Marshall Crenshaw: Michigan-bred singer-songwriter remains an independent rock/pop force

Marshall Crenshaw brings his Midwest tour to Grand Rapids’ Tip Top Deluxe Bar & Grill on Sunday. Read the exclusive LocalSpins.com interview.

 

Marshall Crenshaw wonders why we don’t see flying cars.

He also finds it strangely fascinating that there are Muzak versions of some of his pop hits, but concedes he’s never actually heard them.

And while he marvels at the resurgence of vinyl LPs, he’s mystified that so many teenagers and 20-somethings relish the rock music that fueled his own generation – especially because he remembers hating the music that his parents embraced.

“It puzzles me somewhat,” he says, noting his 15-year-old son’s current fascination with Levon Helm and The Band, and earlier musical crushes on Rush and Roy Orbison. “It strikes me as odd that kids in general are into the same thing. (But) I think it’s great that everything from the beginning of recorded sound is right at your fingertips always. Everything that happened musically is potentially contemporary, because if it comes into your sphere of awareness … then it’s new.”

Some of these mysteries aside, the concept of what’s old is new again falls squarely into Crenshaw’s musical wheelhouse these days.

RELEASING A SERIES OF THREE UNIQUE EPS

He just released the second of three subscription vinyl EPs, each of which features a new song, an unusual cover of an old pop classic – including The Carpenters’ 1970 hit, “(They Long To Be) Close to You” – and a different, previously unreleased rendition of one of his own singles, such as 1982’s “Mary Anne,” from his self-titled debut album.

“I think they’re really cool visually and musically,” Crenshaw told LocalSpins.com earlier this week in a phone interview from his home in New York, explaining his concept of releasing three songs at a time. “It was just a matter of trying to think of an interesting way forward, realizing I wasn’t terribly inspired by making another album. But there’s this urge that hasn’t gone away yet to continue to make recordings. There will come a time when I’ll decide to stop, but I’m not there yet.”

Good thing, because the Michigan-born and -bred singer-songwriter remains a unique fixture in the annals of pop/rock, delivering a gleaming, musical masterpiece right out of the box in the early ’80s, inspired by Buddy Holly, British invasion artists and, of course, the soulful Motown music that he grew up with in the Detroit area.

While the nine studio recordings that followed weren’t exactly chart-toppers, they’ve earned plenty of air time on album-oriented radio, along with songs that he’s co-written, such as The Gin Blossoms’ “Til I Hear It From You.”

The 59-year-old guitarist and singer tours regularly with The Bottle Rockets, a St. Louis-based roots-rock, alt-country band. They’ll play Grand Rapids’ Tip Top Deluxe Bar & Grill on Butterworth Avenue SW on the city’s West Side at 7 p.m. Sunday, after making a stop Saturday at The Ark in Ann Arbor. Tickets for the intimate Grand Rapids show are $25 and only a handful will be available at the door on Sunday.

For the past two years, Crenshaw also has raised his profile by hosting a popular radio show, “The Bottomless Pit,” on New York’s WFUV, playing songs from his collection of 5,000 or so records.

“People love it. It’s a great outlet for me,” Crenshaw says of the wide-ranging program on WFUV, a “beloved, well-entrenched cultural institution” in New York City. “My wife calls it my weekly therapy session. It got me back into playing my records. It’s just a really good exercise.”

So is the idea of putting out the EP series; he’s set a deadline of July for completing the third and final recording after he completes his current tour. (Get more information about the EPs and subscribe to them on his official website.)

“I designed this thing so it would have built-in deadlines just to keep the wheels turning,” he says, adding the series got him “trying to think of offbeat songs that I love” to cover, such as Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “(They Long To Be) Close to You,” popularized by The Carpenters.

“This is really the only thing I could think of (series of vinyl EP records) that would appeal to me. I have a fondness for records still. With some people, it’s tools, cars, guns. With me, it’s music and records and gear. You know, that’s the stuff I gravitate towards.”

‘MASS CULTURE SUCKS’ AND CRENSHAW’S INDEPENDENT STREAK

It’s also part of finding one’s own way in a music business that’s “all over the map” in 2013, reasons Crenshaw, who applauds anything that represents independence from the mainstream.

“Mass culture sucks. Corporate mindset is a poisonous thing,” he insists. “It’s too prevalent now. It’s got too much influence on our culture. Maybe there needs to be some kind of backlash.”

Although his father passed away recently, Crenshaw’s mother still lives in Michigan, so he gets back to his home state quite regularly and credits his Michigan upbringing for driving his musical gears. He left Michigan at age 24 and now lives about two hours north of New York City.

“There was a lot of diversity which was really great,” Crenshaw says of being reared on Detroit’s music scene. “There was a lot of regional and local stuff that got played on the radio and, of course, there was Motown, and before that there was Jack Scott and Jackie Wilson and stuff from that area that was important. It was another thing that gave you a sense of pride about your community.

“That started to erode over time sadly. But when I was growing up, there was a real buzz about music and there was stuff that was homegrown that was part of that, and that was really great.”

Now, Crenshaw is back in Michigan and ready to deliver his own homegrown music for devoted fans on Sunday in Grand Rapids. Those on hand can expect to hear Crenshaw’s early material as well as some recent songs, along with “outstanding” music by The Bottle Rockets. “Songwise,” he says, “it’s just a killer evening of rock.”

Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
Copyright 2013, Spins on Music