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Shadow Classics | March 28, 2007
Sounds
of the '80s, Minus the Artifice
By Tom Moon
Media shorthand has
reduced the music of the '80s to a set of telltale signifiers:
big hair, arena-rock screamers, the ascension of Madonna, rock
stars spending years in the studio, skinny ties, Thriller,
new wave. There was more going on than that, of course. A few
surviving documents, among them Richard Barone's fantastic Cool
Blue Halo, demonstrate that the era was actually fruitful
for classic pop.
A plaintive masterpiece created
at a time when making pop was practically an act of subversion,
Cool Blue Halo was recorded live at New York's Bottom
Line on a single evening in May 1987. The album features singer,
songwriter and guitarist Barone leading a modest acoustic ensemble:
cellist Jane Scarpantoni, acoustic guitarist Nick Celeste and
percussionist/keyboardist Valerie Naranjo. It was Barone's first
statement after the dissolution of The Bongos, his critically
hailed new-wave act, and for the occasion he wrote a series of
disciplined songs inspired by the Revolver-era Beatles.
He also revised two Bongos tunes, notably the anthemic "Numbers
with Wings" (audio), and worked up smart covers of the Lennon-penned
"Cry Baby Cry" and David Bowie's dystopian "The
Man Who Sold the World" (audio), with a lively contrapuntal
arrangement that foreshadows Nirvana's Unplugged version.
Barone's originals aren't complex.
Most, like "Love Is a Wind That Screams" (audio), are
little verse-chorus etudes that culminate in a concise - and
often beautifully harmonized - summarizing declaration. Sometimes,
these phrases seem slight, but as the songs unfold, they grow
in stature; Barone knows the alchemic formula for converting
an everyday thought into a powerful refrain. Certainly, the way
he sings plays a part in this: He intuits exactly how far to
push his voice, and when to let the intricate swirls of cello
and guitar fill the gaps of the story.
Though there's applause between
songs, it can be hard to believe that this is a live recording.
The percussion textures sound incredibly detailed and executed
perfectly, and the arrangements swell into dramatic bursts that
might have taken months to execute in the studio - and still
might not have felt this organic. Barone continues to record
and tour today, and where so much music from the '80s exudes
that past-the-expiration-date odor, Cool Blue Halo feels
timeless, and maybe even exotic. It's a frozen moment from the
pre-Pro Tools era, when musicians had to create the magic live,
night after night.
Click here for article with photos and
audio clips.
POP MATTERS
April 28, 2008
Frontman:
Surviving the Rock Star Myth by Richard Barone
Book Review
by Kim Simpson
Click here for article.
POP CULTURE PRESS
Spring 2007, Issue
66
Numbers
With Wings: An interview with Richard Barone
By Steve
Elliott
Click here for article
with photos and audio clips.
THE
NEW YORK TIMES
STYLE DESK | Sunday,
May 19, 2002
A
Night Out With Richard Barone:
A Nonstop Music Man
By William Leone
On a break between a sound check
and his performance at Joe's Pub on a recent Friday night, Richard
Barone, former front man for the Bongos, the 1980's pop group,
grabbed a salad at NoHo Star, got a haircut, dashed to a West
Village recording studio to approve tracks for a new CD and ducked
into the Bottom Line to discuss with its owner, Allan Pepper,
the December scheduling of the fifth annual "Downtown Messiah,"
Mr. Barone's reimagining of Handel's classic.
By 8:30,
Mr. Barone, an elfin figure with fringed golden hair, rectangular
blue-tinted Paul Smith glasses and sculptured eyebrows, which,
like a cartoon character's, shift angles to signal changes in
emotion, was back at Joe's Pub. His dressing room was strewn
with acoustic and electric guitars. An array of glittering chemises
hung from a rack, and on a lighted vanity was a 1956 paperback
of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl."
"Ever
see one of these?" Mr. Barone asked, holding up what looked
like the world's first telephone-answering machine. "It's
a Stylophone. There aren't many around. Bowie used one on `Space
Oddity.' Tony Visconti is going to play it tonight on `Showdown,'
the song I recorded for an E.L.O. tribute album due out this
month."
As a songwriter
and performer, Mr. Barone walks a fine line between traditional,
sometimes Beatlesesque tunes and experimental forms. After the
1987 breakup of the Bongos, whose upbeat guitar-driven sound
ran counter to the synthesized post-punk stylings of the time
with such feel-good dance hits as "Barbarella" and
"Numbers With Wings," Mr. Barone became known as a
serious solo artist whose appreciation of fellow performers had
resulted in numerous musical collaborations. Besides releasing
three albums of his own, he produced the "Losers Lounge"
series and recordings by Fred Schneider of the B-52's and by
the "antifolk" hero Lach. In 1999, he was musical director
for the Off Broadway show "Bright Lights, Big City"
and is now preparing a Peggy Lee tribute he hopes to hold at
Carnegie Hall.
A club manager
brought a cup of tea, asking Mr. Barone if he would like anything
else. "I forgot to put someone on the guest list - Donovan,"
Mr. Barone said. The manager waited for a surname. "Just
Donovan," Mr. Barone added.
Right after
9:30, Mr. Barone took the stage and introduced, on bass, his
mentor Mr. Visconti, the producer of acts like David Bowie and
T-Rex. For 90 minutes, Mr. Barone churned out his brand of orchestral
pop, introducing others in his ensemble at intervals: the drummer
Tommy Goss, the pianist Johnny Rodgers and the cellist Lisa Haney,
who drives the sound of the more-baroque-than-folk chamber-rock
arrangements.
Guests joined
the band: Nick Celeste played a crisp acoustic guitar; Jenni
Muldaur (the daughter of Maria Muldaur) sang backup on the E.L.O.
song; and Terre Roche appeared for two numbers, one an ode to
New York called "What Used to Be There," written with
Mr. Barone.
Mr. Barone
bounced and belted his way through 14 songs, nine new, most written
with Mr. Visconti, and one with Paul Williams, the lyricist.
"You're
a star, man," whispered Mr. Visconti as Mr. Barone slid
into the bar's V.I.P. booth after the performance. Others at
the table included Cynthia Sley of the 80's punk band Bush Tetras,
the cabaret artist Lina Koutrakos and the singer-songwriter Margaret
Dorn.
Around midnight,
Mr. Barone and an entourage of 15 bounded down Lafayette Street
toward Time Cafe. At a banquette, Mr. Celeste pulled out two
T-Rex original open-reel recordings that Mr. Visconti had autographed.
"Hearing Marc Bolan and T-Rex perform as a teenager is what
originally inspired me to play guitar," Mr. Barone said.
Recounting how Mr. Visconti called him in 1984 after hearing
the Bongos' recording of Bolan's "Mambo Sun," he added:
"I wanted Tony to produce our records. So working with him
now is one of those weird karmic things."
Around 3
a.m., the company settled their bill. "I wonder if Donovan
ever showed," Mr. Barone said, unaware that the Scottish
folk singer had been turned away at the door, politely informed
that the performance was sold out.
Copyright
© 2002 The New York Times Company. Photo by Christopher
Smith for The New York Times.
BILLBOARD
September 22, 2001
Man
About Town Barone Heads For Fresh Fields
By
JIM BESSMAN
NEW
YORK - He
has been called New York City's musical "Man About Town"
by The New York Times, but singer/songwriter Richard Barone,
known also as the leader of acclaimed '80s pop-rock group the
Bongos, sees himself as "sort of a post-punk Ed Sullivan."
Since
his last album (1994's Mesa/Atlantic title Clouds Over Eden,
not counting 1997's live set Between Heaven and Cello, released
in Europe on Line), Barone has been most visible putting together
such novel performance events as The Downtown Messiah-the annual
Christmas presentation of Handel's Messiah that features various
cutting-edge musicians-at Manhattan nitery the Bottom Line. He
has also composed the film score to indie film Next Year in Jerusalem
and served as musical director of the off-Broadway musical Bright
Lights Big City.
Additionally,
Barone has produced such artists as the B-52's Fred Schneider
and New York City anti-folk mainstay Lach, as well as the CDs
resulting from the series of "Loser's Lounge" concert
tributes to pop songwriters starring top local music luminaries.
Then,
a year ago, he hosted a show at the Bottom Line based on the
classic '60s rock TV show Hullabaloo. "It was a blast,"
Barone says. "One thing that made it interesting was that
it was a variety-type show like we don't have anymore, where
it's not just one type of music or performance."
Hence
the Ed Sullivan self-reference, and Barone's idea to develop
similar shows. The second installment of "Richard Barone
Presents . . . ," his current series at the Cutting Room
nightclub, is scheduled for Oct. 13. The evening will feature
multilingual blues-rock vocalist Lina Koutrakos, Lach, and Angry
Elves, a rock group led by Jenni Muldaur. The three acts are
all produced by Barone.
"I'm really
fortunate to learn from the masters in terms of production,"
Barone says, singling out current songwriting collaborator Mike
Thorne ('Til Tuesday, Bronski Beat) and Tony Visconti, the producer
of David Bowie and T. Rex, who is producing Barone's next album
and co-writing songs with him for it. "They share what they've
learned, and then I bring what I've learned from my artist perspective."
Of
his own new recording project, Barone-whose first solo album
was 1987's Cool Blue Halo-says he's approaching it as if it were,
in fact, his debut album.
"That's
why it's been so long since the last one," he says. "I
deliberately wanted to break the album-tour-album-tour cycle.
I could then do what I thought was really new: juxtaposing my
post-punk background [and] my work with individualistic artists
[from different backgrounds] to get something new. That's where
the interest is for me."
Barone
originally wanted Visconti to work with the Bongos, but the producer
was living in England at the time. He says that unlike his previous
songwriting, his collaborations with Visconti are totally spontaneous.
"You
don't know how meticulously demo-ed my albums usually are,"
Barone says. "Everything's always worked out and arranged-but
this is the complete opposite. I go to Tony with just concepts
and ideas for songs and nothing else written, and everything's
completely from scratch. It's a whole new process, and it's so
exciting for me, because as a writer, it opens up a new world
of possibilities. I'd never have come up with half of what's
happening with this record [without] the collaborative experience-with
Tony and other new people."
Barone,
who has previously collaborated with the likes of Jules Shear
and Jill Sobule, has also recently co-written for Marti Jones'
new album and is working on tracks for the next release from
Rolan Bolan, the son of the late T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan and
soul singer/songwriter Gloria Jones. He's also busy on what will
be the fourth Downtown Messiah at the Bottom Line.
"The
idea was to take a piece of music that's been around over 250
years and keep it alive by bringing it down to the Village --
and making it personalized by putting ourselves into it,"
Barone says. He adds that last year's Messiah featured a stunning
rendition of "The People That Walked in Darkness" by
David Johansen that was based on an old blues tune, "Old
Dog Blue."
Barone,
who is managed by Mike Maska of Big Hassle Management and published
through his company Richard Barone Music (BMI), will also participate
in the upcoming Loser's Lounge tribute to David Bowie, as well
as a forthcoming album tribute to ELO's Jeff Lynne. Meanwhile,
he recently left for Los Angeles to write songs with Paul Williams,
having met him at a recent Loser's Lounge tribute to the legendary
pop tunesmith.
"He
saw me do his song 'Fill Your Heart'-which Bowie did on Hunky
Dory and Tiny Tim did on his debut album-and said he'd like to
write with me for my new album," Barone says. "It's
the kind of collaboration every songwriter dreams of."
Copyright
© 2001 Billboard Music Group
THE
NEW YORK TIMES
December
18, 2000
'The
Downtown Messiah': Let the Good Tidings Roll
By
ANN POWERS
Midway
through the first performance of Handel's "Messiah"
on Friday at the Bottom Line, Jane Siberry laughed. This singer
had paused to catch her breath during one of the oratorio's many
grace-note-laden passages, but instead of hiding her vocal imperfection,
she chuckled and rolled her eyes at the challenging phrase. The
crowd applauded, all smiles.
This
warm moment typified "The Downtown Messiah," the easygoing
pageant that is becoming a holiday staple at this popular club.
Richard Barone, the event's director, has stated the desire
to keep Handel's sacred cow alive through respectful modernization.
He has done so less by forcing in cutting-edge sounds than by
letting his vibrant ca
st
show off its humanity through this treasured work.
The
arrangements by Peter Kiesewalter, who also played piano and
clarinet, cleverly balanced traditionalism with pop renewal.
The 20-voice chorus, directed by Margaret Dorn, followed an orthodox
path through Handel's ornate harmonies. But the "orchestra,"
which included a four-piece string section, a trumpeter, an electric
bassist and a drummer, expanded the dynamics to encompass jazz,
gospel, rock and even a dash of country. And when each soloist
stepped forward, this "Messiah" bent to his or her
vision, not just of the Bible story but of the art of singing
itself.
After
a lovely a cappella turn by the Accidentals, Vernon Reid and
Gordon Chambers took the "Messiah" somewhere Handel
had never imagined. Churning out a funky riff, Mr. Reid used
his guitar to connect the Baroque to the blues. Mr. Chambers
had some fun leading the audience members in a gospel-style sing-along.
He got them laughing at their own
inability to keep
up with his jazzy embellishments.
The
most radical revisionist was David Johansen, whose chameleon
career has recently taken him into the folk styles of the rural
south. Eerily simulating the aged bluesmen he admires, Mr. Johansen
turned his air into a gospel stomp. Catherine Russell joined
him for a climactic rave-up, shouting praise with an abandon
that would have turned Handel as pale as his powdered wig.
Other
singers opened up the text to make room for their own proclivities.
Ms. Siberry shone on her second turn, her voice twinkling like
a falling star as she sang, "If God Be for Us, Who Can Be
Against Us?" Maggie and Terre Roche, who started their careers
singing carols on the New York streets with their sister, Suzzy,
performed their air with their usual understated finesse.
The
husband-wife team of Pete and Maura Kennedy glowed cutely as
they entwined their voices and strummed acoustic guitars. Ann
Marie Milazzo and Ms. Dorn shot some rock 'n' roll adrenaline
into their solos. Mr. Barone did the same, his silver-sequined
shirt gleaming as he vanquished the final solo's high notes.
The
night's most flexible soloist might have been the least noticed.
Reading the oratorio's many recitatives, the veteran radio personality
Vin Scelsa retold the story of Jesus' eternal life cycle with
flair. As Gary Lucas played hypnotic ambient guitar, Mr. Scelsa
spoke in a voice that could have been any wondering shepherd's,
bringing to life the story that makes this "Messiah"
mean so much to so many.
Copyright
© 2000 The New York Times Company
