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GUY FORSYTH
Music—and by extension, the people who make and listen to it—is an art form endlessly divided into categories: from blues to jazz, rap to reggae and pop to rock to punk to metal, ad nauseam. The same goes for individual songs, divided not only by genre but further by "type": happy songs, sad songs, protest songs, patriotic songs, drinking songs, gospel songs, work songs, party songs and of course & love songs.
Some folks like their music divided this way; it helps them organize their record collection, know what artists to follow and which radio stations to listen to and even what to put on their mix tapes and CDs. But Guy Forsyth, an artist who's had a go at most—if not yet quite all—of the aforementioned genres, likes to simplify things. "When you break it down, there's really only three types of music," he rations on a sunny afternoon in his adopted hometown of Austin, Texas. "There's the stuff you like, the stuff you don't like and the stuff you haven't heard."
As for songs, well, he simplifies that matter, too. For as far as Forsyth's concerned, they're all love songs. At least, that's how he neatly ties up the 13 choice cuts on his latest and greatest album—handily titled Love Songs: For and Against for the category-obsessed.
"I don't think music is about elements of style so much as it's about the energy behind it and the intent and the care that goes into it," he explains. "On this record, and on other records that I've done, there's numerous things that you can identify as 'styles' of music, but hopefully the thing that holds it all together is the heart behind it. The goal is try to communicate something, and in this case, all the songs are based on love—even if it's a way of trying to point a finger at something and trying to say, 'Hey, what's going on over here? Are you seeing the same thing I'm seeing?'
"This record," he continues, "is the culmination of a lot of different journeys: as a bandleader, as a songwriter, and as a traveler and observer. As a musician, I've spent the last 15 years traveling around, seeing the U.S. and the world, talking to people and meeting people. So a lot of the songs on this record have a lot to do with that, and just the perspective that I've gotten over a certain amount of time. But as much as it's about something outside of me, it's also all about me and my own particular struggles, in terms of relationships and stuff like that."
He pauses, considers this for a moment, and shrugs with a wide grin: "But I guess that stuff comes out everywhere, because that's what we're made of."
The result is a collection of songs as diverse in style as they are in mood, with Forsyth's insights on love, fear, the perils of unchecked consumerism, war, the government, spirituality, psychotropic drug abuse and the apocalypse shot through his typically eclectic prism of blues, folk, jazz, reggae, funk and rock 'n' roll. But Forsyth's forte is making it all sound and feel not only natural but also disarming and oddly optimistic. When he sings "I hope I am with you" on the haunting Armageddon lament "When It All Comes Down"—and chases it with the ear-to-ear, ragtime grin of the album-closing "Shake It In a Circular Motion"—he makes a solid case for himself as an invaluable, spirit-lifting companion for the end of days. At the very least, Love Songs would (will?) make fine road music when it comes time to pack your most precious possessions and run for the hills.
The record opens with "Long Long Time," a rockin', where-did-it-all-go-wrong talking blues rant on the sorry ass state of the American id ("We used to dream about heroes / but now it's just how to beat the system") and image ("I wonder how the world sees us, rich beyond compare, powerful without equal / a spoiled drunk 15 year old waving a gun in their face.") Packing a sing-along chorus as potent as its message, the song found its way into heavy rotation on Austin's renowned AAA station KGSR months before Love Songs: For and Against's August 23 release. The early jump and buzz on "Long Long Time" was all but inevitable. Although Forsyth has been a staple on the Austin scene since his arrival in the "Live Music Capital of the World" from his native Kansas City way back in January 1990, subsequently finding his way on stage and into the studio with many of the city's best musicians and winning Austin Music Awards left and right, "Long Long Time" jumps out of his impressive catalogue as the most immediate and attention-grabbing music he's ever committed to tape. The term "career song" comes to mind, if only Forsyth were the type of artist who could ever be so neatly pigeonholed by any one style, let alone any single song. (Besides, "Long Long Time" isn't even the record's catchiest song—an honor split between the liquid reggae groove of "Brand New Day" and the immensely hummable "So Hard," which would have shined just as brightly on any of Elvis Costello's best records).
"One of the questions that people ask me a lot is, 'Oh, you're a musician? What kind of music do you play?'" says Forsyth. "And there was a time when I had a really easy answer for that: 'I play blues.' Or with the Asylum Street Spankers, it was 'We play acoustic music.' Or I'd say, 'I'm a songwriter.' But all those labels really don't communicate anything specific at all, so they're really not useful. I wish I knew what to call it, but it's not a simple question, because there's all these elements of blues and jazz and reggae and funk and folk in it. I guess all of it sounds like American music—but it's American music simply because this is where I am and this is what I listen to."
Forsyth started listening—obsessively—in his early childhood, first courtesy of his parents' hand-me-down records and the regular blues shows to be found on the Kansas City radio dial (not to mention The Blues Brothers movie) and later by venturing out on his own. "Hearing Robert Johnson for the first time when I was 17 changed my life," he enthuses. "Here I was at a public library, with racks of records all around me and the big '70s headphones on, going, 'What is this sound?' Before that, when I was a kid, I'd be with my parents and we'd pass a strange guy playing guitar on the street corner, and I'd stop and go, 'What's going on here?' My parents would say, 'Come on, Guy, we gotta go,' and I'd be, 'No! I want to see!' Then when I was old enough, I'd sneak downtown and into music clubs, because the energy was so different than anything else when I was growing up—it was so powerful and magical to me. So when I moved to Austin and started playing in clubs, I didn't want to be a rock star or even a songwriter or a performing artist: I just wanted to be there for that late night, voodoo-drum-sex ritual that was live music."
Once settled in Austin, Forsyth's passion and affinity for the Delta blues and other music from the 1920s and '30s netted him both a label deal with the blues label Antone's Records and a loyal local and national following for both his solo work and his spirited collaborations with a like-minded gang of pre-War music nuts who banded together as the Asylum Street Spankers. Forsyth quickly earned a rep as one of the city's best acoustic blues guitarists, harpists and saw players (admittedly, not as competitive a field as the first two, but still impressive). But while all of that Guy is still very much on Love Songs: For And Against, this Guy proves every bit as handy making music with a 21st century flair.
"Once you start playing with loops and such, it's obviously a very different palette," says Forsyth. "When I first started out, I went through these real blues-purist tendencies, because I wanted to understand how to make music from the ground up with the simplest possible pieces. But I also grew up with the same pop music and American culture as everyone else, so all of those sounds are in my head, too. And because a lot of these songs are about where we find ourselves now, I wanted to use the whole spectrum."
Forsyth recorded Love Songs with Austin producer Mark Addison and a host of notable locals (pitching in both instrumentally and with the occasional co-write) including Papa Mali, Darden Smith, Carolyn Wonderland, Rob Gjersoe, Michael Ramos, Nina Singh and more. The album is Forsyth's second release (following 2002's spare, acoustic Voices Inside) on his own Small and Nimble Records label. After a run with Antone's that produced 1994's Needlegun, 1999's Can You Live Without and 2000's Steak, Forsyth set out on own self-described "Righteous Babe period." It's as bold a journey as he's ever undertaken, but he's hardly a babe in the woods of the music industry. "I spend a lot of my time as a 'record mogul' trying to figure out ways to have other people do it all for me," he laughs, "but I know a lot more about the business now from having my fingers in all the different parts. I feel like a lot of the ways that I've been resisting taking responsibility for myself and from my own business out of fear of failure, I've let go of that just to be able to try to do the things that I really want to do, which is to just make music and get it out there."
Which, of course, brings Forsyth's journey full circle, all the way back to the wonder he felt as a kid hearing Robert Johnson and street-corner guitar players and knowing that that was his calling in life. "Humans are music making animals," he says. "We've always been doing it. In all the books and stories and religions from around the world, people talk about music. And I just want to be a part of that, because that's humans at their best."
Profile courtesy of Propaganda Media Group.