By Dave Gil de Rubio
Correspondent
Bruce Hornsby is an artist who never ceases to surprise music lovers.
Casual fans know him for his piano playing and singing on early hits – “The Way It Is,” “Mandolin Rain” and “The Valley Road.”
Devotees would be familiar with his work with Huey Lewis on “Jacob’s Ladder” and Don Henley on “The End of the Innocence.” The Williamsburg native wrote the first hit and co-wrote the second one with Henley, performing on the record as well. They also know of his long association with the Grateful Dead and a recording career that pushed his piano playing into well-received jazz efforts and elsewhere
So what is the latest surprise from Hornsby, who is leading another Funhouse Fest this weekend for the Virginia Arts Festival in his hometown?
He’ll step away from the piano to play a dulcimer, a four-string instrument associated with Appalachian music.
He played dulcimer exclusively on his most recent album, 2016’s “Rehab Reunion.”
“This album has been coming ever so gradually since about 1996 when I bought a dulcimer at the Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention,” Hornsby recalled in a recent phone interview. “The instrument started making small appearances on several of my records from 1998’s “Spirit Trail” on.”
Hornsby has put together two days of music that reflects his ability to draw major stars – Alison Krauss – and his own eclectic interests. Deva Mahal is a soul and R&B singer, and the daughter of bluesman Taj Mahal. Amos Lee combines soul and folk. The Wood Brothers are folk standouts who can dish out jazzy blues with no trouble. And longtime Hornsby sideman and Virginia Beach native Gibb Droll will front his own band for a set.
Hornsby also will take the stage, opening the event Friday with his band, the Noisemakers, and closing it Saturday night backed by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
Even though Hornsby started taking piano lessons at age 7, he spent most of his formative years playing guitar and being more of a jock than a musician.
Initially influenced by the likes of Elton John and Leon Russell via “Tumbleweed Connection” and “The Ballad of Mad Dogs and Englishmen” respectively, Hornsby eventually found inspiration in the work of pianists such as Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Dr. John, Professor Longhair, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea and Bud Powell, along with modern classical music composers Elliott Carter, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Olivier Messiaen and Gyorgy Ligeti.
After a year at a liberal arts college, he realized he needed to “… cast my lot with the musos, the musicians.” After a yearlong stint at the Berklee College of Music, he transferred and eventually graduated from the University of Miami.
Hornsby headed west to Los Angeles with his brother and songwriting partner, John. Before returning to his native southeastern Virginia, Hornsby spent time as a session musician that included a stint in 1980s pop singer Sheena Easton’s backup band. It’s a time he looks back at humorously.
“I find it funny and fairly comical. I embrace my sordid lounge-sideman past,” he said. “My son, Keith, just finished his college basketball career as a starter for the LSU Tigers, and whenever he would have a tough game and be despondent about it, I would tell him to watch me on Sheena’s ‘Strut’ and ‘Sugar Walls’ videos. Since I look hilarious in them, it always picked up his spirits to sit there and laugh his ass off at my amazing screen presence.”
Nearly four decades after he started out, the music industry has devolved into something that is practically unrecognizable. He said the overall mission remains the same, as does his view about what’s going on in the creative landscape.
“There’s lots of fantastic music being made today, interesting and innovative, and for me most of it resides in the margins, under the mainstream radar screen,” he said. “It’s still about the same thing – finding your own individual, unique voice stylistically, as a writer, instrumentalist and singer, and creating something original that reaches and moves people deeply.”
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