PART V. Moments of Brilliance, 1974-1988

Chapter 10. Steely Dan, “Hey Nineteen” and “Gaucho.” Lead Vocals, Donald Fagen.


Steely Dan never had a No. 1 album or single. “Aja” (1977) topped out at No. 3 on the album charts, and several of their later albums eventually achieved platinum sales years after release. But because the group’s leaders, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, disliked touring and finally refused to appear live after mid-1974, the group never reached the young audience that most rock artists cultivate.

Nevertheless, for over a decade Steely Dan was among the most influential bands in the world. On the strength of their sophisticated, off-center songwriting, refined, jazz-oriented arrangements, and the painstakingly meticulous production and recording of their albums, Fagen and Becker became artists’ artists in every sense of the word. They drew on the talents of New York’s and L.A.’s finest musicians, and each new album was eagerly awaited by critics, rock radio, and professionals in every sector of the music business.

Steely Dan’s unrelenting drive for studio perfection literally wore out some guest performers and produced a slickness that rankles some critics in the ‘90s. Yet their arranging and production ideas quickly turned up in dozens of hits by artists as diverse as Boston, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, the Bee Gees, Toto, Chicago... Similarly, the group’s recording and mixing, mostly by engineer/friend Roger Nichols, pushed and finally exceeded the limits of analog tape, and garnered a host of awards.

Steely Dan Signatures:
Clean, crisp, full sounds on bass, drums, Rhodes and other rhythm tracks.
Sophisticated, jazz-oriented chord progressions, brass arrangements and solos.
A laid-back, easy L.A.-like feel in the rhythm tracks.
Fagen’s quaking, nasal, almost Bob Dylan-like lead vocals.
Breezy, breathy four-part male/female background vocals

Despite easily identifiable sonic signatures, Steely Dan’s productions are not pictorial or programmatic in the same sense as those of other artists I’ve discussed. Neither they nor producer Gary Katz tried to evoke steamy city streets ala “What’s Love Got To Do With It” or the distressed mindscapes of “Every Time You Go” or “Billie Jean,” whose musical gestures portray specific places and dramatic situations. Instead, the Dan team created “pure music,” as carefully structured and arranged as a baroque masterpiece. Just as one fugue may seem pensive, another stern, a third jubilant, every Steely Dan song conveys its own mood with variations. But in each case the composers’ central goal is to design elegant, architectural musical structures whose detailing works in vacuo, like a beautiful mathematical proof.

When we consider how many of Bach’s “hits” are familiar to today’s rock audiences, it is no stretch to assert that Bach and Steely Dan wrote some of the classiest pop music of all time. Moreover, if pop music is defined by easily-remembered melodies, catchy, repeating hooks and a structure that enables the populace to join in, then Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin & Tchaikovsky are all among the elite of pop. Each of them tried hard to ensure that the surface of their music would enchant untrained ears, while its inner structure speaks to a musically sophisticated audience in the most eloquent terms.

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker met as students as Bard College in upstate New York. By 1970 they had already written songs for two soundtracks, and one that Richard Perry produced for Barbra Streisand. On a lark, they answered an ad in the Village Voice for “musicians with jazz chops.” Suddenly a band emerged, with Becker on bass, Fagen on keyboards, drums and guitar by Jim Hodder and David Diaz, and pop-soul lead vocals by David Palmer. Fagen never liked his own voice, and would only sing backgrounds at first.

Next came a collaboration with Richard Perry’s ex-partner, Gary Katz, who in turn secured Fagen and Becker staff songwriter contracts with Dunhill. Working out of the Brill Building, the duo penned songs for a variety of artists, cultivated valuable industry contacts, and made their own demos, with Fagen singing. Out of necessity, Donald slowly accomodated to thinking of himself as a decent vocalist.


Two primary qualities about Steely Dan’s work have fascinated me for years. While Fagen and Becker exude obvious joy in the pure craft of record-making, there is an underlying sadness and world-weariness of the same kind I sense in Beatles’ albums beginning with “Rubber Soul.” Both artists were strangely compelled by their Muse to make another record.

Similarly, eschewing all the normal fare of rock ‘n rollers, from live and TV appearances to press interviews, Fagen and Becker locked horns with the studio for months or even years at a time, amassing huge bills in the pursuit of the perfect rhythm tracks, vocals and solos. Each spent weeks working with expensive session players or whole groups, racking up astronomical AFM union fees. Track by track, they built each album like architects working on the Pharoah’s pyramid. Everything must be flawless, costs be damned.

The Difference Between Appearance and Reality

Yet there is a stark contrast between the musical and sonic beauty of Steely Dan’s achievements and the subject matter of their songs. From the beginning, they wrote of outcasts, runaways, drug dealers on the lam, expatriots, derelicts, dirty old men, freaks and outright wierdos. Oysters fashion pearls around bits of dirt that have gotten into their shells. Similarly, Steely Dan buried pieces of society’s detritus inside each beautiful package. Lyrics that seem witty and cynical in one light mask a deep undercurrent of bitterness as they reveal the seamy side of characters’ lives and personalities. Fagen’s quirky, quaking, almost self-effacing vocals stand out in awkward contrast to the slick musical bed, and point out that every can, no matter how beautifully labelled, is a can of worms.

In “Kid Charlemagne” (from the album, “The Royal Scam”) Fagen relates the fall of the inventor of a spectacular LSD-like drug. “Did you feel like Jesus? Did you realize that you were a champion in their eyes?” Finally, when fleeing his lab as the police approach, Fagen chides “Careful what you carry, ‘cause The Man is wise. You are still an outlaw in their eyes.” Musically, the song never resolves to the tonic except in the turnaround after each chorus, and in the coda. Initially this lends an artificial energy to the arrangement. Later, however, the rhythm section feels continually on the run, perfectly underscoring the story line.

What’s In The Groove - “Hey Nineteen”

KEY ELEMENTS: GROOVE, HOOK, PRODUCTION VALUE, RECORDING, ARTIST’S PERSONA

After examining this and other Dan lyrics, it is clear that one of Fagen and Becker’s central concerns is the difference between appearance and reality. For example, “Hey Nineteen,” from “Gaucho.” The record opens with a single staccato drum and bass note followed by a long, whining note on electric guitar - a musical cat in heat. A smooth, lazy rhythm section sallies through the intro, which features a folksy harmonica exchanging phrases with the lead guitar, and little plunk-plunk-plunk muted guitar fills, like a cat’s feet on a backyard fence. Simple, elegant chords, lots of space between them, solid, dry drums. Enter Fagen’s vocal, doubled, over an unusually simple, almost tipsy 1, 4, 5 verse progression.


The singer has wasted a good chunk of his adult life chasing teenage girls, as he is doing now. College conquests moved onward and upward, but he is stuck in his addiction. His latest nubiles don’t even know his favorite oldies any more, and he has nothing to say to them, except in bed, where they both “slide on down.” The chorus is in the relative minor, fraught with chordal suspensions and breathy four part background vocals reinforcing the “No we can’t...” lines. Altogether, the effect is to say “just shut up and take off your clothes.” As a lithe and limber guitar dances before him, Fagen observes and prods with sadly condescending comments:


The Bridge tells the story. Lush four part vocals intone his fervent hope, namely that a few shots of good tequila and a joint will tear down the walls of age and restore his youthful charm and prowess. A second repeat of his lascivious prayer is cut off by the reality of the final chorus, and the song ends as it began, the smooth, pussy-footed introduction fading into the distance, harmonica dancing atop the plunking guitar.


Is this Shakespearean farce, Enlightenment satire or a Fagenian confession? When we consider the large number of Steely Dan songs that dote on the wonders and dangers of drugs, and the rumored nasal proclivities of the musical luminaries with whom they hung, I vote for confession. However, as with most of the group’s lyrics, “Hey Nineteen” is also a thinly veiled warning not unlike the Ancient Mariner’s tale. It holds the mirror up to listeners and says “But for the grace of... (blind luck, perhaps), your face here!”


What’s In The Groove - “Gaucho”

KEY ELEMENTS: FEEL, CHORUS, PRODUCTION VALUE, RECORDING, HARMONY VOCALS

Perhaps the most tragic (and cryptic) of Steely Dan’s tales is the title cut itself, “Gaucho.” Have you ever had a friend or associate whose behavior embarrassed you? Someone who you enjoyed or even loved, but who periodically put himself and you at risk. Among the most evocative of the group’s songs, the music and arrangement paint the picture of a very chic private club. A stately introduction, almost all on the major tonic chord, exudes a smooth, easy gospel feel, featuring a Hammond organ and clipped, unreverbed sax lines. The turnaround hook could be straight out of a gospel hymn. Every note is etched cleanly against silence, and we see clear to the musical horizon. Then Fagen opens the can.


A cryptic confrontation between two friends, perhaps gay lovers, one of whom (the singer) works - perhaps as a bouncer - at the club or casino. The other has picked up some Mexican street person or wastrel and brought him in for inspection. While the rhythm track maintains ultracool control through the first verse, its shape is distended, extra measures stretching each phrase out awkwardly. Almost every word is underlined by some musical or percussive punch. Our tuxedoed bouncer is clearly upset and comes down hard in the first chorus, with heavy emphases on two phrases, “You don’t seem to understand, We got heavy rollers...”

While trying to convince his friend to leave in the truncated second verse, he seems interrupted by someone’s arrival - perhaps his boss - whereupon he and the track adopt a haughty, judgemental tone for the second chorus. Four part vocals deliver the lyrics in glimmering perfection, with sparkling Fender Rhodes piano runs and silky-smooth synth chords. Whatever the Custerdome may be, its full splendor is far above the likes of the friend and his finger-snapping gaucho. In stark contrast, a thin, stringy little Stratocaster plays nervous Flamenco-tinged R&B rhythms on the left. All that’s missing are castanets.


After a lush brass/guitar solo and a full repeat of the introduction, the third verse paints a darker, sadder picture as the arrangement maintains its flawless veneer. Our bouncer is obviously very close to his friend - who but a lover would notice details like studs that match his eyes? But here his outrage turns to pity, both for the friend/lover and the poor gaucho, who is homeless. The final line turns the emotional table and catches me completely off guard every time, especially as Fagen delivers it with real compassion.

In the end, duty whacks the bouncer on, and he sends his friend away, gaucho in hand, scolding him for his bad judgement. The coda is a lushly arranged, all-instrumental verse, with melody intoned in unison by Rhodes and a smoothly distorted guitar, joined here and there by the sax and other guitars. The final chord, a breathy five part harmony on the unresolved seventh, brushes us with pixie dust as the curtain closes.


Studies In Self-Amusement and Cynicism

In 1982, two years after Fagen and Becker parted ways, “The Nightfly” was released. Those who had suspected that the later Steely Dan albums were basically Donald Fagen efforts needed no further confirmation. Becker had played on only half the cuts of the previous albums. While their own interviews politely asserted their continuing collaborattion on each song, comments by session players and their engineers failed to concur. Nevertheless, “The Nightfly” sounds and feels as much like “Gaucho” and “Aja” as any group’s next album could. Moreover, it is simply brilliant, from writing to final mix.

“The Nightfly” is a also concept album based on themes and myths of the late 1950s and ‘60s, expressing all the naivete and underlying tensions of the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, personal, sexual and nuclear. It is also heavily autobiographical, portraying Fagen’s childhood dreams and adolsecent fantasies, (as the liner notes reveal...) “fantasies that might have been entertained by a young man of my general height, weight and build growing up in the remote suburbs of a northeastern city.”

While sarcasm and cynicism continue unabated in the lyrics, they are generally less biting than on earlier albums. “The New Frontier” (borrowing its title from J.F.K.’s slogan) stages a party in the family bomb shelter, alledgedly to identify likely candidates to be saved to rebuild humanity after the coming nuclear holocaust. “Maxine” and “Walk Between the Raindrops” are genuine period pieces that remind us of the purity and innocence of young love in that distant period. “Ruby Baby” is actually a a remake of a late ’50s ballad by Leiber and Stoller.

The title cut is more typical Fagen, a voyeuristic look inside the mind of an all night talk-radio DJ in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “So you say there’s a race of men in the trees... thanks for calling, I wait all night for calls like these.” He reads some absurd ad copy for a face cream and plays the station’s perky musical ID twice. Yet behind the on-air facade lies a broken heart. Reminiscing about a lost love, the DJ confesses “I wish I had a heart of ice.” Now his flame is connecting with weirdo 4 AM callers via the safe anonymity of a phone line. Today, of course, it would be the Internet. In his own way, the nightfly is the same character as the gaucho himself.

What’s In The Groove - “The Goodbye Look”

KEY ELEMENTS: FEEL, ETHNIC PACKAGE, CHORUS, RECORDING

Perhaps the finest song of all is one that generally goes unnoticed, “The Goodbye Look,” set in Cuba during Castro’s takeover. The pearl Fagen fashions to hide this story is one of his most beautiful ever. The intro begins with a lazy Latin shuffle - a meandering two-part lead played on a synthetic xylophone or marimba, with light congas, maracas and other percussion. A smooth Hammond-organ slides through the jazzy progression as the rhythm section cooks in Latin perfection. We are obviously in the islands, and the feel is as relaxed and breezy as any jingle for American Airlines or a cruise line. The chord progression finishes with four bars on a major seventh, happy as a clam. Then that funny, familiar voice...


What could possibly be amiss? It doesn’t take long to find out, although the rhythm tracks continue their light and frothy feel with the addition of a syncopated, muted guitar on the right. Not a musical eyelash is out of place.


Seemingly unbothered, our protagonist - a vacationer or expatriot, we don’t know - comments dryly on the rapid decline of political stability. But in the next verse, while the rhythm tracks glide along as usual, both shoes drop hard.


The whole scene turns out to be a deja-vu from some cheap spy novel. Yet later, while pondering a way out, the singer casually asks the German bartendress for another drink. This “why let imminent demise ruin a good vacation” attitude is quintessential Fagen. After all, life is only a movie, right? The only musical hint of calamity is the Chorus melody, which sits tensely on a fifth straight through while the chord progression beneath slithers through a series of knotted suspensions, never resolving until Gretchen delivers his Cuban Breeze.

The glib, relaxed guitar solo that follows evokes the gay, nonchalant ambience of the bar, reinforcing that at moments like these, one does what one can, Fate does what it will. Similarly, the chic, glamorous ambience of Rick’s Cafe in the film Casablanca masks the tingle of intrigue in which a single misplaced glance can cost one’s life. In such tightly-wound dramas, emotions can only be read in extreme close-up, whether they be in Humphrey Bogart’s eyes or Donald Fagen’s vocal.


The way out? A quick exit via a sleek 1959 Chris Craft with twin Evinrude “screws,” drink in hand, still smiling, saying he’ll be back from the men’s room in a second. The music gives no hint of any change, no drop of musical sweat trickles down his face to stain his collar. Instead, the camera zooms after him as the launch fades into the night on its way to Miami, the party continuing as the titles fade up.

Over the last decade, I have played “The Goodbye Look” for several record production classes, without any particular introduction. Some recognize the artist, some don’t. But when I ask what it’s about, the answer is almost always the same: some guy is on an island vacation, trying to pick up girls at a beachfront bar. The breezy feel is so convincing that no one picks up the dark story line on a first listen. “The Goodbye Look” thus commits the perfect musical crime, completely concealing its gruesome tale inside a beautiful and alluring package.


PART V. Moments of Brilliance, 1974-1988

Chapter 12. Tracy Chapman and the Folk Re-Re-Revival:
“Fast Car” and “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution”



When Tracy Chapman’s first album was released in 1988, nothing could have been stylistically farther from the center of the charts. The major hitmakers of the preceding year included Michael Jackson (“Bad”) and sister Janet (still riding high on her late-1986 smash, “Control”), Whitney Houston, George Michael, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Expose. Each of these artists cultivated a strong, stylish image with the help of the hot fashion designers, choreographers, photographers and video directors of the day - and, lest we forget, MTV.

Despite all this hoopla and expense, it is noteworthy that during 1987-88, save for Mr. Michael, almost no singles held the No. 1 spot for more than two weeks. Seemingly, the trendier the sound and image, the shorter its lifespan in the public’s mind. In any case, there seemed little place on the charts for a genre whose heyday had come and gone in the mid-1960s, traditional folk music.

One might counter that Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs was a folk artist. Most of her songs on their 1987 album, “In My Tribe” were complaints and/or laments on problems ranging from war and our destruction of the environment to personal topics such as the tragedy of illiteracy and the horror of child abuse. Suzanne Vega also delivered a wonderful folk-oriented assemblage of different themes in her 1987 album, “Solitude Standing.” Sonically, however, both of these artists wrapped their folk hearts in current rock and pop sounds, with highly-processed drums, power guitars, and sparkling, bell-like synthesizers. Many a listener failed to hear their messages, buying the package instead and enjoying it at face value.


Fade-in from Black - A Lone Voice Against Apathy

I first heard Tracy Chapman live in Harvard Square, probably in the summer of 1986. She was one among dozens of local artists who belted out their best songs to develop a following and pay the rent. While studying anthropology and African studies at Tufts University, she also appeared in coffeehouses and clubs like Passim, where Joan Baez and Tom Rush had launched their careers three decades earlier. The pace accelerated when a Tufts classmate, the son of Charles Koppelman (then president of SBK Publishing, in 1965 a co-founder of Kama-Sutra Records, home of the Spoonful et al.), sent Chapman’s bare-bones vocal & guitar demos to his father.

Koppelman signed Chapman on her return from London, where she opened three shows for Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs and got excellent reviews. He also set up a great management deal and a high-budget contract with Elektra, former home of Carly Simon, the Doors, Bread, Queen and the Cars. Oddly, Elektra chose Alex Sadkin, a techno-whiz best known for highly-processed, effects-laden dance hits with artists from Grace Jones to Robbie Nevil (whose “C’est La Vie” was Top 10 at the moment, to produce Chapman’s debut. To those who knew her and had heard the demos, the pairing seemed strange at best. Then, as mentioned earlier, Sadkin perished in an auto accident before recording commenced.

Fortunately, David Kershenbaum, who had produced folk artists including Joan Baez, Richie Havens and Cat Stevens, and most of British composer/rocker Joe Jackson’s albums, was available to take over production duties. With big bucks at stake, Elektra wanted something that would crossover from college radio to flat-out rock stations. This mandated a rock rhythm section and plenty of electric guitar. Kershenbaum, however, realized that Chapman’s strength was her voice and eloquent lyrics, and so determined to underproduce many songs in order to keep the listeners’ ears where they belonged.

Having heard and enjoyed her demos, I bought the album immediately and showed it to my production class. The cover photo is a grim, sepia toned, scraggly-haired head shot of Chapman. When I asked for a reaction, several students called out “Buckwheat!” I was shocked, but they were right. The photo looks a lot like the lone black youngster in the “Our Gang” comedies of the 1930s. Spanky and Alfalfa may have had some aspirations for upward mobility, but sad-eyed Buckwheat, the poor, never-to-be-educated black kid, a loyal, tag-along scapegoat for his pals, is a not-so-distant cousin of characters in some of Chapman’s finest lyrics.

Chapman herself grew up in a mostly black, working-class neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, and with the encouragement of her single mother, began writing songs and playing guitar at the age of eight. She knew first-hand the frustrations, emotional torture and personal tragedies of her neighbors. The songs on her first two albums tell of marital abuse, stifling poverty and the desperation of black youth. Others foresee for the coming of a new age of equality, peace and liberation. The tone of even her lightest songs is somber, and her delivery is highly charged by the stark contrast of her rich alto vocal sound with plain, undecorated phrasing and meticulous delivery of each carefully selected syllable. There is powerful poetry here that rivals Dylan’s finest lyrics.


The Artist - Stunned by Success:

“The world is a mess,” Chapman explained to Anthony DeCurtis in a Rolling Stone inverwiew (June 10, 1988). Then she flashes a winning smile and breaks into laughter. The twenty-four-year-old singer-songwiter is well aware of her reputation for seriousness, and she has just stopped herself, nearly breathless, after railing against a catalog of social ills. She is perfectly capable of laughing at herself. What she is not interested in doing is lightening up her music. “I didn’t know that you had to have a percentage of humor on every album you put out,” she says, joking that perhaps her next record should be a “comedy album.” “I don’t know if you can be humorous about some of the issues I deal with in my songs. It would not serve them very well to dilute things in that way.”

Asked if she sees herself as a folk singer, she hesitates before responding. “I guess the answer is ‘yes and no.’ I think what comes to people’s minds is the Anglo-American tradition of the folk singer, and they don’t think about the black roots of folk music. So in that sense, no, I don’t. My influences and my background are different.

“There was always a lot of music in our house” - Betty Wright, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Marvin Gaye, and the gospel singers Mahalia Jackson and Shirley Ceasar, among others. “I was also very aware of the struggles my mother was going through, being a single parent and a black woman trying to raise two kids. I guess there’s some people who can take all that in and not really look at the bigger picture, not see that there are forces in society making things more difficult than they ought to be.


What’s In The Groove - “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution”

KEY ELEMENTS: BUILD, ENERGY, VOCAL, RELEVANCE, RECORDING

“Talkin’ Bout A Revolution” is an anthem to freedom and equality in the exact mold of its early 60s counterparts, in both form and attitutde. One can imagine Joan Baez, Odetta or almost any of their contemporaries writing and singing it, and had that been the case, I’m sure it would have been a monster hit - then. On the other hand, “Revolution” opens the album with a shot of energy and optimism that contrasts violently with the dark spirit of “Fast Car,” which follows immediately, and many of the ensuing songs. If “Revolution” announces the inevitable future of society, perhaps the rest of the album reveals the sources of the “whisper” that will ultimately overturn the twisted order of the past.

Signatures
Four chord (1, 4, 6m, 5) progression that runs through the entire song
All entering instruments seem to become a subset of the acoustic guitar(s)
A feeling of power and momentum driving the rhythm section
Confident, triumphant, almost prophetic tone of Chapman’s vocal.

David Kershenbaum’s production of this song is a letter-perfect salesjob for its message, a tight, impenetrable phalanx of musical energy that sweeps the listener into its grip with new invitations and commands in almost every phrase. The song and album begin with Chapman’s thin, brittle-sounding acoustic guitar, playing a familiar 1, 4 (with a 5 on top), 6m, 5 chord progression in mildly accented rhythm. This two-bar mantra carries thru the whole song without a break. Two measures later her vocal enters, matter of fact, yet committed to every word. She presents her case with no other backing. This at once tells us that her voice and message are the focus of the album, and clearly states the folk basis of the entire album.

If the lyric is a vision of the future, the record needs to convince listeners that it is a true vision, and that they should climb on board and accept it. In fact, it must portray that vision as our unstoppable, collective destiny - no small task for a two and one-half minute single! In order to achieve this, the record’s sounds and arrangement must fully embody - make real in a visceral sense - the concepts of truth, momentum and inevitability.

In any work of art, concepts can be realized with the help of references to things and experiences familiar to its audience. Colors, sounds, shapes, faces, and objects - from babies or food to knives - call up associations and connotations from books, art, records, films , television shows and other life and cultural experiences we have shared. A great artist need only invoke a few perfectly chosen references to call up intense images and emotions. “Revolution” does exactly this with amazing subtlety, impact and efficiency.

Truth can be conveyed by the tone of one’s voice, and Tracy Chapman’s rich, fluttery vocal tells us her faith is unshakeable. She is the voice of humanity, speaking from the heart. Yet in order to impart the weight of spiritual prophecy to the message, she needs help. Truth is one thing - gospel truth another. Near the end of the first verse, a new sound enters, Hammond organ with its slowly warbling Leslie speaker. It plays an open tonic-five that leaves us in suspense, yet instantly conjures images of a minister delivering a sermon. As Chapman repeats “...like a whisper,” the organist flips the Leslie rotor to high speed, sending a familiar shiver up our spine. The sound excites neurons associated with words from Above.

At the opening of second verse, a deep, solid bass slides in, reinforcing the root notes of each guitar chord. Power! The kick drum enters, stiffening each bass note with a physical punch. Overdubbed bass harmonics (tonic and five again) on the first beat of alternate measures mimic distant bells, calling us to the horizon, our goal. There are no fills, no riffs, no distractions, no other musical personalities. We feel the power of all this low end, but somehow it just seems like the acoustic guitar has simply grown in stature. Subtly, momentum is building. Again, however, it takes an outside reference to make the momentum unstoppable and confirm that we will enjoy being swept away by it.

Midway through the verse, a hi-hat with light digital delay creeps in, playing steady, rapid sixteenth notes grouped in fours - “a chi-ka-tik, a-chi-ka-tik, a...” This sound calls up images from Disney films like “Dumbo,” musicals like Oklahoma, and childhood memories from stories, films, TV and our living room floor - a train! “I think I can - I think I can...,” repeats the circus train in “Dumbo,” straining to scale a mountain on the way to the next town. Then, rounding the peak for the free ride back down, “I thought I could - I thought I could...” All this intoned in “a-chi-ka-tik” rhythm of a steam engine. Trains are a symbol of momentum, virtually unstoppable, and imbued with the happy prospect of bringing us to our destination. By invoking this sonic image, “Revolution” becomes a musical train to freedom.


During the repeat of the first verse, a second acoustic fades in, subtly adding weight and sparkle. More important radio-wise, a twangy electric guitar enters (playing only tonics and fives), along with snare rim shots, echoed at the interval of a sixteenth note by another digital delay. Just forty seconds from the top, straight folk has been transformed to rock. The new mixture simmers as Chapman, who opened by singing to all of us, abruptly shifts her aim and confronts the wealthy in the pre-chorus. The warning becomes manifest with the entry of a powerful rock snare drum just before the chorus. The revolution itself arrives as she leaps up a full octave to deliver the triumphant chorus.


There are no additional instruments or embellishments after the first chorus. Kershenbaum wisely restrained the studio players from making individual statements or diverting attention from Chapman’s performance. Ergo, there is no mistaking this for the Tracy Chapman “band.” In her initial tours for Amnesty and other causes, a clean, retro folk image was obviously appropriate, so she appeared solo, playing and singing alone on stage. Later, when she appeared simply as an entertainer, audiences were delighted by such direct, intimate contact. For the first time in decades, listeners could focus on an artist’s message, undistracted by the obligatory packaging of rhythm sections, guest soloists, on-stage explosions and other fripperies that defined major acts of the period.

“Revolution” ends with a sustained, harmonious tonic chord, a musical “Om.” It has made its point emphatically and directs us to enlist in the future. How could such a single fail? Timing! 1988 was the year of transition from Reagan to Bush. An artificially sustained economy was starting to slide; the “me” generation of upwardly mobile boomers was clawing its way to six figure salaries and beginning to repay huge educational loans and mortgages. “Revolution” came out of left field. It did not overthrow society, but the message of Tracy Chapman’s entire first album stirred the latent altruism of seven million buyers and countless listeners.


The Producer’s View:

Dan Torchia interviewed David Kershenbaum for the February, 1990 issue of RE/P. At the time he was a successful studio owner, former engineer and one of the top producers in the industry. Yet he seemed to have an open mind about how to work with each artist, and the role technology should play in each new project.


With Tracy’s first album, we didn’t set out to try and make a ‘commercial album.’ I had identified a window [in the market] where an artist could say something rather acoustic and honest and that people might be willing to listen again. When Tracy came about as a prospect, I was very excited. We came up with a very simple approach that went against the grain of what was out there at the time. In the initial stages it was just her acoustic guitar and vocals. We didn’t want a lot of tricks and whistles on the record; we wanted something that would be natural and accurately communicate her ideas. It would be supportive to her, but not intrusive.

When it came time to make a second album, everyone said, “aren’t you worried about how you’re going to top the first one?” We talked about it, and all we could come up with was that we had communitacted a certain set of ideas on the first album. If we could do that on the second album, we would have done our job.

Kershenbaum’s production credits stretch back to 1972, when he A&M hired him as a staff producer. Over the next fourteen years he collaborated with country, blues and folk artists, British rockers and even a few dance acts, including:

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