All great partnerships have
one thing in common : a shared realization that the sum is stronger than the
parts. In the mysterious space between partners a spiritual alchemy occurs. In
the emptiness between egos, there is room for the manna of heaven to pour down
and fill in the serrated edges between souls, binding two together in a
strength not attainable within a single individual. Over the years a potent
dialectic emerges. You unconsciously adapt your strengths to the other and,
like the ocean and the shore, you form a perfect harmony where your beauty only
enhances the beauty of the other. You become each other's teacher, therapist,
cheerleader, and, depending on what part of town the show is in tonight,
bodyguard.
Great
partners have to have a lot in common, but they need to challenge and push each
other as well. Most often, songwriters and artists of all stripes work within
the stillness of their own solitude. In the push and pull of a great
partnership, however, the wheat has a much better chance of separating from the
chaff. There's even a hint of competition, not the destructive kind, but the
kind that impels each partner to his or her best work, if only to keep up. You
have too much respect for your partner to turn in anything other than the best.
It's
been ten years now since Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart decided to cast their
lots together, but they've known each other for longer than that. Their paths
first crossed at the legendary Java Joe's in its first incarnation in Poway. It
was the mid-1990s and the fertile San Diego singer-songwriter scene was
starting to heat up. John Katchur introduced Berkley to Hart. If Katchur is the
Moses of the folk scene, leading us all out of the wilderness, then Berkley and
Hart are David and Solomon, establishing a solid temple of folk around which so
many San Diego notables have orbited.
In
the early years Berkley was best known for his percussion work, most notably
his spot-on and much sought after djembe playing. He's on pretty much every
folk record that ever came out of this town and for good reason. The man has
more heart, soul, and feel in his little finger than most musicians have in
their entire body. But he was also a singer-songwriter, and while he was often
asked to sit in on djembe with everybody in town, only a few of the artists he
backed had the sensitivity and grace to ask him to play some of his own songs :
artists like Dave Howard, John Katchur, and Calman Hart.
Hart
heard something special in Berkley's songs and suggested they start doing some
shows together. Their voices were a surprisingly warm fit and their guitar
playing styles formed a perfect counterpoint. Hart's plain-spoken prairie strum
lays a seed bed out of which the vines of Berkley's ascending and descending
DADGAD lines emerge, winding like Mulholland Drive through Laurel Canyon, like
smoke from a pipe, like prayers through the heavens, mesmerizing audiences and
reminding many people of another great pair of guitarists: Bob Weir and Jerry
Garcia.
Soon
they began writing together. Hart's songs tend to be story songs with linear
narrative and sharply drawn characters. Berkley favors impressionistic
non-linear portraits of sensual and emotional terrain as seen from a bird's-eye
view : broad images and distant longings flowing through timeless dreamscapes. Put
these two approaches together, and you get an amazingly rich palette from which
to paint folk songs, startling for their clarity, depth, power, and beauty. But
writing songs together is the high-wire act of songwriting. It's one thing to
lock yourself in your room and draw a song out of the depths of your own
psyche, but to risk the delicacy of the process by bringing in another person,
another whole set of experiences and expectations and aesthetic standards :
that takes courage and faith. But Berkley and Hart have that kind of trust.
They bring their musical ideas to each other and expect great things to happen.
And they almost always do. 'Co-writing is hard for me,' admits Hart, 'because
it's a struggle to get into my creative space with another person around.
However, when it clicks, it's great. Some of my favorite songs are Berkley Hart
co-writes.'
'Ultimately,
co-writing works really well for us,' adds Berkley. 'I generally have a riff
and a chorus and Calman will add verses. He's great at verse writing. I love
that. I feel strongest coming up with musical hooks and writing choruses and
bridges. That was one of the ways the sum was stronger than the parts. We both
excel at different parts of the song. Our co-writes are my favorite songs.'
In
1999 Berkley and Hart joined forces with John Katchur and Dani Carroll, another
up-and-coming singer-songwriter, to form the Redwoods. Soon they were wowing
audiences with the depth and breadth of their live performances. Katchur's
top-tier lead guitar work, Berkley's percussion, Hart's and Carroll's guitar
stylings and voices, rendering each other's songs with delicate yet powerful
strokes : the Redwoods packed houses and raised the bar for all other folk
artists. That same year Hart suggested that Berkley submit one of his songs to
the country's most prestigious folk songwriting competition, the Kerrville Folk
Festival's New Folk Emerging Songwriter contest. 'I thought he was crazy,' said
Berkley. 'I mean Kerrville is a huge deal that was started 35 years ago by Peter
Yarrow [of Peter, Paul and Mary] and has a long list of past winners like Shawn
Colvin, Lyle Lovett, David Wilcox, Nancy Griffith, Joel Rafael, the list goes
on - .' Hart persisted, Berkley entered, and, surprise! He won. To this day,
Berkley's most requested song is his Kerrville winner 'High School Town.' The
Redwoods went to the festival and performed that year. 'It was an amazing
experience,' said Berkley, 'and something we'll always remember.'
Soon
thereafter John Katchur and his wife moved to New Zealand and Dani Carrol moved
to Nashville. Berkley and Hart decided to put their last names together and
make it official. After a long gestation period, Berkley Hart was born. 'It's
really rare to find two folks who have the same kind of ideas about writing and
performing, how to craft and edit a song, and how to lead an audience through a
show,' Berkley said. 'We both had the same instincts and our voices fit so
great together.'
For
both Hart and Berkley, the best part about being a musician is that moment in
the middle of a song when it's going really well, and the crowd is hushed and
riveted, and the room falls away leaving only a nameless, sacred, intangible
connection that draws everyone into a shared, communal reverie. 'It took a
while to learn how to make that happen,' said Berkley, 'but now it's so
completely satisfying to have success in this area.' Where does this magic come
from? What is it? Jeff takes a deep breath. 'I don't know,' he said. 'There is
some shared force in the universe. Some call it God, some call it Great Spirit,
some call it rock and roll. Something happens in a room when a group of people
gather to create and experience something together. It happens in theaters,
concert halls, stadiums, amphitheaters, churches, nightclubs, bars, and
coffeehouses everywhere. A collective trip of some kind. It sends shivers up my
spine when we all hit it together at a gig. There is a lift-off feeling. I can
see it happen to people's faces and I feel it in my own heart at the same
time.'
'It's
electric,' said Hart.
'And
we've finally learned how to create that feeling,' Berkley continued. 'It's
like being Merlin or something, but it has nothing to do with me, or with us.
We're caught up in it just like the audience is. It's something that honest,
pure art creates in the beholder and the artists. It's better than any drug.'
With
four Berkley Hart albums behind them and countless shows all across the
country, Berkley and Hart bring years of experience to everything they do. What
advice do they have for young singer-songwriters coming up? 'Be true to who you
are and don't get caught up in all the trappings of the music business,' said
Berkley. 'That will work itself out if you do what you know is real and right.'
'And
don't try to write what you think other people want to hear,' added Hart.
'Write and play songs that make you happy. That way, if you get lucky and catch
a wave, you won't get stuck playing music you don't like for the rest of your
life. And if you don't get lucky, you won't have wasted your time sacrificing
your art trying to please other people.'
Being
a musician can wear you down. You're only as hot as your last gig. Essentially,
you're perpetually unemployed until you can put the next tour or house concert
or recording session together. Sometimes you draw a packed house, sometimes not
so much. Self doubt, envy, anxiety, compulsion, exhaustion, and other demons in
a performer's life rarely leave you alone for long. Rapacious promoters, false
promises, and empty threats are the norm in the music business. It's hard on
family and on relationships, it's financially challenging, and it can unravel
the hardiest of souls. In spite of all these challenges, Hart claims immunity.
'I find it easy to stay positive,' said Hart. 'Having anyone want to hear us
play original music, whether it's 30 people or 300, is a gift.'
Berkley,
on the other hand, admits it isn't always easy. 'You don't always stay
positive,' he said. 'We just try and get positively motivated by the bad stuff.
Make it your goal to create something positive out of the negative. It works!'
But then he admits, 'I'm real bad at getting to that point. It's the hardest
part of our job as artists: keeping up the force field while letting folks in.
Everybody does it differently, but you have to figure out how to beat that
negative stuff to succeed, both as a human being and as an artist. I fight it
every day.'
'Being
away from loved ones is for sure the hardest thing about being a musician,'
Berkley adds. 'The second hardest thing is dealing with the music 'business'
and all the weird stuff that goes with it. It's just not in my nature to know
what to do next business-wise and very often the folks who know what to do in
the business world are not real patient about what needs to be done artistically.
We've had our biggest challenges in this department.'
But
Berkley wouldn't change a thing. 'I honestly just love the lifestyle of a
musician. I think I feel strongest when I'm on tour, racing from gig to gig to
airport to hotel to meal to gig. Passport in pocket, flight cases in rental
car, clothes in suitcase, sleep deprived, still high from the music the night
before, and carrying that spirit to the next show - it's in my DNA. I can't live
without it.'
Berkley
applies his long-time love affair with music and his road-tested expertise on a
daily basis in his recording studio, Miracle Recording. Though he's been
involved in the recording process for 23 years, his own studio had its official
launch in 2003 with Berkley Hart's award-winning album Twelve. Since then
Berkley has produced, engineered, and mixed dozens of albums for other artists,
bringing that warm, burnished, or, as he likes to call it, 'furry' sound to a
who's who of bands.
With
ten years gone and their whole lives ahead of them, Jeff Berkley and Calman
Hart show no signs of slowing down. They've struck a nice balance between
family and career, and they've successfully negotiated the pitfalls of the
music business with their artistic integrity intact. A triumph of simplicity
over artifice, the long-lived career of Berkley Hart deserves celebration. Join
Berkley Hart and special guests in concert at Acoustic Music San Diego, 4650
Mansfield Street in Normal Heights on Saturday, August 4 at 7:30 p.m. For
tickets and dinner package information, visit www.acousticmusicsandiego.com,
and for all things Berkley Hart, visit www.berkleyhart.com