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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Denison Witmer - Old School Skills
Wednesday 30 July @ 12:55:50 |
 by Rob van Alstyne
In what amounts to the equivalent of an ice age ago in pop-music time—meaning approximately 30 years in the past—a different breed of recording artist dominated the airwaves and stalked the earth. The sincere introspective singer/songwriter was seemingly everywhere circa 1973 with artists like Jackson Browne, Carole King and Neil Young selling millions of records low in rock ’n’ roll bombast but high in genuine emotional sentiment. It was a truly halcyon time period commercially for any musician with strong personal neuroses ready to put them in song. Like all pop music moments though, it couldn’t last. The vacant gaze and stiff upper lip of punk music was set to sweep all the sensitive boys off the sandlot and any remaining stragglers could expect to get their asses kicked by the thundering sound of newly born arena-bound prog-rock. This was all happening by about 1976, which also happens, courtesy of a cruel twist of fate, to be the year big-hearted Philadelphian folk artist Denison Witmer was born.
Witmer’s heartfelt acoustic musings, unsurprisingly, have always seemed out of step with the times. His near perfect debut album, Safe Away, was the kind of artistic statement far from in vogue at the Korn-crazed close of the ’90s. Witmer’s boyish tenor set forth startlingly direct tales of friendships fading and the pending disillusionment of adulthood while managing to completely avoid the histrionics and self-pity that typically mar such navel-gazing album enterprises. Set to minimal or no accompaniment, Witmer’s simple-yet-sinewy acoustic tunes carved immediately immovable space in my head, where they’ve continued to reside for the last three years.
Coming across like a less self-abusive Elliott Smith, Witmer dropped an Either/Or-level bedroom classic on his debut and has been tinkering with his folk-pop formula ever since with varying degrees of success on two subsequent, mostly-captivating full-lengths. After touring exhaustively behind the lushly-produced autumnal-tinged Philadelphia Songs, Witmer found himself constantly compared in the press to his 1970s forebears in the heart-on-sleeve-guitar-in-hand canon, in particular breezy Californian Jackson Browne, an artist Witmer had never heard previously.
Before too long, however, Witmer had taken to covering Browne’s classic “These Days” in concert, and an unconventional album idea was being hatched. “I was really intrigued by this particular era of music because for whatever reason in the ’70s these songs, in addition to being really great classic songs, were actually popular with the masses,” says Witmer via telephone from the road. “It’s just such a different situation with songwriters today.” The end result was Recovered, Witmer’s 10-song tribute album meditating on some of the more classic works of singer/songwriters from the early ’70s (Neil Young, Gram Parsons and Leonard Cohen are among the non-Browne notables Witmer boldly recasts). The arrangements range from traditional country-rock (the Band’s “It Makes No Difference”) to pristine folk (Fleetwood Mac’s “Song Bird”) with the strongest moment being an out-of-left-field electronic-based reworking of Carole King’s “So Far Away.”
“I think partially because these weren’t my own songs, I didn’t concentrate on things like the lyrics or the chord progressions so I was able to really zero in on the arrangements and make them as strong as possible,” claims Witmer. “With something like ‘So Far Away’ that’s just a song that has such a strong vocal melody to begin with that we really wanted to have that be the focus and not clutter things up with a bunch of instruments, I originally considered doing it a capella. Then Matt [Haas] from the Six Parts Seven came in to lay down this lap steel part and we realized that if we looped it backwards it actually synced up with the chord progression better. From there we just started throwing anything at it we felt like and really getting out there with the arrangements. After it was all done we debated putting it on there, but eventually just went with it.”
That kind of anything-goes adventurousness is tangible throughout Recovered, transforming what could have been an unnecessary vanity project into an essential listen for fans of folk-inflected indie-rock. The album finds Witmer successfully working with a broader sonic palette, seamlessly blending classic (pedal steel) and futuristic (ambient keyboards abound) instrumental elements. It’s a feat Witmer had been gamely atte mpting on his previous records but never executed with the precision exhibited here.
Witmer is already back to singing his own songs—a full-band project dubbed “River Bends” is set to hit early next year—but it seems clear that taking the time out to pay homage to those who tread before him was an invigorating creative process in the ever-uphill and lonely world of the confessional singer/songwriter in the modern age. “It will be interesting to see how this record does and how it’s received,” admits Witmer warily. “It’s really the first of my albums to have solid distribution. I’ve noticed things building over the last year just in terms of getting some national press and things like that. It’s a slow process but at the same time I kind of like it that way. I like getting to tour around and come back to the same places over and over again to a slightly larger audience each time. I know that there is a limited group of people out there who will ever get into my music, but I like knowing that the fans I win tend to stick around. As long as I’m doing something worthwhile that resonates with them, they’re not going to leave me. I prefer that to having some huge overnight success and then wondering whether everyone will still be around next year.”
Denison Witmer plays Sun., Aug. 3, at 9 p.m. at The Triple Rock Social Club. With local singer/songwriter Jeff Hanson and ELA, $6. 21+. 629 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. 612-333-7399.
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