Chuck Brodsky
A Storyteller's Dream Realized on the Ten-year Plan
by Richard Cuccaro

In the 1990's, Fordham University's WFUV-FM (90.7) became a fix for the author's alternative 
music addiction. One night in the mid-90's, Jack Hardy, the founder of the Fast Folk Musical 
Magazine came on as a guest with a few cohorts to plug the upcoming Annual Fast Folk Revue 
at the now-defunct Bottom Line nightclub. He also announced that he needed some hands to 
help finish the soon-to-open (also now-defunct) Fast Folk Cafe in Tribeca.
A  night or so later, I hurried to the Bottom Line to see the Revue. The New York contingent of 
the Fast Folk singer/songwriter stable did covers and some originals. The covers were standouts 
among new discoveries by songwriters around the country. One that leapt out among these was 
"Blow 'em Away" by Chuck Brodsky. Influenced by early drive-by shootings in Southern California, 
it was a darkly comic look at the foibles of the human psyche under the pressure of commuting 
in heavy traffic. The song's protagonist is a commuter packing heat, using a firearm to eliminate 
those irritations all of us are familiar with in a manner most of us only fantasize about. Got a slow 
driver in front of you? Been cut off? Offended by a motorcylist's ability to slip past? Maybe you 
don't like that old lady with the pampered poodle? No problem! In these post-Columbine days, 
a song about shooting folks might get some self-righteous folks in a dither, but Chuck's amiable 
storytelling skills make all but the most curmudgeonly person smile.

The Arrival
Some months later, as a volunteer helper at the then up-and-running Fast Folk Cafe, I was 
privileged to witness Chuck Brodsky's first performance there. His skewed, crusty comic vision 
had left its impression on me. Never having seen Chuck, I was expecting a hefty, gruff specimen, 
a Dave Van Ronk type, a John Steinbeck with a guitar, wearing hobnailed work boots, to fill 
the doorway, possibly blocking out all light from the street. To my amazement, Chuck strode in, 
a guitar case on his back, jaunty in sneakers, diminutive in height (my eye level, around 5' 5") and 
slight of frame. Practically elfin by comparision. He had longish brown hair a full beard and soft, 
dark brown eyes. The eyes had an innate twinkle which hinted at elvish mischief.
The performance was everything we'd hoped for. His voice, a pleasing burred baritone, rode over 
the top of a syncopated, driving, guitar strum, using boogie-woogie or Celtic styles as needed, finger 
picking where called for. His between-song banter was (and still is), soft-spoken and reflective. 
There were serious songs of social import, tender ballads, and of course, the kicker, the ironic, skewed 
visions. In addition to "Blow 'em Away, we were also treated to "No More Mr. Nice Guy," and an 
ode to lawsuit mania, "Talk To My Lawyer." The pinnacle of this unforgettable wry satire comes 
when the song narrator's mother makes a disdainful remark about him and he answers with the 
threat of a suit for slander: "You might be liable… momma!" We were also treated to the first of his 
many baseball ballads, "Lefty," a tribute to, and and near-biographic ode to pitcher Steve Carlton.
Later, Chuck came through as part of a three-man song swap with Greg Greenway and Pierce Pettis. 
This was one of the most entertaining -- and strangest -- performances ever seen at the Fast Folk Cafe. 
The upstairs neighbor never a fan of the music that poured up into her apartment through the 
bare tin ceiling would run a garden hose from her kitchen sink to a hole in her floor that happened 
to be directly over the Cafe stage. As water poured down in the middle of the performance, yours 
truly ran down into the basement, found the water main, and shut it off. Chuck would later say that 
this was the "most bizarre" experience in all of his years of performing. 

Chuck and Pierce at The Fast Folk Cafe, prepared with umbrellas, 
ready for inclement weather from the apartment above.

The next time Chuck played the cafe, it was on a double bill with Pierce. They came in, armed with 
umbrellas, to ward off the expected deluge. We taped the  two umbrellas to mic stands. The performance 
went through without a drop from above (luckily, the occupant was out for the evening), but photos 
survive to add to the legend of the cafe's crusty upstairs neighbor who would douse many a cafe 
show, before a soundproof ceiling was installed.
That Chuck chose the above incident as his choice of "most bizarre" is something of a distinction, 
considering his history. During a recent phone interview, we were able to flesh out the details of how 
he became the singer/songwriter he is today.

Beginnings
Chuck's first instrument was the piano. He started taking lessons at age five and continued through 
eighth or ninth grade. Unlike many artists featured here, Chuck really took to the piano. While he 
only tolerated lessons, he was allowed to pick sheet music to popular songs by the Beatles or Dylan, 
so he could play the melody and some chords with ease, instead of learning to sight-read perfectly. 
For him, that wasn't the point. There was joy to be had just from sitting at the piano, making music. 
That's just what Chuck would do. He'd sit at the keyboard at home, on his own, and, encouraged 
all the while by his mother, just make things up. "I was in the moment with it. I'd latch on to a theme, 
vary it and just enjoy that. Even after I quit taking lessons, I couldn't walk past a piano without 
wanting to stop and noodle around on it." After switching to guitar in college, he'd still go into 
the music room late at night and play the piano for hours.

The Epiphany
Chuck began his brief college career at Penn State in the spring of 1978. During orientation, while 
while sitting in an assembly hall, Chuck saw some guys playing guitar on the grass outside the 
window. By then he had started to see himself as a singer/songwriter, but with a piano, similar to 
when Jackson Browne would sit at the keyboard. He'd chosen writing songs as a senior project in 
high school because he thought it would be easy, and he'd skate through, but found that it was far 
more difficult a process, but a process he would come to love. Looking out at the guitarists, it 
suddenly became clear that singing and songwriting would be his career and he'd have to make 
the switch to guitar to make this happen. Ironically, he entered college on the liberal arts program, 
totally unable to pick a major, amazed by other students who were able to make a definite choice. 
"I was completely unprepared for being put in that position," he says Then, in an instant, he viewed 
his career sitting outside the window. 

The Curriculum
His next decision would be to design a curriculum for himself. The first step he took around 
New Year's of 1979 was to quit college, not yet 19 years old. When he informed his parents, they 
were understandably less than thrilled. Freaked out would be closer to the truth. As he stated, "My 
whole focus in life became being a songwriter. I really put all my marbles into this and didn't pursue 
anything else as a backup. Penn State didn't teach folk singing, so basically I had to invent my 
own course of study. It was spread out across the globe and many years."
He was working part-time in a store and managed to borrow a guitar from the owner of the store 
next door. It was a grade B Guild, a Madiera. When the owner suddenly left town, the store in debt, 
Chuck inherited the guitar. At Penn State, there was a rock wall on the main avenue and in the 
warm months, people would bring guitars down and play and sing. He heard people singing 
"John Prine songs and stuff like that." A buddy showed him a few chords. From that point he 
looked at it like athletics. He would be his own coach and he pushed himself "really hard." 
He picked up chords from watching other players and go home and try them. "I had to push and 
push and push. If you want it badly enough you'll work for it. That's the only way it'll happen. I was 
starting from scratch and had to make up for lost time." A friend and I romanticized the whole blues 
thing, 'play the harmonica until your lips bleed.' Yeah, my fingers hurt. I had no calluses but the only 
way to get them was to play through the pain. It hurt like hell but I saw progress every day and that's 
what kept me going. I was on this ten-year plan. I thought 'If I work this hard and make this much 
progress, in ten years I might be able to do this full-time.'" After quitting college, he worked for about 
6 months waiting tables at the Main Point  in Philadelphia. He became part of the family there and 
got to see all the shows. Steve Forbert was his first big influence. Steve was on tour for his first album 
Alive on Arrival, opening for Jonathan Edwards. "He blew me away. I saw him play seven or 
eight times over the course of a year and a half." Chuck also worked as a volunteer at the Philly Folk 
Festival. That allowed him to see legends such as John Hartford
After working at the Main Point, he headed back to Penn State to play at the local coffeehouses. 
This was followed by a six-month stint at a kibbutz in Israel. After that, he says, "In 1981, I hitchhiked 
out to San Francisco and spent the next 15 years out there."

The Ten-year Plan
On Chuck's ten-year plan, developing as a serious, nationally touring artist would be a slow process.
He worked at delivery type jobs, even picked fruit with migrant workers, moving from job to job, 
living cheaply. He did a lot of open mics and didn't rely on covers. There might've been an 
occasional obscure track by people like Lowell George, Jackson Browne or Warren Zevon here 
and there, but early on, it was pretty much all Chuck. 
Mixed in with his time in California, was a two-year stint in Europe and Israel. On the city streets of 
Sweden, Denmark and Norway, it was the same deal, playing pretty much all originals, trying to be 
heard above the buses, cars and trucks. Being a singer with a softer, laid-back style, doing originals 
(street audiences prefer covers) he wasn't very successful as a busker until he invested in one of the 
then-new portable battery-operated keyboards and a battery operated amp. There was no one else playing 
piano on the streets then and he was perceived as a novelty. For about a year, his piano boogie-woogie cut 
through the street noise and he made some money. However, although it didn't produce cash like the 
keyboard did, he still brought out the guitar and sang his own songs. Two four-months stints at a kibbutz 
in Israel were mixed in with the time spent in the Netherlands. "I was living the life. After learning 
the chords, after all the finger cramps, I was finally doing it. I had no illusions about going anywhere 
fast. I just put myself out in the world where I might meet people from various backgrounds."
During the 15 years that he spent in San Francisco, Chuck honed his songs, trying them out on 
audiences at open mics and as a featured performer at small folk clubs who presented mainly local 
artists. By the late 80's, he was playing six to ten gigs per year around the Bay area and as far down 
as Santa Cruz.

Busking in Gothenberg, Sweden, 1985

Describing his long-term projection, he said, "I certainly watched many a folksinger come through 
with just one song. I didn't want to be that guy." His stubborn refusal to rush matters paid off. 
In 1992, he won the "emerging Songwriter Award" at The Napa Valley Folk Festival.In 1993, 
he attended the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas and received support and interest from both 
promoters and fellow performers. He was on his way.

The Songs
Many others beside this author got their first dose of Chuck from the song "Blow 'em Away." 
He had written it as a lark. He didn't think it was good and didn't even think he'd use it. 
He never dreamed it would be an early signature song for him. His buddies told him it 
was a keeper. I asked him about his ability to write so many down-to-earth humorous songs. 
He states that he never sets out to write a "funny" song. Instead, he tends to look at things 
from a skewed viewpoint, or he'll see an absurd situation and let it speak for itself.
Then there are the baseball songs. Eleven in the Baseball Hall of Fame sound recording 
library in Cooperstown at this point. The first baseball song, "Lefty," was written as a gift 
to an old friend back home, like him a long-time Phillies fan. He thought it was too 
specialized to have broad appeal, but guess what? Wrong again! When he pulled the song 
out of his growing cache at the campfire at Kerrville in the wee hours, he met with strong 
approval and heard, "Man, you gotta play that song for people!" Having gotten validation for 
the first one, as a huge baseball fan, he was ready to try others. At first he considered writing 
one about Jackie Robinson, but then read about Eddie Klepp, the only white man to play in 
the Negro leagues. And he hit this one out of the park. Eddie's story of breaking the race 
barrier "in reverse" as Chuck sings it, is both fascinating and sidesplitting. Then came his 
tribute to Richie Allen, the first black player to put on a Phillies uniform. Richie faced mercilous 
booing from racist Phillies fans. The song, "Letters in the Dirt," came from the word "BOO" 
that Allen would trace in the dirt to defy the racist element in the stands. Chuck's father 
provided a shield from that kind of immoral sinkhole. Chuck had been working on it 
for a while as a traditional folk song, to thank his father but it came together as a baseball 
song after he wrote the first two. "You and me, we never booed Richie Allen," he wrote. 
Some time later, while performing at Cooperstown, he met Richie and presented him 
with a CD, pointing out the song with the photograph in the liner notes of "BOO" written 
in the dirt. Richie misted up when he saw it.

Max Patkin, the "Clown Prince" with Chuck,
just before he passed away.

More baseball songs followed. They were mostly about obscure characters. They included 
Moe Berg, a catcher who was also a spy for the U.S., Bonehead Merkle, who forgot to 
touch second base and cost his team the pennant, and Max Patkin, the "Clown Prince" 
of baseball. Chuck  found Max and presented the song and got to spend some time with him. 
Max died soon afterward, but before he did, he proudly made sure that all the doctors 
who treated him got to hear the song on tape. There are probably many people who didn't 
know or have forgotten that Pitcher Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter, high on LSD. Not a problem. 
Chuck's "Dock Ellis's No-No" is ready to fill in any gaps in those memory banks.
Chuck didn't stop with baseball. There's a hockey fight song (he loves hockey) and a song 
about the time Santa Claus got pelted with snowballs by disgruntled Philadelphia Eagles football fans.
Somewhat sports-related is the saga of "Radio" a developmentally disabled man who was 
adopted as a mascot by the coach of a South Carolina high school football team and given 
that nickname, Along with the name came a purpose in life. In return, Radio's enthusiasm 
inspired the team and the school. Later, when a major motion picture of the same name 
was made about the story, with Cuba Gooding starring as the title character and Ed Harris 
as the coach, Chuck's song was played during the closing credits and Chuck got to be 
in the final scene as an extra.
His most recent albums deal with a wide variety of issues. The most recent, Tulips for Lunch, 
contains some of his most thought-provoking work. Of course there's the by-now expected 
baseball ballad, this time the story of "The Curse of the Billy Goat" that purportedly was 
put on the Chicago Cub's franchise in 1945 by Bill Sianis, whose goat, Murphy, was no 
longer allowed to attend games with him. There's also the aforementioned story of 
Santa Claus and the snowballs. Human interest stories loom large in Chuck's repertoire 
and one of his best, "A Toast to the Woman in the Hollow," deals with a reclusive woman 
coming to the aid of a young girl who wants to make music but can't afford an instrument. 
"Mary the Elephant" tells the tragic story of a circus elephant who was put to death for 
killing an inexperienced janitor-turned-handler, simply because no one would believe 
she'd been mistreated and provoked.  The author's favorites (no surprise) deal with 
religion and politics. "In the Beginning," is a recitation of a piece by singer/songwriter 
Nick Annis and it describes the history of the bible as "an oral history over forty 
generations," then copied: "a copy of a copy of a copy…" then a translation: "a translation 
of a translation of a translation…" His final words are, "If you're killing people in the 
name of God, you're missing the message." This is followed by the song 
"Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire," a thinly disguised portrait of this country's leading liar 
wearing " Bomber jacket, emperor's clothes…"
The album preceding that Color Came One Day is also one of the author's favorites. 
It seems especially rich in the variety of stories that Chuck relates from both his own 
experiences or those that are a part of folklore. One of the most affecting is the true 
story of "Claire & Johnny." Claire is mentally ill and Johnny lovingly tends to her 
although she's increasingly distant and hostile, especially when he's forced to put her 
in a mental hospital where he visits her: 

"Claire, she loves Johnny / And Johnny, he loves Claire / 
Although she may deny it / Says what Johnny did wasn't fair 
/ She tells Johnny she hates him / He strokes her lovely hair…" 

There's a song about Dr. Mary Martin Sloop, who brought medical care to the impoverished 
in North Carolina, "Miracle in the Hills;" one about Ches McCartney, "The Goat Man" who 
traveled thousands of miles through the southern states with his herd of goats; one about 
"The Room Over the Bar" that they give to musicians, where the carpet is sticky, from what 
"you can not tell;"  and another about traveling that "G-ddamned Blessed Road." It hits all the 
right notes, sharing the thrill and the despair of following one's own path, both the freedom 
and the loneliness.
Chuck's tour schedule doesn't bring him to the northeast until next March, when he plays 
at the Beekley Community Library in New Hartford, Connecticut (Mar 7th) and the 
Linden Tree Coffeehouse, in Wakefield, Massachusetts (Mar 8th). Let's hope somebody 
with some sense will take the opportunity to present him a little closer to NYC. 
If there are any Acoustic Live readers who haven't seen Chuck, we urge them to fill that void. 
Once you've seen him, you'll never forget him.
Web site: www.chuckbrodsky.com