|
Thanking
His Lucky Stars Henry Gross offers songs from his new album I'm Hearing Things at the Ryman tonight in an opening gig for the Doobie Brothers.
By
Craig Havighurst ''I'm
six parts beggar and one part chooser at best,'' sings Henry Gross in
his humility laced song Lucky Me.
He goes on: ''Nothing in this world can get me down upon my bended
knees. I'm proud of who I am. In fact, I'm blessed.'' That's a darn good attitude and it feels like the real thing when talking to Gross about his 30-plus-year, undeniably obscure career in rock 'n' roll. He's one of those artists who got to make numerous records, have a hit and play huge arenas, but he never quite broke through that glass ceiling into the firmament of stardom. Tonight, as he has scores of times, he opens for his pals the Doobie Brothers.
If you're over 35, you may well be feeling that tickle of recognition but not much more, so here's your hint. In your best keening falsetto voice, sing ''Shannon is gone, I hope she's drifting out to sea,'' while imagining swelling strings behind you. That
song, the 1976 soft-rock hit Shannon, was the commercial high-water
mark for Gross, but there were plenty of other rewards. He was a
founding member of the doo-wop revival group Sha Na Na, which put him
on stage at Woodstock. He was a solo artist on A&M records in the
1970s, when it represented one of the last powerhouse independent rock
labels. Today,
Gross is a Nashvillian. He has been since 1986, when he found himself
here by happenstance and stayed because of the agreeable songwriting
atmosphere and the manageable pace of life. His best stroke as a
tunesmith: Big Guitar, a top 15 hit for BlackHawk, written with band
member Henry Paul. Recently,
he released I'm Hearing Things, his first album in years, on his own
Zelda Records (named after his late mother). The schmaltz of Shannon
is left far behind, and the record instead reflects a Beatles-inspired
pop sound that has been compared to Nick Lowe's band Rockpile and
Nashville's own Bill Lloyd. It's not a self-conscious bid for
relevance or a swan song. It's just a record made for the love of
music and crafted with the touch of someone who has played for a
living for a good many years. It
also has been well received, especially by the guitar press, which
noticed the range of well-captured vintage six-strings on the album
and the massive collection of guitars pictured with Gross on the back. ''I
remember looking in the window of Sam Ash in New York,'' says Gross,
who got his first guitar as a teen-ager growing up in Brooklyn. ''I
never cared about cars and houses and stuff that people buy. I always
wanted guitars.'' He
went to work at 14, playing clubs in the city and the Catskills. When
he was 18, fate intervened in the form of hair oil and gold lame
suits. Sha
Na Na was born when the glee club from Columbia University sang a
handful of oldies in a 1969 concert and got a huge response. A
promoter then quickly assembled members of the glee club for an
outdoor doo-wop concert on the steps of the university library. ''The
reaction was astonishing,'' Gross recalls, even though the performance
was ''unbelievably bad.'' ''Incredibly enough, some of the guys in the glee club had never heard of Little Richard. They knew the Pat Boone versions,'' he says. But the audience went crazy, a band of willing singers was corralled for a regular group and Gross was asked to join as lead guitarist.
A
costumed band playing retro music had the power of novelty in the
early 1970s, but Gross says he quit after a few years. ''I loved the
shock, and I stayed as long as it was a shock. It was becoming a
comedy act and I really loved the music.'' Indeed
the elaborate vocals of doo-wop music remains Gross' guiding light. ''I
can't get over the voices,'' he says. ''The Jive Five singing My True
Story. What's better than that? As much as I love the genius of Phil
Spector, nothing gets close to Little Bitty Pretty One or Stay or any
of that stuff. Those were things as kids we could get together in the
basement and if we could sing good, could sound like that.'' Not
surprisingly, modern pop music is something Gross regards with a wary,
slightly caustic eye. He knows the rules of the game. ''When
you're over 50, if someone suggested signing me, it would be
tantamount to job suicide,'' he says with a laugh. But that Lucky Me
stuff doesn't seem ironic. ''It's
been good and it just keeps going on. Without a budget it's hard to
get in the game, but I love what I get. It's a great privilege to make
a living doing this.'' Gross'
album is available at www.henrygross.com.
To
view this article online: |
