Rags Rosenberg
Rags Rosenberg has a new album of folk songs intriguingly titled Song of the Bricoleur. A bricoleur is an artist or writer, or just an average person, who creates things from a wide variety of sources and media. For Rags, this is an apt term for what is needed in the current social milieu. The album
Americana Highways: Hi, Rags. We’re so happy to have you join us at Americana Highways to talk about your music. You have a new album out in September called “Song of the Bricoleur.” Did you go into this planning to do an album and writing with that in mind, or did the whole thing come together more organically?
Rags Rosenberg: I didn’t write the songs with an album in mind. It works better for me to discover which songs belong together after a long period of writing. I did a lot of writing between the Flower Time CD in 2019 and Song of the Bricoleur, so there were a lot of songs to choose from. The process was organic in the sense that it grew on its own, over time and without me imposing an overarching intention on what it should become. I discovered the themes during the process of deciding which songs to include.
AH: What background information can you give us about the album?
RR: I wrote the title song after reading something in 2011 that compared what our society is going through now to the French Revolution. The song suggests that, 230 years later, we’re at a similar inflexion point where the old ways are no longer tenable, the traditional institutions are collapsing, and something new, but not yet fully formed, is beginning to appear on the horizon.
When the revolutionaries in France decided that they would get rid of the divine right of kings, they invented a new form of government, and, in doing so, they were being bricoleurs. In French, the word bricoleur refers to a handyman, a tinker. It applies to anyone who uses what they have on hand to fix what’s broken or creates something brand new from the old parts and pieces. In that sense, those French revolutionaries were bricoleurs, and we’re the bricoleurs now. That song became the center around which the other 11 tracks constellated, and the album became my response to the extraordinary times we’re living through.
Most of the songs were written after the move from Nashville to Joshua Tree. I was listening to songs that had a more cinematic production than I normally envision and thought the darker ones – “These Bones,” “Ticket to the Game,” and “Eye on You” – could use that kind of treatment. I took the basic guitar/vocal work tapes and used a computer program called Native Instruments to provide the textures those songs required before inviting in the other musicians.
AH: In addition to the bricoleur concept, what other theme or themes run through the songs?
RR: The themes appear to me to be collapse and resilience, faith and doubt, exile and belonging. With the digitization of everything, the rise of AI, and the resurgence of fascism, it certainly seems to me that we’re living through a time of great transformation. In addition to the uncertainty and fear that accompanies times like these, there is opportunity as well. I wanted to make the point that everything is up for grabs, and ordinary folks like us have a great deal of agency in what happens next.
AH: Which songs are standout tracks to you and why?
RR: “Song of the Bricoleur” stands out for me for several reasons. Lyrically, it brings together archetypal characters in conversation with each other. It was my effort to express what we’re living through in a five-minute song, and it was great fun to write. Musically, I love the cabaret feel. I thought that would be appropriate since bricoleur is a French term and Robespierre makes an appearance. The song is a 6/8 hymn to improvisation and reinvention in a troubled world.
“John Doe” stands out for me because it gives voice to a homeless veteran who is exiled from both memory and society. He’s broken, unable to properly care for himself, and he’s been abandoned. How we treat veterans traumatized by our forever wars is unconscionable.
Although it’s uncommon to include a poem on an album, I knew from the beginning that “The Code” had to have a place here. It stands out for me because the digitization of everything frightens me, and I wanted to address that. “The Code” is about how the general population is increasingly being tracked, managed, and controlled by social media, and how something as basic as language is morphing as a result. Facebook redefined the word “friend.” I can’t imagine how this continual abstraction away from the natural world and face-to-face interaction is going to affect my grandchildren, and theirs. The analog world was friendlier, more human. Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” may have been predictive. Perhaps we’ve met the Borg.
“Ticket to the Game” is a special song for me. It was inspired by something I read by Margaret Atwood. She said that every artist must decide if they are to be “a priest in the temple or a servant of mammon,” with mammon being earthly goods, wealth, money. We’ve all watched the story this song tells played out on our television screens with the likes of the Milkens and the Maddoxes, but I’m pretty sure we’ve all struggled with doing the right thing. I know I have. I wanted to write about integrity, artistic and otherwise, and I hope this cautionary tale encourages people to be honest with themselves about their decisions.
AH: Talk to me a bit about the recording process. Who did you work with in the studio and what were the sessions like? How was the vibe and how did the songs come together?
RR: I started everything by recording work tapes of all the songs – just guitar or piano with a scratch vocal. Once I had that, I did all the pre-production (pads, swells, acoustic guitar tracks, etc.) in my home studio and then started the search for a co-producer/engineer to work with. I had the good fortune to be introduced to Jesse DeCarlo, who knows all the great musicians up here on the California central coast.
One by one, they brought their magic to Jesse’s studio. Brian Stock nails it on trumpet and flugelhorn. He did that half-time rendition of taps on “True Believer.” That background voice on “California Bound” is Lauri Hofer, and all the other harmonies are Malinda deRouen. The vocal parts Malinda came up with for “Eye on You,” “Ticket to the Game,” and “These Bones” are astonishing. I asked Barry Phillips to create a cello part for “These Bones.” He called me back and said, “How about a cello quartet?” You don’t say no to that!
I first heard Jeff Paris play piano on Keb Mo’s version of “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” His open chord voicings and the spareness of his playing are subtle and exquisite. I tracked him down and was thrilled when he agreed to play on three songs on my first album, Flower Time. On this new album, that piano groove on “Ticket to the Game” and the 6/8 piano on “Song of the Bricoleur” are all Jeff Paris.
But we didn’t do everything at Jesse DeCarlo’s studio. I longed to record again with my old friends in Joshua Tree, so I went to Pat Kearns’ Goat Mountain Recording where we tracked Bob Furgo on violin and piano, Danny Frankel on drums, Janie Cowen on bass, and Gar Robertson on pedal steel and Dobro.
“John Doe” was a special case. I wanted that song to have more of an indie/country feel because I felt that the subject matter would appeal to that audience. I sent my work tape to a producer I’d worked with when I still lived in Nashville who put those tracks together. I never would have come up with that tremolo baritone guitar!
You asked about the vibe. Everyone was chill. No egos got in the way. Ever. What the song seemed to ask for was always at the forefront. I felt that everyone involved understood the importance of the project, had an affinity with the message, and brought the best they had to offer.
AH: This is not your first rodeo making and releasing music. How has the creative process in general and your songwriting specifically – both music and lyrics – changed and morphed through the years?
Regarding my songwriting efforts, during my 14 years in Nashville, I tried writing songs for others to sing, songs to pitch for country radio. I went to every place that offered a songwriters-in-the-round and sat at the feet of truly great songwriters. It was there I learned the craft. But I failed at writing those kinds of songs. My heroes had always been the poet/songwriters – Cohen, Dylan, and Waits. That’s my trilogy. I felt like a swan in a duck pond. In 2008, I moved to Joshua Tree and spent 14 years in a 450-square-foot cabin with no close neighbors. I went back to the image-driven, layered, ambiguous writing I’d always loved. That’s when most of the songs on the album, especially the darker ones, began to show up.
I’ve always written lyric-driven songs. One of the ways my songwriting has changed in the last few years is that I’ve started paying more attention to melody. I’m trying to be as meticulous with my melody as I’ve always been with my choice of words. I started playing the melodies on the piano to see how they hung together without the lyric. What I found was that there were more interesting melodies to be had than those I could come up with by just singing with the guitar. I believe that for a song to be fully realized, the melody has to be able to stand on its own and that’s a work in progress.
Regarding my creative process, I’ve always liked to change up my creative work in order to keep from stagnating. All art forms share some basic principles – balance, contrast, rhythm, etc. One creative enterprise feeds another. So, I’ll write songs for a while, then spend a lot of time with watercolors. I’ll write songs starting with a guitar lick, then I’ll write for a while starting with some Native Instrument pads to create a mood. Last year I spent about three months on a new book of poetry.
Until recently, I haven’t felt I was a good collaborator. When I recorded the Flower Time album in 2018, the production was largely a solitary activity. I made a conscious decision to do things differently on Song of the Bricoleur. I felt like this collection of songs deserved to have better recording quality, production, and mixing than I was capable of on my own.
Jesse DeCarlo was a real find. In addition to having great ears and impeccable judgement as a producer, he became my musical director for the CD release party. He’s also a fine jazz musician. He knows everybody and brought only the best players to our party. The whole process of working with Jesse was a masterclass in collaboration. I learned to not be so attached to my own ideas that I couldn’t be open to other possibilities. Our collaboration worked because there was a high level of mutual respect. That important lesson will inform my creative process going forward.
AH: Do you find inspiration in different or unique places? What kinds of things typically inspire you to write songs these days?
RR: Songwriters’ minds are like perpetual motion machines, and they never stop. We’ve always got our antennas out and geography is definitely a factor in what gets tuned in. I owe “Song of the Bricoleur,” “Smokey Joe’s,” “Ticket to the Game,” and “Eye on You” to my 14 years in the Mojave. I guess there’s a reason all the prophets went to the desert. It’s a place of revelation and a land of extremes. The intense heat, the lack of shade or water, the vast sky overhead, the unbroken vistas down the playas. There’s a lot of death in the desert, often from thirst. I think you can hear the influence of all those factors in the writing.
When it comes to inspiration, nothing inspires me more than hearing a great song for the first time. Last year, a writer named Adam Wright showed up in my Instagram feed. I found his writing to be unique and provocative. Check out his song, “Terms of Agreement.” Hearing his work encouraged me, and, in a way, gave me permission to continue on my personal path. Gretchen Peters does that for me, too. Every time I hear her song “Five Minutes,” I want to sit down and write a song with characters who are that three-dimensional.
AH: You’ve collaborated over the years – on your recordings in the studio, performing live, etc. What does working with other artists mean to you, and are there standout collaborations that are special to you? What made them special?
RR: At the top of that list of standout collaborations would be the one with Bob Furgo. He befriended me when I first moved to Joshua Tree and didn’t know anybody. It turned out he was Leonard Cohen’s violin player, and, as I noted earlier, Cohen looms large in my gallery of greats. Bobby often came over to my tiny home studio to record on the Flower Time album. I could never get him to let me pay him. At one point, I stuck a gift card to his favorite sushi restaurant under his doormat. All the violin work on “Song of the Bricoleur” is Bobby – as is the piano on “Smokey Joe’s.”
I haven’t done a lot of co-writing, but one fruitful collaboration was on the song “I’ll Meet You There.” I wrote that with Lyn Langham, my neighbor in Franklin, Tennessee. I woke up in the middle of the night with a complete first verse, called Lyn in the morning, and we finished it. The song got picked up by Dixie Gamble, who used it in her film, “Beyond Right and Wrong,” and Lyn went on to win a Grammy for her song, “Old Yellow Moon.” It was the first time I’d written with someone of her stature and ability. That experience taught me the value of co-writing and how it works.
AH: Do you plan to do any touring around the album or do you have an album release show planned? What can fans expect from your live show these days?
RR: We had a pre-release party on August 7. It was gratifying to experience an audience respond to the music for the first time. It was clear from the expressions on people’s faces, the applause, the laughter, and the conversations after the show when people shared their personal stories with me, that they were moved. If you come to one of my live shows, you’ll likely see me accompanied by Charlie Joe Wallace on pedal steel and Dobro, and Taylor Safina on piano and background vocals. I’m currently on the lookout for an upright bass player.
I don’t have a new tour mapped out just yet, but I like to play house concerts. I have some in the works and will travel for those. We’re opening for Red Beans and Rice at Wave Street Studios in Monterey on September 19, which is the day that Song of the Bricoleur goes to streaming, and we’ll be playing a show at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts in Carmel-by-the-Sea in November. I often play the Joshua Tree Music Festival, so look for me there. You can always check out where I’ll be at http://www.ragsrosenberg.com.
Thanks for all these great questions! I enjoyed answering them.
Enjoy our review of the album here: REVIEW: Rags Rosenberg “Song of the Bricoleur”