rock,by CNBcoming up with a novel brand of mostly acoustic contemporary pop, as
listenable as it is tough to define.'' color.
GRAPHIC: 1. Want to hear a sample from Kevin Welch's ``Life Down
Here On Earth''? Call Infoline at 981-0100 in the Roanoke Valley and
382-0200 in the New River Valley, category 7810.|
2. At the Iroquois Club: Kevin Welch performs tonight at the
club at 324 Salem Ave. in Roanoke. Call 982-8979.