Pushing The Boundaries of Folk:
Brian Joseph
by Dean “Folk This Shit” Bonzani
4-11-04
Brian Joseph’s got a new baby son, a new CD entitled, “The King of Echo Park,” and despite the rigors of the road, life is good.
An award-winning songwriter/performer, Joseph is strategically touring in support of his latest release, which is enjoying warm receptions from the festival circuit to as far away as England, much to his delight.
Having transplanted himself from his longtime home of Colorado to the place of his birth, Los Angeles, Joseph left a ten-year long career in acting to pursue his first love: music. He’s turned out three albums on his own Frog Songs Records label, and has been touring internationally since recording his first CD, “Somewhere It’s True,” in 1999. His “intelligent, politically conscious urban-folk sound” has gotten him onto the main stages of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, the Kerryville Folk Festival, and won him the Rocky Mtn Folks Fest’s “New Folks Showcase” award. He also won second place in the prestigious Telluride Troubadour competition.
A nimble finger picker with a strong, warm voice, Joseph’s songs are at once intimate and brassy. Shifting from tender lullabies like “The King of Echo Park” to the spooky, infinitely sad “God Bless The Storm,” Joseph pushes hard at the boundaries of folk, producing tightly-woven tales and ear-pricking melodies that hint at his deep appreciation for the masters of the L.A. songwriter tradition.
“There was such an incredible songwriter scene here in the seventies,” Joseph explains. “Jackson Brown, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Waits, Randy Newman. All these amazing songwriters. Tom Waits, solo— it's astounding the energy that he puts off. He's playing slow ballads, and putting off this fierce energy. Jackson Brown will sit by himself at the piano, and you can almost feel the heat coming off of him. That's what I want to do. I hope that I do that.”
An entertainer at heart, Joseph infuses his show with a healthy dose of humor, dragging people onstage, and involving the audience at every opportunity, much like fellow L.A. resident and friend, Peter Himmelman, does.
“I love Pete Himmelman. The way that I met him is really funny. We were hanging out— we were both teaching at this thing in Colorado called The Song School— and I kinda look a little like him. We both wear the same kind of hat. So when it came time for his set on the main stage— he had a big, late afternoon set— he had his band, a great band with Shane Fontane, come out and lay down this groove. Then they introduced him— they're like, 'Peter Himmelman!' and I came out. I'm holding his guitar, and everybody went nuts. I came out and starting kinda doing this tune, and then he came out through the audience, waving his arms. He got some big bouncer to hoist him up onto the stage, and we had this little face-off, the two Peter Himmelmans.”
An engaging, sensitive and powerful performer, Brian Joseph invites listeners onto the front porch of his imagination, and lovingly pulls a blanket of melody around their shoulders.
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Brian Joseph at The Orpheum Theater, Fri., July 16th.
©2004 by Dean Bonzani, All Rights Reserved