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Movement
is a lot of what Sony/WORK Artist Dan Bern is all about. He spends
the majority of his days on the interstates and his nights in
clubs and at festivals across North America.
 Last
year he traveled 60,000 miles on the road, earning coast-to-coast
acclaim including "the most talented singer-songwriter to
come along in the last ten years," in LA and "Thirty-five
years ago they whispered the name 'Bob Dylan.' Last night they
whispered the name 'Dan Bern," in Boston.
In transit he's usually writing
songs - nearly one a day. In the last year and a half he's only
stopped moving long enough to record his first release, a preview
of which Marc Allan of the Indianapolis Star described as
"The best songs I heard all year."
Produced by Chuck Plotkin (Bruce
Springsteen, Bob Dylan) and scheduled for release early next year,
the CD will feature all-originals with back-up by several LA
musicians Dan got to know during the years he called LA his home.
While listeners seem inclined to
attribute many different musical influences to his work, Dan will
only confirm that, "they are all partly right and all partly
wrong," which is OK by him. "I like having people
discover the music for themselves and put their own interpretation
on it."
With an electrifying stage
presence, Dan's been described as "a big guy in boots with a
six-string and a flat-top who hits the stage like a freight train,"
singing "songs that grab you, wrap you up and spit you out
with your jaw ajar."
Indeed, his own concept of the
ideal concert experience is "when I come off the stage at the
end of the show and I'm completely drenched and the audience is
drenched and we're not sure what happened but we all want to do it
again soon."
What Dan considers to be one of
the best compliments paid him thus far in his still-young touring
career, was from a festival Artistic Director, who said, "I
was so new at artistic directing that it took me a while to
realize if someone is so good that they scare you, you should
probably book him."
Dan Bern's material is always
powerful. Recently at the Vancouver Folk Festival he received a
standing ovation from the 2000+ member audience following his
ballad, Oklahoma. The song, like many of his, touches a kind of
universal consciousness - communicating both the personal tragedy
and the collective societal horror of the Oklahoma City bombing in
1995.
He considers music his
birthright - having come from a family where his father was a
concert pianist and composer, his mother a poet and his sister a
professional singer. Dan's native-European parents settled in the
American heartland of Iowa, where he grew up, but they traveled
extensively. As a child, Dan says he was happiest when they were
going someplace, and that holds true to this day.
"There's no where I want to
be for very long, and I'm coming to feel at home wherever I am,"
he says. Already he's gained world-wide appreciation for his work;
"Outstanding - he will certainly make his way." (Berlin,
Germany Morning Post)
Slotting his material is
difficult to do. He does offer that, "my music is more an
experience than a biography," Dan Bern spends little energy
categorizing himself:
"don't ask what kind of
music
I'm gonna play tonight
just stay a while
hear for yourself a while
and if you must put me in a box
make sure it's a big box
with lots of windows
and a door to walk through"
Jerusalem
One New York writer was
confident enough to offer, "Topical-political-poetical-sarcastic-punk-pop-folk,"
and that's a pretty big box.
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