Kris Gruen
Has a Tender Theory
by Richard Cuccaro
The paths that artists follow to reach the realm of the singer/songwriter are infinite.
One fascinating synthesis to stumble across is in finding someone whose main focus
is poetry who then fuses it to music. Sliding into the periphery of my field of awareness,
an album demo was handed to me a couple of months ago. I heard an ethereal mix of
acoustic guitar and sparkling backup production as an undercurrent to poetic lyrics
that reached far beyond average songwriting. The singer's wide-ranging voice had an
intimate quality, breathy and soft at the start, then taking the listener aloft in later passages.
Kris Gruen had suddenly shown up on my doorstep and, in an instant, crossed the threshold.
There was no way to avoid paying attention.
The opening track of his soon-to-be released debut album, Lullaby School, "Tender Theory,"
deals with the artist's attempts to reach society-at-large. His voice begins as a hoarse whisper,
sung over a banjo riff:
Good young men, they speak ten ways / at the lullaby school in a lullaby style /
one learns to pen for the men who play / by the lullaby rules trapping musical mile /
well anyway / it's a tender theory.
Any theory that attempts to figure out a way to reach a populace grown used to being
spoon-fed a pap of mindless distraction is worth listening to. How did this poet find his way
into music? The earliest influences were more tumultuous than ethereal.
From the start
Kris Gruen is the son of Bob Gruen, legendary rock photographer who, in addition to a legion
of artists and bands (Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones), most notably took memorable pictures of,
and was a friend to, John Lennon.
Kris, now living in Vermont, was born in New York City in Westbeth (his father still resides there).
His parents split up when he was one year old. She remarried to reknown jazz guitarist Joe Beck
(the first guitarist to play with Miles Davis) and continued to live in New York City until Kris was four.
They then moved to Connecticut. Later, he saw his father regularly and went with him while he
worked taking pictures of bands. In this manner Kris Gruen, barely sprung from infancy, was escorted
into the whirlwind. He saw The Clash a lot and says that their energy was a major influence. "I have tons
of memories of CBGB's and Max's Kansas City," he says. He saw bands like The New York Dolls and
remembers going to the Limelight at a very early age to hear Johnny Thunders. He says that
"It was so loud. It put me to sleep immediately. I was too young and the energy was too big."
He preferred Blondie. "As a little kid, Debbie Harry's music was a more pleasurable experience,
because it was tender and sweet. Even though it had attitude and edge, it lulled me."
Although parental shifts are jarring to a child, His mother's remarriage proved to be a fortuitous turn
for Kris. "Joe's feel rubbed off on me tremendously. It gave me an understanding of free style and
free form &endash; a jazz sensibility. In free form, the tempo is kept in many different, hidden places with
different instruments. The point is, you can play with time a lot, and it's very exciting for audiences
to witness that."
"Joe would say that I had great pitch. He gave me a lot of confidence and made me feel like I could do
what I wanted to do. He put me in a church choir. We weren't religious folks, but he saw that as an
avenue for me to start to train as a musician. I went to a Montessori school where music was very
important. I loved percussive melody-making instruments like xylophones and stuff, but I never had an
instrument during childhood," Kris recalls. The only exception to this occurred before he can remember.
Kris's father was on assignment for Kiss in Japan when he was 1 1/2 years old. Bob was taking
pictures of Peter Kriss with Pearl executives. He'd already been paid by Kiss, but they wanted to give
him something, so he pointed to a small drum kit nearby and asked for that for Kris and had it shipped
home. Kris only knows that he was told that he played with it until they moved to Connecticut.
The drum kit stayed behind in New York.
The Blossoming
There were no musical activities or influences through his high school years, but that changed when
he got to Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. Kris got a BA in writing and considered himself
to be "an amateur writer learning the craft." The elements of his musical direction began to converge.
His primary metier was poetry and he wrote throughout his college years. After taking a few classes
in African drumming, he trained himself to play hand drums. He bought a conga drum and received
offers to play at gatherings.
In his junior year, a school program allowed him to travel to New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia and
Thailand for four-and-a-half months. He recorded himself playing different indigenous percussive
instruments and, for the first time, wrote every day.
When he returned, his creativity led him down two paths. As part of the radio department, he read
poetry on the air while playing music in the background that he had been exposed to in his travels.
In addition, a new-found conviction that he could do whatever he felt comfortable with led him to j
oin the music department's New Orleans Jazz Ensemble workshop as a percussionist. Don Glasgo,
a venerable jazz player was the director. One day Glasgo asked if anybody in the group sang. When
no one else spoke up, Kris said he'd give it a shot. When they heard him they were excited and said,
"We've got a band."
They started performing around and concluded by playing at a jazz festival, a highlight of the
workshop. The following summer, Don Glasgo hired Kris to sing with his group, The New England
Trancendental Rhythm and Blues Band. Glasgo had been a member of the esteemed jazz/jam band
Cosmic Krewe. Michael Ray, the leader of Cosmic Krewe (and also lead trumpet for Sun Ra) was
also in The N.E. Trancendental Rhythm and Blues Band. The group played both Sun Ra and
Rebirth Jazz Band compositions. They experimented a little, but focused mainly on the traditional.
Kris valued the experience highly and considered it as his formal training.
Kris finished his college career with a large, successful multi-media performance which combined
music, poetry and visuals.
Teaching and Learning
After graduation, Kris created an enrichment program in a small elementary school in central Vermont
teaching language arts to 5th and 6th graders. The program was well-received and word of his success
spread. Soon he was working at different schools teaching students how to approach, write and
understand poetry. He would then arrange to have them perform it on radio, along with the same music
he had used in his college radio program. His work with children led to artist-in-residencies which he
still retains today. He works as a poetry and performance coach, teaching oration, presence and recitation.
Moving from school to school, he'll mix in private vocal lessons and songwriting. At home, he has
private students with whom he holds singer and songwriting mentorships. He is currently training a
group of students to partake in a National Endowment of the Arts program called "Poetry Out Loud."
Kris believes that there is a new nationwide excitement about poetry that has risen out of "poetry slams"
held everywhere. Poetry is seen in a refreshing way, as modern and exciting, bleeding into explosive
energy of hip-hop.
Leaving college, after his work with the jazz groups, Kris was a vocalist without a band or instrument.
He began looking for ways to express himself musically, playing a little keyboard and working with a
4-track recorder. He also used melody boxes and wooden tongue drums, creating layered 4-track pieces.
He'd do a little vocalizing, but mainly would learn how to control the melody with percussive instruments
in order to build a song.
He was visiting his cousin, a long-time guitar player one night and asked him if he had any guitars around
that he wasn't using. His cousin loaned him an old Ovation and taught him how to play an E chord and an
A chord and how to tune. "I didn't quite catch the tuning," he says. He started playing and recording
one-string melodies, layering one melody over another. "It was surprisingly effective," he states. He relied
mainly on the two lowest bass strings (E and A) and realized that the guitar was tuned too high for him.
He tuned the guitar down to where he could sing the melodies better and wound up with everything tuned
down to one full step lower than concert pitch. This is what he relies upon to this day.
Kris spent two years learning to play guitar. In 2000 he made an independent 4-song demo. His current label,
Mother West, is scheduled to release Lullaby School in June.
Kris performed recently at Joe's Pub, and at The Rockwood Music Hall, both in Manhattan, before embarking
on a highly successful trip to the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. At Joe's Pub, in front
of a full band his voice dipped and soared its way through most of the material on Lullaby School before an
enthusiastic crowd. Even during his solo numbers, his voice was moving and impressive, his signature
softly-sung attack beguiling his audience.
The poetry in the lyrics surpasses the well-crafted melodies. In "The Robes of Li Ling" we hear:
The wet whiskey wings of spring / flash open
humming clean / burnt blades of sage in grey / whip the wind where I pray.
"The Daughter of Bordeaux" weaves a tapestry:
The daughter of Bordeaux was a beautiful girl / with moorish eyes and red wine curls /
a black fire rising in mother of pearl / coming of age second war of the world
Dark mademoiselle with Parisian heat / stone black eyes for the lover she meets /
black flame spire on the high heel streets / country girl, now a woman / with secrets to keep
Kris's inventive approach to songwriting will stretch the limits for an audience hungry for new vistas
and Acoustic Live hopes to be an enthusiastic supporter on the way there.
It may be a tender theory, but it's worth pursuing.
Web site: www.krisgruen.com
Songs from the South at The Triad by Ina May Wool
Fred Knobloch takes the stage wearing a plain white shirt and looking like your affable next door
neighbor under the glowing stage lights. On a TV police procedural he'd be one of the cops or
maybe a small town lawyer.
But when he starts to play and sing, eyes closed, there's a solidity to the guitar work and a great groove.
I find myself drawn in more and more - by the story, the sonic thrill of the guitar sound, and the muscular,
intricate guitar picking.
A Mississippi native, Knobloch worked as a session guitarist and went on to write songs for a long list
of popular artists from Faith Hill and George Strait to Delbert McClinton, Etta James and Ray Charles.
He's the first featured artist in an intriguing series called Songs from the South, at the Triad in NYC,
put together by Jon Pousette-Dart.
Up comes Jelly Roll Johnson to play harmonica. He fills out the sound with chordal textures like an
organ player would play, and he's a brilliant soloist too.
"Feels Like Mississippi" is eight minutes of passion, sardonic distance, and indelible pictures. Knobloch's
lyrics are filled with deep emotion and a cynical, self-deprecating wit.
If the harmonica is "the Mississippi saxophone" as Knobloch says at one point, then Johnson and Knobloch
on this tune are the Mississippi Duke Ellington Orchestra.
"Honeysuckle and Huckleberry Finn
Magnolia blossoms can't you smell 'em in the wind
There's no place I've ever been that feels like Mississippi
You start sweatin' first step you take
And there's a smile in the eye of every hand you shake
Sheriff watches every move you make
Don't it feel like Mississippi"
"Three Verses" is a succinct and powerful tale of a musician friend Knobloch played with in his early days.
The song takes us from their baby band through the friend's funeral. It calls up the music of the times
and tells a complicated story from youthful ambition to disillusionment, all in just about three minutes and
with a very catchy chorus.
"Feel Better in the Morning" (the story of my life in three verses" according to Knobloch) begins:
"Six pack big sack of barbeque
Daddy gets home from the factory
Scarf it all down in a minute or two
Then we camp on the couch for some TV
And watch cops and robbers
Sinners and saints
They all seem to live in California
Cram it all in and you spit it back out
But we'll all feel better in the morning"
This is over a jaunty, addictive melody.
Jon Pousette-Dart takes the stage after Knobloch. He's long and lanky and plays acoustic
and electric guitars, slide, fingerpicking, and solos, sings and leads his excellent band with the
assurance of a guy who's been on the road since age 19. That's when Don Law (the son of
the legendary Don Law,
talent scout at CBS, and a powerful booking agent himself) happened to see Jon playing in a
bar on Martha's Vineyard.
Pousette-Dart has a gorgeous voice, sweet but pleasantly rough around the edges, and solid
songs, many of them co-written with artists
featured in the series. He'll be playing a set on each show, and he's sounding better than ever.
After a couple of years of tours booked by Don Law, Pousette-Dart eventually got signed to
Capitol, and he made some records you might have heard. "County Line" recently appeared
on "Country Rock Hits of the 70's" sandwiched in between Lynard Skynard and Molly Hatchett.
Jon didn't have the heart to tell them he came from NYC. "Amnesia" is another hit you might
remember. It's hooky and lovable.
He and the band toured and toured and toured, eventually opening for the aristocracy of acoustic
music and beyond, from Bonnie Raitt to James Taylor, to Peter Frampton. In the 90's he lived in
Nashville for a while and was paired with some of the greatest songwriters there.
When I ask Pousette-Dart why he's decided to present the series, he says he wants to expose the
New York music community to this trove. He says there's a reverence in the South for musicianship
and for the song that nurtures great songwriters most of us up North don't know much about.
Next on the schedule is Kostas, said to have one of the most beautiful voices anywhere.
He was born in Greece. When he was 7 he moved with his family to Montana and has now written
megahits for a list of artists a yard long including Trisha Yearwood, Allison Krauss, Vince Gill,
The Dixie Chicks, and Emmy Lou Harris May's feature is Gary Nicholson (350 songs recorded by
artists from Bonnie Rait to Ringo Starr to John Prine!).
If you think a songwriter who writes hits in Nashville has nothing to say to a skeptical northeasterner
like you, think again. I can't wait to hear more. Do yourself a favor and check out this series.
It's a Southern vacation for the mind and heart and soul, and you don't have to go further
than West 72nd Street!
The Triad is located at 158 W. 72nd (between Columbus and Amsterdam), NYC, on the
second floor. 212-362-2590. Show starts at 9pm. To confirm info please visit www.pousette-dart.com.
April (TBA) Kostas
May (TBA) Gary Nicholson (all shows in this series include a set by Jon Pousette-Dart)