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Bruce Hornsby: Spirit Trail

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: RCA Records
Released: 1998.10.13
Time:
 77:31
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Bruce Hornsby, Michael Mangini
Rating: ********.. (8/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.brucehornsby.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 1999
Price in €: 15,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Line in the Dust (Hornsby) - 4:42
[2] See the Same Way (Hornsby) - 5:36
[3] Shadow Hand (Hornsby) - 4:16
[4] King of the Hill (Hornsby) - 6:17
[5] Resting Place (Hornsby) - 4:44
[6] Preacher in the Ring, Part I (Hornsby) - 5:02
[7] Preacher in the Ring, Part II (Hornsby) - 4:46
[8] Song C (Hornsby) - 2:46
[9] Sad Moon (Hornsby) - 6:33
[10] Pete and Manny (Hornsby/John Hornsby) - 3:14
[11] Fortunate Son (Hornsby) - 4:14
[12] Sneaking up on Boo Radley (Hornsby) - 5:15
[13] Great Divide (Hornsby) - 501
[14] Sunflower Cat (Some Dour Cat) (Down With That) (Hornsby / Jerome J. Garcia / Michael Mangini / Robert C. Hunter) - 3:55
[15] Song D (Hornsby) - 2:03
[16] Swan Song (Hornsby) - 4:56
[17] Variations on Swan Song and Song D (Hornsby) -3:53

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


BRUCE HORNSBY - organ, dulcimer, piano, wurlitzer, korg wavestation, mini moog, vocals, Producer, Art Direction, Design

DAVID BENDETH - guitar
MATT CHAMBERLAIN - drums, percussion
J. V. COLLIER - bass
COLETTE COWARD - background vocals
KYLE DAVIS - background vocals
JOHN D'EARTH - trumpet
SKOTI ALAIN ELLIOTT - bass
DEBBIE HENRY - background vocals
BOBBY HORNSBY - shaker
ERNESTO LABOY - congas
ADAM LARRABEE - guitar
JOE LEE - background vocals
JOHN LEVENTHAL - guitar, bouzouki
ASHLEY MACISAAC - violin
MICHAEL MANGINI - guitar
DAVID MANSFIELD - violin
JOHN MOLO - drums, percussion
SHAWN PELTON - drums, percussion
JOHN PIERCE - bass
WAYNE POOLEY - guitar
BOBBY READ - clarinet, flute, saxophone
MATT SCANNELL - guitar, mandolin
TIM STREAGLE - trombone
J.T. THOMAS - organ

MICHAEL MANGINI - Producer on [3] and [14]
DENNIS HERRING - Additional producer
SHARON KEARNEY - Engineer
MARK NEEDHAM - Engineer
SKOTI ALAIN ELLIOTT - Engineer
WAYNE POOLEY - Engineer, Mixing
SKOTI ALAIN ELLIOTT - Mixing on [14]
SERBAN GHENEA - Additional mixing, Programming
TOM COYNE - Mastering

ANGEL BARNARD - Production Coordination
SUE TROPIO - Production Coordination
LAURIE MARKS - Production Coordination
MELISSA REAGAN - Production assistant
LEO SCHATZEL - Piano tuning and service
DAVID BENDETH - A & R
GEORG SLEJKO - Road Crew
ALAN MILLER - Road Crew
GARY "Bing" CROSNIAK - Road Crew
JOHNNY WOMBLE - Road Crew
KIM BIGGS - Art Direction, Design
DANNY CLINCH - Photography
CAREY WILHELM - Live photo
ANN HORNSBY - Photo of Bobby Hornsby
CHIP DEMATTEO - Liner notes

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Recorded at Bruce Hornsby's House, Kingsway Studios, New Orleans, The Curring Rooms, NYC, 12th Street Studio, NYC

"Song C" was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

Special thanks to Lee Smith for inspiration pn Preacher In The Ring I and II and Pete at Goose Acres for the Dulcimer

Cover photo of Uncle Charles Hornsby taken by Robert Hornsby at Sherwood Hornsby's house circa 1966.



His time spent as a keyboardist with the Grateful Dead obviously put a bit of boogie into Bruce Hornsby's soul, as SPIRIT TRAIL makes it clear that Hornsby's graduated from Donald Fagen impressions to a more eclectic, rootsy approach that incorporates R&B, folk-rock, blues and more. Whatever stylistic mode Hornsby takes to spin his tales, he invests it with an undeniable funkiness that's apparent in both the subtle bop of the rhythm section and the syncopated meter of his always-intelligent lyrics. Naturally, the main instrumental ingredient of the album is Hornsby's piano work, ever energetic and inspired as it colors the earthy grooves of the tunes. Hornsby obviously had a lot on his mind this time around, as SPIRIT TRAIL spreads 20 tracks over two CDs, ranging from ballads to full-out rockers.

SonicNet.com - © 2001 The MTVi Group, L.P.



Bruce Hornsby has never shied away from challenges, but Spirit Trail may be his most ambitious undertaking in his six album career. A double-CD set totalling over 90 minutes, Hornsby has filled both discs with a wide-ranging array of colorful characters and rich instrumental textures. With the cover photo, an old gag photo of his Uncle Charles with a cigarette sticking out of his ear, it's easy to think of this recording as a musical family album. But Hornsby instead uses his insights, experiences, and imagination to create a variety of profiles in song form, in a way Hornsby himself envisioned as a sort of Thornton Wilder's Our Town in a musical format.

Whether you perceive Spirit Trail as fiction, reminiscence, or just an album of songs, there's no doubt that Hornsby is at a creative peak. On a strictly instrumental level, it features a wide range of grooves driving all the stories along, with the gifted keyboardist sounding as much like a New Orleans native as a Virginian. His piano work is at an especially high level. Just listen to his improvisations over a vigorous left-hand pattern on the album's opening track, "King of the Hill," before it segues into a quote of the Allman Brothers' "Mountain Jam," or his adventurous break on the coda of "Sneaking Up on Boo Radley." His use of a separate producer (Mike Mangini) to assist on Disc Two allows him to alter the overall sound just enough for variety's sake without undermining the overall cohesion of the project.

And Hornsby never seems to run out of stories to tell. "Sad Moon" is a funky but disturbing song about an old friend who's turned to streetwalking, while "Great Divide" is a high-energy romp that still manages to take a hard look at the personal damage done by racism. If this sounds like heavy material, keep listening for "Shadow Hand," a playful, dulcimer-enhanced number about an imaginary friend, or "Pete & Manny," a good-time song about the changing images of youthful friends, co-written by John Hornsby. In fact, the right kind of family values definitely come into play here, with "Sunlight Moon," a bittersweet number about parting and reuniting, composed with the help of Russell and Keith Hornsby. There's also a fond reference to another family unit that Hornsby is/was part of -- the Grateful Dead -- in the form of "Sunflower Cat (Some Dour Cat) (Down with That)," a variation on the Garcia/Hunter original "China Cat Sunflower" complete with some sampled parts from the original.

Spirit Trail contains richness and depth inspired by the great Southern novelists who Hornsby professes to admire, and it's a tribute to his talent that he can tell all these stories and still make the album rock. (The liner notes even include a tongue-in-cheek review essay that tempted me to write this review in pig Latin.) His musical and lyrical skills have continued to flourish over the three years since his last release, and Spirit Trail is the impressive result -- an epic trip through Hornsby's creative imagination.

Henry Koretzky
October 1, 1998



Bruce Hornsby returns with his most ambitious and rewarding CD to date. This 20-song double-disc collection contains his most varied work, from piano ballads to rock songs. Bruce's last few albums were okay -- solid material, well played, but lacking vigor. In Spirit Trail, he's captured the intensity he displayed during two summer tours with former members of The Grateful Dead. Tracks like "King Of the Hill", "See The Same Way", and "Funhouse" have really good energy. Another element that makes a welcome appearance on both CD's is funk. Tracks like "Sad Moon", "Preacher In The Ring Pt. 2", and "Listen To The Silence" have a slinky bassline and keyboard/organ groove that makes you want to move. For Grateful Dead fans, there is one song that merits special attention. "Sunflower Cat" on Disc 2 has the same sound as "China Cat Sunflower", but it's not a cover version. Although, when Bruce solos on keyboard, you wish Jerry Garcia was there with him. Even though it's a double CD, there is absolutely no filler or excess here, just 20 songs that are dead-on and don't need to be epics. Listening to this CD is an experience worth having.

© 1999 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved.



Through his own recordings and collaborations with a myriad of pop, folk, and jazz artists (Don Henley, Shawn Colvin, Grateful Dead, Béla Fleck, etc.), Bruce Hornsby has become a keystone of contemporary American music. His latest effort, Spirit Trail, consists of 20 original compositions spread over two CDs, mostly recorded at Hornsby's house in West Virginia with the core of his touring band and a few guests, including violinist Ashley MacIsaac and guitarist John Leventhal. Hornsby plays no accordion here, focusing instead on the acoustic piano, his mastery of which is apparent on instrumentals like the slow moody "Song D" and rollicking songs like "King of the Hill." Hornsby is emerging as one of the best American songwriters, and this set demonstrates the range of his writing, from the barrelhouse stomp of "Preacher in the Ring Pt. 1" to the melancholy discontent of "Fortunate Son." On the second disc, Hornsby worked with the tape loops of co-producer Mike Mangini, resulting in some wonderful hybrids like the Who-inflected pop tune "Shadow Hand" and "Sunflower Cat," on which he lays lush harmonies over a sample of the opening riff from the Dead's "China Cat Sunflower." On Spirit Trail, Bruce Hornsby pushes the artistic bar higher, producing his most mature, diverse work to date in the process.

Michael Parrish - February 19, 1999
Dirty Linen



"Trotz des fast schon verwirrenden Stilmixes verirrt sich der 'Spirit Trail' nie. Zu intelligent, zu unaufgeregt gehen Hornsby und seine versierten Begleiter zu Werke. Kunst statt Kunsthandwerk."

ME/Sounds 9/98



Dazzling performances and remarkable songs, Spirit Trail is a milestone for Bruce Hornsby. His sixth album, it's his most ambitious and moving music. Two CD's, twenty songs, ninety minutes in length, it sums up the strengths of the Grammy-winning songwriter - trenchant, poetic lyrics, singing both soulful and assured, tightly-crafted compositions and the keyboard excellence that's graced albums by more than seventy artists, from the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan to Willie Nelson, Don Henley and Bonnie Raitt. By turns funky and languorous, percolating with the rythmns of New Orleans and the tricky time signatures of jazz, Spirit Trail embraces the vast scope of genres that inspire Hornsby. "I think it's a very Southern record," Bruce says, "the place it's coming from is elemental - gospel, folk, the blues. I'm a child of the South and I've always written about that experience. I'm also trying to see if there's a place for virtuosity in popular music. Balancing technique and emotion excites me. The artwork for my last album showed Bill Monroe and Charlie Parker playing together - that's the kind of range I like."

Produced by Hornsby in his Virginia home studio outside Williamsburg, the new record showcases the fruits of what Bruce terms "my re-commitment to the piano." He explains: "When I turned forty, I felt I'd either begin to lay back or I'd take things to the next level. Over the years, there'd been a door to a kind of playing that I'd open but soon close, thinking, I don't want to deal with this now, that's just too difficult." But lately I've returned to the piano with the tunnel vision I once had as a student - three to five hours of practicing daily." Bruce adds, "Playing with the Grateful Dead really opened my up, too." And while the playing on Spirit Trail is richer than anything even this master has previously recorded, the songs it serves are also significantly more shaded in texture, more mature in evocation.

"My influences starting out were Dylan, early Bernie Taupin, Robbie Robertson," Bruce says, "but also Southern fiction, writers from William Styron to Lee Smith. My favorite songs tend to be story songs. In fact, you might call every record I've made a version of Our Town - people where I live like to study the lyric sheets to see if they recognize themselves." And this record is very pointedly "My Town." Conjuring up a kind of idiosyncratic Americana, by turns surreal, loving and dark, Spirit Trail introduces an amazing cast of characters - the snakehandling mystics of "Preacher In The Ring, Pts. I & II", the sweet striving poseurs of "Pete & Manny", the estranged friends of "Line In The Dust", the ambivalent hero of "Fortunate Son". As the music progresses, from the churning funk of "King Of The Hill" and "Shadow Hand", through such gorgeous instrumentals as "Song C" and "Song D" to the complex improvisations of "Variations of Swan Song and Song D", Spirit Trail offers a fully- dimensional artistic experience, a remarkably generous treatment of the human condition.

"It started out as one album," says Bruce of the album's genesis. "After I recorded the first CD, I went off on the Further Tour for about two months. On the road I kept writing - often on this tiny Casio keyboard. I'd also met Mike Mangini, who's worked with Digable Planets and Mary J. Blige, and I wanted to try a different setting - two guys putting music together based on drum loops and samples. When I finished the second CD, it didn't seem right to pick "the best" of both records to make one CD, I thought that they were two separate and distinct records, but thematically, and in mood and spirit, the two parts worked well together. I've always liked records that are more than just a collection of songs, but that hang together conceptually."

In Williamsburg, Bruce grew up surrounded by music. "My mother's father was a theatre organist and a supervisor of music in schools," Hornsby says, "And my dad played sax in his brother's band." On the family Steinway, with his bassist older brother Bobby in a Dead cover band called Bobby High-Test & the Octane Kids, Bruce polished his skills. At the Berklee School of Music and the University of Miami he refined his approach; by the late '70', his brother alongside him, he'd begun gigging throughout the South, and tirelessly recording demo's.

In 1980, Bruce moved to Los Angeles with his younger brother John, a gifted lyricist, to write songs for Twentieth Century Fox publishing. By mid-decade, his year of apprenticeship had paid off; with his new band, The Range, he was signed to RCA. The title track of his 1986 debut, "The Way It Is", charting at #1 and "Mandolin Rain" at #4, Bruce was on his way - winning in 1987 a Grammy as Best New Artist.

The next year, Bruce's sophomore effort, Scenes From The Southside and its hits, "Valley Road" and "Look Out Any Window", saw the artist extending his musical reach; by 1990, having penned "The End Of Innocence" with Don Henley and won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Recording for a version of "Valley Road" with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, he'd established his over-all versatility.

The singer's third solo album, 1990's A Night On The Town, took Bruce's music into a much more radical direction. "Working with Wayne Shorter, Jerry Garcia and Bela Fleck, all hell broke loose," Hornsby chuckles. Its improvisational emphasis was continued with Harbor Lights, a more jazz influenced 1993 set featuring Pat Metheny, Branford Marsalis, Phil Collins and Bonnie Raitt. With 1995's Hot House, Bruce, again, drew critical notice for music increasinly adventurous yet still very accessible.

Spirit Trail extends from that legacy. In the truest sense, it's soul music - grounded in the heat and funk of everyday struggle, but aiming for transcendence, aiming for the stars. As Bruce sings on the stellar "Sunflower Cat (Some Dour Cat) (Down With That)," "In my dreams I can fly, fly high/over the fields across the sky/Then I'm awake back on the ground/If you could take me back there/I'm down, down with that."

From B.R.Hornsby Homepage



Angefangen mit einem ziemlich lustigen Cover, das Bruce' Onkel Charles zeigt, bis hin zu dem auf zwei CDs verteilten bunten Stilgemisch (Jazz, R&B, Pop), zeigt Spirit Trail Bruce Hornsby in seiner am schwersten festzulegenden Variante. Während seine Arbeit mit The Range den Standard für den Erwachsenen-Pop der achtziger Jahre setzte, ist Hornsby jetzt entschlossen, von der gemäßigten Mitte in neues Gebiet vorzudringen. Die ungewöhnlichen Piano-Breaks auf der ersten CD ("Resting Place" ist ein Exkurs in den Fuzak-Jazz), die lebhaften Hip-Hop-Rhythmen, die Bläser, die auf "Line in the Dust" Zeichen setzen, und die Freude an einfachem, verspielten Pop in "Shadow Hand" beweisen, daß Hornsby Wachstumspotential hat. Er ist noch immer ein exzellenter Techniker mit ehrgeizigen Ansprüchen an Produktion und Arrangement, aber sein Gesang ist mit dem Alter souliger geworden. Wie "Preacher in the Ring Pt. 1" beweist, wird er zwar nie eine überzeugende Kneipenjazz-Melodie hinkriegen, aber die Expedition in Kultiviertheit à la Steely Dan haucht seiner neuen Herangehensweise Leben ein.

Rob O'Connor, Amazon.de



Neun Grammies bekam Bruce Hornsby schon für seinen Sound-Cocktail aus Jazz-Akkorden, Rock-Rhythmen und chartstauglichen Melodien. "Spirit Trail" läßt jene messerscharf inszenierte Rhythmik vermissen, die zuvor selbst ruhigere Stücke auszeichnete. Selbst da, wo er zu alter Stärke findet ("Sad Moon", "Sunflower Cat"), machen allzu trüb wabernde Moll-Harmonien den Drive fast wieder zunichte.

© Audio



"Musikalisch auf der Stelle treten" nennt man das wohl, was Bruce Hornsby auf seinem sechsten Album betreibt: Gefällige Kompositionen, bestechend virtuos in Szene gesetzt (wenn auch mit einem Hang zu überlangen Instrumentalparts), doch die ganz große Begeisterung mag sich bei keinem Song einstellen. Immerhin deren 17 packte der Pianist mit dem markanten harten Anschlag auf die europäische, 20 sogar auf die amerikanische Version von "Spirit Trail". Eine strengere Songauswahl und eine weniger ausufernde Produktionsweis wären hier freilich mehr gewesen.

© Stereoplay



From its unusual jokey cover of his Uncle Charles to the diverse amalgam of styles (jazz, R&B, pop) covered over its two discs, Spirit Trail is Bruce Hornsby at his most difficult to pin down. Whereas his work with the Range set standards for '80s adult-contemporary pop, Hornsby is now determined to move from the middle of the road to new territory. The unusual piano breaks throughout the first disc ("Resting Place" detours into fuzak), the sprightly hip-hop rhythms, the horns that punctuate "Line in the Dust," the simple, playful pop pleasures of "Shadow Hand" prove Hornsby can grow. He's still a super technician with ambitious production and arrangement designs, but his singing has grown more soulful with age. He'll never cut a convincing barrelhouse tune, as "Preacher in the Ring Pt. 1" attests, but his journey into Steely Dan-type sophistication brings his approach new life.

Rob O'Connor, Amazon.com



Trail has a certain massive grandeur, but in the end its (and Hornsby's) virtues defeat it, and him.

Entertainment Weekly



Our good friend Bruce got ambitious and decided to do a double album. I can hear the groans already, but hold on just a cotton-pickin' minute! It's GOOD! Again, it's in the more rock-based vein, like A Night On the Town and Harbor Lights, but it's GOOD! I promise! And would I lie to you? Disc 1 starts out a bit weakly with "King of the Hill," but the rest of it is great. "Fortunate Son" (no relation to the legendary CCR song) is just beautiful, and "Song C" was actually nominated for the Grammy for best instrumental performance or something like that. I don't think it won, though. This disc also has a neat song on it called "Sneaking Up on Boo Radley" that will make absolutely no sense at all unless you've read To Kill a Mockingbird (which you need to do anyway because it's a really great book). Disc 2 starts off with the phenomenal song "Line in the Dust," which is my favorite song on the whole album. Very very jazzy, and it has a terrifically understated melody that takes a few listens to really catch on to. Gotta love it. The rest of the disc is fairly bland, but still enjoyable. At least until you get to the last three songs. "Song D" is another gorgeous piano solo, followed by "Swan Song," which sounds more like the early piano-pop stuff from The Way It Is and Scenes From the Southside than the other stuff on this album. The lyrics make me wonder if this really is Hornsby's goodbye, his last studio album. But rumor has it that he's releasing a live album in late 2000 or possibly 2001, so all hope is not lost. Anyhow, to round things out we have "Variations on Swan Song & Song D," which is another beautiful instrumental piece.

So should you buy the album? YES! And that's all I have to say about that. Except that the cover has a picture of a really crazy guy lighting a cigarette that's stuck in his ear. And that's just funny.
 

 L y r i c s


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 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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