David Baerwald is performing more, and
he's liking it more.
Abra Moore, with David Baerwald & the New Folk
Underground
WHERE: Cajun House, 7117 E. Third
Ave., Scottsdale. (480) 945-5150.
WHEN: 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 3.
ADMISSION: $10, available through
Ticketmaster, (480) 784-4444 or http://www.ticketmaster.com/.
Michael Senft The Arizona Republic June 27,
2002 12:00:00
Singer-songwriter David Baerwald has skirted the fringes of
success for 15 years.
As half of the duo David and David, he scored a
critical hit with the album Boomtown in 1986. Since
then, he has recorded just three solo albums, 1990's
Bedtime Stories, 1992's Triage and the
soon-to-be-released Welcome to the New Folk
Underground.
Baerwald has had his moment in the spotlight, however.
As a member of the Tuesday Night Music Club, he co-wrote all
of the hits from the album that made Sheryl Crow a star, and
he stood onstage with her to accept a Grammy for Leaving
Las Vegas.
Find the CD:
"Actually the TNMC sprang
from Triage," Baerwald says. "All the same guys are on
it: Kevin Gilbert, Bill Bottrell, Brian MacLeod, Dan Schwartz.
"It was a potent combination. We had such a great time
making Triage that we didn't stop. We'd get together in
Bill's studio on Tuesday nights. It was sort of our version of
a poker club."
After the dissolution of that group, Baerwald retreated
from the spotlight, working mostly on soundtracks. His film
work recently earned him more accolades when his song Come
What May, from Moulin Rouge, was nominated for a
Golden Globe.
"I actually wrote the song for Romeo &
Juliet, which is why I wasn't eligible for the Oscar," he
says matter-of-factly. "I was pretty mortified by the movie
version, actually. To me it's a delicate little song, and to
try to pummel it into somebody's head is against the nature of
the song."
To fans of Baerwald's music, the song was a bit of a
departure. For someone who wrote three albums full of bleak
tales of addiction, paranoia and broken dreams, the simple
love song came as a shock. Baerwald laughs off the apparent
contradiction.
"There's something about the traditionalism of the
language that was a little harder for me to get a grip on. It
didn't take long though," he says.
"I've always written songs somewhat like that. Even at
the end of Triage, as dark an album as that is, there
was an over-the-top love song."
As infrequently as Baerwald has entered the recording
studio, he has avoided the live stage even more.
"This is the first time I've performed a lot of this
stuff," he says. "You can get disconnected from stuff during
the recordmaking process. Working with David (Ricketts, of
David and David) was labor-intensive; we were playing all the
instruments and it got to be a bore. The TNMC was rather
traumatizing. It was a tremendously volatile group.
"One of the great things about this band is that it's
making me like my music again. I've never really enjoyed
performing, but I'm enjoying this now. The New Folk
Underground is more human, more like a family, and it's much
more fun."
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