Chuck Brodsky
Beyond "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"
by Eric Fine

Recording Review Chuck Brodsky Last of the Old Time Red House RHR CD 141 (2000) Life is like baseball: Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose, and sometimes you get rained out. That's probably one reason why hardball fan Chuck Brodsky has become such an astute observer of the human experience in general. Raised in Philadelphia, now living in North Carolina, he makes multi-layered but instantly accessible music that combines a sharp Northeastern lyrical edge with smooth Southern country sounds and rhythms. Brodsky sings like a cross between John Prine and the early Bob Dylan, with a voice that's wiry but warm, and flatpicks his guitar like Ramblin' Jack Elliot. His lyrics flow like mountain streams, fast and sparkling, and the people in his songs are as real as your neighbors. There's some populist politics in his songs, frequent dry humor, and a lot of understated wisdom. On most songs on this disc he's back by a crisp band that contributes various combinations of Dobro, slide guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums. "Take it Out Back" is a sardonic jab at the informal trash disposal habits of some rural residents, while "In the Country" is a quiet appreciation of living there. "How Beautiful She Looks" starts off like a conventional love songs but takes a quick twist when you realize that the narrator is a mortician describing a woman he has just prepared for her wake. "Third Dead Cat" builds around a joke — a squashed feline being one of a series landmarks that give directions to a house — but in the process paints an affectionate, vivid picture of a North Carolina mountain road. "Restless Kid" nostalgically sketches a rambunctious childhood through a series of quick snapshot images. And of course there are Brodsky's trademark baseball songs. "Gone to Heaven" is a 10-verse tribute to the five- decade career of baseball clown Max Patkin, the original between-innings comedian, while "Bonehead Merkle" is a ballad that narrates the legendary base-running gaffe that ultimately lost the pennant for the 1908 New York Giants. Unlike some contemporary songwriter albums, Last of the Old Time doesn't offer one or two flashy home runs surrounded by strikeouts and errors. It's a well-played game from start to finish.         — Tom Nelligan (Waltham, MA)

Chuck Brodsky's love affair with baseball began while he was a boy growing up in the Philadelphia area. Yet the soft-spoken folk singer composed hundreds of songs before he wrote "Lefty," his first about baseball. His early work was fairly traditional, and the subject of sports seemed as out of place as a Philly cheesesteak at a French restaurant.

"Lefty" paid tribute to Steve Carlton, the lanky left-handed pitcher who spent most of his career toiling for the Philadelphia Phillies. Carlton's determination to stay in the big leagues years after he was past his prime inspired the lyric: "He used to throw the heater/ but the radar does not lie/ And now when Lefty lays one up there/ you can kiss that thing goodbye."

"I wrote the song for a friend of mine as a lark," Brodsky said, during a series of interviews last spring. "I never really imagined that I could get away with singing a song like that in public. I had never heard anybody sing about sports before, and it just seemed like a trite topic."

"Lefty" opened A Fingerpainter's Murals [Waterbug], the first of Brodsky's four CDs. As a songwriter, though, Brodsky prefers "The Ballad of Eddie Klepp," which chronicles the brief career of the first white player in the Negro Leagues. "The Eddie Klepp song crossed over [from] being just about baseball," Brodsky said. "It dealt with some of the Jim Crow issues. I think that was when I first was able to see baseball as a vehicle for telling a deeper story."

The two songs helped bring Brodsky to the attention of an historian at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, where he has performed on two occasions. Visitors can listen to Brodsky's CDs in the museum's library.

It's no surprise that Brodsky's muse continues to take its cuts at the plate. His new CD, Last of the Old Time [Red House], features two more baseball tunes: "Gone to Heaven" and "Bonehead Merkle." Eventually, Brodsky would like to devote an entire album to baseball.

While it's not the only sport the folk singer follows, he believes that our national pastime has a timeless quality that is "distinctly American." With roots that go back to the mid-19th century, baseball has witnessed everything from the Civil War to the civil rights movement. "Everybody grew up touched by baseball in one way or another," Brodsky said. "There have been so many great characters and so many great tales and so many legends."

Brodsky began his pursuit of a music career in 1979 after he dropped out of college and bought a guitar. He spent the next 15 years living in the San Francisco Bay area, working odd jobs and traveling around Europe and Israel. In 1995, he moved near the town of Asheville, North Carolina. By then, his songs had become less self-conscious, telling quirky stories and gently poking fun at the world. The song "Talk to My Lawyer" (from the CD Letters in the Dirt) is a good example: "I'm gonna talk to my lawyer / I think I've got a pretty good case/ All I need are some crutches – maybe put on a neck brace/ I've got a witness – to put a hand on the Bible/ Jury jury, hallelujah – you might be liable."

"I think I came to realize after I had grown up a little that I wanted to write songs that most people can relate to," said Brodsky, who turned 40 in May. "Only rambling people can really relate to songs about rambling people. I started trying to write songs that touched on topics that were a little bit more universal."

This is an excerpt from issue #90.