Artist Of The week 7/2/2012 - Steve Forbert - Early Years

[sactochris]

Steve Forbert was born in Meridian Mississippi in 1954. He began playing guitar at the age of ten, and by the time he had finished high school and started junior college, he had passed through a series of garage bands. In 1976 he was driving a truck for a place called White's Auto Store. He found himself unemployed when that business suddenly went bankrupt.

Sensing that it was time to put up or shut up, he moved to NYC and took a room at the Y. He spent the next year eeking out a meager living playing for spare change in Grand Central Station, and at the corner of Third & MacDougal in the Village. His first paying gig in New York was at Kenny's Castaways. As you would expect from a young man playing a battered Martin guitar and using a neck rack to accompany himself on Harmonica he made the rounds on the Greenwich Villlage folk circuit that was largely dying out by the time of his arrival.
He faithfully lined up for a chance to play during hoot night at the legendary Gerde's Folk City, but he was also interested in the music scene that was taking place a little further downtown, at a club on the Bowery. After an audition, Steve was given some prime slots at C.B.G.B.'s opening up for acts like John Cale and The Talking Heads. He would soon find himself being managed by the same two headed hydra of Danny Fields & Linda Stein, who at the time were also managing The Ramones.

By mid 1977, after a very positive review in the New York Times, Steve Forbert was a critics darling. A whole host of major label A&R execs came sniffing around and eventually Steve decided to sign with Nemperor Records, a small boutique label distributed by CBS, that was known primarily for it's roster of jazz fusion acts like Stanley Clarke, and Jan Hammer. 1978 saw the release of his first LP, Alive On Arrival, It also saw him having the by now cliche tag of The New Bob Dylan hung on him. " Yeah that certainly happened" says Forbert with a touch of sarcasm in his voice And I was aware of his influence on me, though it wasn't like I thought I had to make acoustic records, then go electric at an outdoor folk festival, and then get in a mysterious motorcycle accident"

After his original choice for producer had backed out in order to work with Barbara Streisand, Steve choose John Simon, who had worked with The Band, to produce his second album, Jackrabbit Slim. It was recorded in Nashville without the use of any overdubs and contained horns and some R&B elements that turned off some of his initial fans who just wanted another album of Huck Finn playing his guitar. The naive country boy turned big city cat image was starting to be an albatross arounds Steve's neck and he rebeled against being pigeonholed. He became known for telling absurd tall tales to gullible journalists who had no idea they were being punked by a very intelligent southern wise-ass. After Time magazine did a piece on Steve's tall tales there was a backlash, and it hurt the sales of his third album, Little Stevie Orbit. By this time Forbert was also making decisions that in hindsight may of had a negative effect on his career. He left the song Ya Ya, that had become a staple of his live set off of the Orbit LP, it would not see the light of day untill the release of his fourth album, Steve Forbert, in 1982. By that time MTV had become the hot new thing driving music sales but Forbert resisted doing a flashy video for it and instead the songs video is comprised of home movie footage of Steve and his band on their tour bus. Forbert would soon however be all over MTV thanks to his cameo as Cyndi Lauper's boyfriend in the ubiquitous video Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

After four albums on Nemperor Forbert asked to be released from his contract. He signed directly with Columbia, the label that had distributed his four LP's released by Nemperor. His goal was to make an album that Columbia could get behind and really sell. He hooked up producer Neil Geraldo, who at the time, was on top of the pop charts as Producer, guitar player, and husband, of Pat Benatar. Unfortunately, despite several attempts by Forbert & Geraldo to deliver an LP that Columbia felt was worthy, and despite an abundance of material recorded for the project, the whole affair turned into a lengthy legal battle that lasted for years and kept Forbert out of the music scene, and thus the public eye, for most of the rest of the 80's. The fruits of their labor have only recently seen the light of day, released under the title, Down In Flames.

In 1982 Forbert met a woman named Jill who would become this wife and the mother of his children. He moved to Nashville and would next be heard from on his 1988 Geffen Records recording Streets Of This Town.

"This was a carefree time for me, of running around and playing with this band. I wasn't very serious about alot of things, and maybe in retrospect, I would change some of that"


This has been a fairly straightforward account of Forbert's early NYC years. If you want to hear some of his very best work from this period I highly recommend

The Best Of Steve Forbert What Kinda Guy? - An excellent compilation album of his early material
Young Guitar Days - A collection of outtakes that are so good you'll wonder why they didn't make the cut in the first place
In Concert King Biscuit - A ferocious live show from 1982

Check them out.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

He's playing the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, NC in October. I missed him the last time he was here so hopefully I'll be able to make it this time.

[headhunter]

Good post.

Alive On Arrival, Jackrabbit Slim and Little Stevie Orbit were 3 classic albums and not many solo artists released a better 1-2-3 punch to start their career imo.

I had him out to my place last year to do a backyard concert for about 100 guests. Super nice guy, great performer and another terrific troubadour of music. Still a terrific singer/songwriter who should be even bigger than he is.

[RevMatt]

Great article, Sactochris.

I've been a fan of Steve Forbert since high school. Not a foam at the mouth fanboy but I've owned his first three albums for a long time. He was one of the few NYC artists who was able to bridge the gap between what was happening in the West Village folk scene and the east village punk scene. As the article said, the West Village scene was dying by the time Steve Forbert arrived in New York. At the same time clubs like Kenny's Castaways, The Bitter End and Folk City were one of the few places in NYC where a brand new artist or band could get gigs. CBGB's was another. While most people mytholagize both scenes in their heyday -- Dylan, Van Ronk, Ochs in the West Village, Ramones, Talking Heads, Television in the East Village -- from a musician's standpoint the opportunities these clubs gave newcomers counted for more. Steve Forbert was never really part of a scene. He was just a young musician who came into New York and busted his ass taking whatever gigs were available.

By the time I started playing those clubs -- junior year of high school -- Steve Forbert was big time and was playing rooms like The Bottom Line. But we occasionally spotted him on the streets and always held out hope that he might happen to stop by Kenny's or The Bitter End for a drink while we were playing.

[4sooner]

Great choice sachto! "Alive On Arrival" is definitely one of the records on my Deserted Island List. Have everything up to and including "Mission Of The Crossroad Palms". I got to see him in a small theater in Norman, Ok in '81 or '82. I still have the harmonica he threw into the crowd after a rousing rendition of "What Kind Of Guy". "I'm here for lovin but I aint no... SUH-LUT!!!"
Awsome show by another awsome yet underappreciated singer/songwriter.
Excellent article. Excellent choice.
I'm cuing up Allive On Arrival right now. Thanks.

[jr29]

Steve Forbert has been on my radar forever but until the last week or two I had never really taken a dive into his music. His great tunes are really, really great. I am looking forward to working my way through the rest of his catalogue.
BTW......he's from Meridian, Mississippi and that is one musician producing town if there ever was one.