CD Review and Interview
Malcolm McKinney’s Seasons of Life
I interviewed Malcolm sitting outside Your Big Picture Café (www.YourBigPictureCafe.com) during the two year anniversary celebration of their weekly Saturday open mic.
drb: “Okay, so Malcolm, this is the third time I’ve reviewed a CD of yours, the first two being Ghosts of Flagler’s Train and Balancing the Weight of Life. This new CD, Seasons of Life is somewhat different than the first two. It has a softer more country affect to it. Would you agree?”
Malcolm: “Yeah, it’s in the same ball park but metaphorically a bit to left or right field of the other two.”
drb: “Now how many CD’s have you recorded so far?”
Malcolm: “This new one is number six, and I’m working on number seven as we talk.”
drb: “What do find is your greatest inspiration as a singer songwriter.”
Malcolm: “I’ve been influenced by a lot of people, from folk artists, to blues and country artists.”
drb: “Like who?”
Malcolm: “Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor, John Denver, Roy Rogers, and Blind Boy Fuller to name a few.”
drb: “That’s quite a combination of artists. Do you see yourself fitting into one genre of music in particular?”
Malcolm: “The genres of Folk and Americana overlap quite a bit. I draw from traditional folk styles, Appalachian, Celtic as well as Country, Blues, and Rock. In addition, I find a lot of inspiration in Gospel.”
drb: “I can see that as your song Hand of God seems to have an almost call-and-response structure.”
Malcolm: “Yes, that one is what I call my Zen-Methodist song. It has a bit of an edge, everyone in it – the good the bad, the rich and poor – they all have something coming to them, but some people may not be too pleased with what they’re gonna get.”
drb: “But you write so much more than standard gospel and country music. For example, your song Bale of Money, I was wondering if maybe you left out a verse about square groupers?”
Malcolm: “Actually, I wasn’t really thinking about square groupers when I wrote this, but it certainly would fit. I figure that music like all art is in the eyes (or ears) of the beholder, so if that’s what you hear, then it’s valid for you.”
drb: “Now I gotta tell you, square grouper or not, you have a real winner on this CD. I think When it All Hits Home should be the official closing-time anthem for every blue-collar bar in America. I could see the patrons, the bartender, the drunks beneath bar, and barmaids all chiming in as chorus on this one as they walked off into the night after last call.”
Malcolm: “That one started off a while ago as a verse or two in my bag of unfinished music. It’s got a bit of a down-and-out bite but with a survivalist twist in the end. Also, it’s one of those old-time country styled songs with subtle gospel undertones that are so inspirational to the down-trodden. Bob Dylan had a lot of songs like that which came out of the Appalachian style folk tradition.”
drb: “Well, I’d love to play When It All Comes Home with you at the open mic one day.”
Malcolm: “Yeah, let’s do that.”
drb: “What about Baltimore Ain’t Got You. When I first heard the beginning of it, I thought it was about someone in the backwoods of Florida bemoaning their lonely isolation. It wasn’t until the chorus that I realized it was about someone stranded in Baltimore. Now I don’t know if that’s my bias of thinking of you as a Florida song-writer, but what was it that made you place this song so far up the east coast.”
Malcolm: “The last line of the chorus is “I swear I’m poor in — Baltimore,” so it had to be Baltimore for the rhyme. I think I started writing it while I was in Nashville in the early 1980’s, and I finally finished it off about five years ago.”
drb: “Wow, I usually finish a song within sixty minutes of starting it. How long do you usually take to finish a song once you start it.”
Malcolm: “In terms of writing the actual song it sometimes comes to me all at once and then I just do a little touch up after that. Other times I’ll just get parts of songs and it can take me several months, or ten to fifteen years to finish it. Now, I like my songs to be unique, so I try not to write the same song twice.”
(interviewers note: Zack Nichols strolls over to us, sits down, and joins in as we sit outside Your Big Picture Café while we listen to Bill Kay who we can hear playing at the open mic in the background on the outdoor speakers.)
Zack: “Do the meanings of your songs change over time while you write.”
Malcolm: “Not so much if they are finished, but if there are odds and ends of unfinished songs, the meaning can change over time. I’ll put them down for a while until I get another good chunk of something to add. This doesn’t always work, putting the pieces together over a period of months, but when it does the final result can be great.”
Zack: “Yeah, John Prine once said that through four marriages the one thing he’s kept as truly his and his alone is a file cabinet of his words.”
Malcolm: “I don’t have a filing cabinet, but I do store all my stuff on a computer. Before that, in the 70’s, everything was on paper, I’d write the melody on music paper, type the lyrics. Then I’d cut them out and tape them on the sheet.”
drb: “If you could write the perfect song, what would you want it to be about.”
Malcolm: “I won’t know until it’s done. First of all, what do you mean by perfect? I’ve got one song I’m working on now that I’m doing demo tracks, and it came to me that it sounds a little like a Willy Nelson song. But I have to be careful when I record it that I don’t try to sing it like Willy would. Now I think he is a great artist . This might be a perfect song if he sang it, and then again it might be perfect if I did it perfectly Malcolm.”
drb: “If you could pick any artist to cover one of your songs, who would it be and which one would they sing.”
Malcolm: “Oh, that’s hard to say. I have a number of songs that I think may be commercial. But if this were just for pleasure, there’s a guy named Jonathan Edwards who recorded my song Don’t Cry Blue several years ago and I really like his version.”
drb: “So let me close with this. You wrote my favorite hurricane song: Mighty Big Blow. If hurricane Isaac hits us tomorrow, are you gonna be writing another one about him?
Malcolm: “Well, when Wilma hit, I didn’t write a song about her, but you never know if there’s another storm song in me. I’m always writing, hurricanes or not.
drb: “Maybe the real storm is the next song waiting to leave your brain and jump onto that paper.”
Malcolm “Could be any time now.”
drb: “Well, keep plenty of paper around. Seasons of Life is a great compilation of original work, and I’m looking forward to hearing more from you in the near future!
Dr. Bob