Portrait of an artist in three acts

Create. Recreate. Repeat.

Bruce Hornsby performing in Ojai CA, August 2022 (photo by author)

I am a big fan of the special people who create something from nothing. It is very difficult and valuable work that requires real courage as well as talent. One such creator is the composer and pianist/vocalist Bruce Hornsby. This is a story of how he has revisited and rejuvenated one of his compositions at different points in his career.

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In the beginning …

The act of creation as giving birth to something completely new is a remarkable human accomplishment. Few can do it and even fewer can do it well. Perhaps that’s why we keep a special place in our hearts and memories for our greatest creators (writers, artists, scientists, engineers, musicians, athletes etc.). They enrich our lives and we are grateful to them for their gifts.

A less heroic but still impressive creative act is the re-visioning and refreshing of an existing composition. Returning to an earlier work to discover something new and take it to a new level is something many creative people do. Film makers produce their “Director’s Cut” in order to repair the damage done to their original vision by meddlesome producers. Novelists recover and re-work sections that were cut by their editors. Others create prequels and sequels to further explore old landscapes.

Music is a form of invention that lends itself to re-creation. Taking inspiration from the jazz tradition of improvisation where sections of a piece are devoted to exploration and reformatting, musicians often play with their work as both composers and in performance.

That’s just the way it is

Bruce Hornsby exploded onto the music scene in 1986 with his debut album The Way It Is. With big and balanced talents as a composer, lyricist, keyboard player, vocalist and arranger, Hornsby created a thrilling orchestral musicscape that rocketed him up the charts and onto the stage and into public acclaim.

Nearly 40 years later, Hornsby is still composing and recording and performing in his late 60's. I had the pleasure of attending his concert at a small outdoor performance space in Ojai CA in 2022 and reacquainting myself with his unique sound. That experience prompted me to explore the work he has done since his string of Top 40 hits came to an end.

As a classically trained musician and composer, Hornsby has a lot of skills to work with. He has explored rock, jazz, country, bluegrass, blues and hymnal themes. He has written for large bands/orchestras, small ensembles, movie scores and solo piano works. He has changed and evolved as an artist, refusing to simply pump out his greatest hits. He follows his muse.

To be creative, spontaneous in the moment and make music in the present tense, that’s what we’re all about live. I write the songs, we make the records and then the records become a departure point, the basic blueprint, the basic arrangement. I’m fairly restless creatively. I was never a very good Top 40 band guy because I never liked to play the same thing every time. Too often songwriters approach their songs like museum pieces. I don’t subscribe to that. I think of my songs as living beings that evolve and change and grow through the years. — Bruce Hornsby

Mandolin Rain

I want to explore Bruce Hornsby’s artistic evolution through three versions of a song from his debut 1986 album The Way It Is. Composing for his band at the time, Hornsby created a big bold orchestral sound made up of piano, synthesizer, bass, guitars, mandolin, violin and drums. Many of his most popular songs convey an elegiac tone and nostalgia for lost connections and places and community.

In Mandolin Rain, Hornsby develops the classic theme of love found and lost against the backdrop of a vivid rural landscape. He fuses the power of music and nature with phrases like mandolin rain, banjo wind and music on the lake. Here is the first verse and chorus:

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The song came and went
Like the times that we spent
Hiding out from the rain under the carnival tent.
I laughed and she’d smile
It would last for awhile
You don’t know what you got till you lose it all again.

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away.
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go.

Written by Bruce Hornsby, John Hornsby; Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Version #1

The 1986 version of Mandolin Rain is performed in the (some would say formulaic) style of Hornsby’s first two albums with their big western sky/country motif and lush orchestral sound (you will need a Spotify account to listen to the entire performance below):

It’s a great big soaring sound perfectly designed for a big rock venue and the huge audiences he was attracting during his years of peak popularity.

Hornsby’s chart-driven fame was of course time-limited and he moved on into his middle and later career with undiminished creative drive. Over multiple studio and live albums he has continued to write and perform across a wide range of musical styles.

Version #2

Born and raised in Virginia, Bruce Hornsby has often explored the sounds of traditional Appalachian folk and bluegrass music. At the concert I attended, he performed a long (too long?!) set of music playing dulcimer and accompanied by a banjo, violin and washboard percussion. Hornsby recorded a stripped down studio version of Mandolin Rain accompanied only by mandolin (the great Ricky Skaggs) and fiddle in 2007.

This is more of a miniature of the first full band recording where the small details can emerge without interference or distraction. It is the ‘same’ song but so different in tone and form and expression, a re-creation by a master artist.

Version #3

In 2014, nearly 30 years after its debut, Hornsby gave a live performance of Mandolin Rain. The rendering is slower and even more nostalgic with extensive improvisational exploration of its musical themes and motifs. It is the performance of a now 60 year old man looking back at youth and love from the vantage point of impending old age. It is eerie, darker, sadder, richer.

Free from the constraints of fame, Hornsby can give full rein to his skills and emotions as he revisits an old composition with a fresh new sensibility. This is re-creation of the best kind.

Coda

I admire Bruce Hornsby’s undiminished creative drive throughout his long career. He is a good example of a person who has discovered their right work perfectly aligned with their interests and talents. The resulting flow experience is a source of great satisfaction and can be a bit of a fountain of youth that generates energy and enthusiasm and creativity well into later adulthood.

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