The Return of Bryndle

There was a sense of anticipation running through the crowd on a December evening at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. The standing room only audience was waiting for the L.A. musical legend Bryndle to appear. When Karla Bonoff, Wendy Waldman, Andrew Gold and Kenny Edwards hit the stage, it was apparent from the opening note of the first song that this was to be a triumphant homecoming for them.

The bulk of the show came from their self-titled first album, a collection of superbly crafted folk, country and rock songs, complete with the stunning two, three and four-part harmonies that made the record so enjoyable. There was a nod to their collective past with a short set of old hits plus a few new songs and a cover of Randy Newman's "Louisiana." Though backed by bass and drums which made for a fuller sound, it was all acoustic guitars, mandolin, and piano, allowing the four solo vocalists to be the main focus. By the end of the last encore, Bryndle left little doubt that they were a group onto something different and exciting.

What most of the audience probably didn't realize was that Bryndle first performed at the Troubadour 25 years ago, and were also the first group to ever play a McCabe's concert. They recorded an album for A&M back in 1970 that was never released ("Some things are better left to the imagination!" said Wendy Waldman) and went their collective ways shortly thereafter. "We were children," Waldman recalled. "We were just out of high school. (But even then) there was something in our vocal blend that was unmistakable. It was a powerful enough group that it actually did launch our careers. For me," she wistfully recalled, "I always missed it. I never ever thought we'd get back together."

It's the individual members' solo work that is most well-known. Edwards was in the Stone Poneys, toured and recorded with Linda Ronstadt for most of her career as well, and has additionally worked with Stevie Nicks, J.D. Souther and Don Henley. Gold also spent time playing and arranging for Ronstadt before having a number of hit recordings of his own. Bonoff released four solo recordings and had many of her songs covered by Ronstadt and other artists. Waldman recorded seven solo albums before becoming a noted producer and writer of hit songs in Nashville.

Bryndle might well have remained a musical footnote if it weren't for a get-together at Gold's house to watch some old video footage shot at Union High. A discussion of why they broke up led to the question of "I wonder what would happen if we got back together, and to the realization that it might not be such a bad idea after all. Edwards elaborated: "I think everybody was at a point in their individual careers and life where it made sense."

Or, as Waldman said, "It was meant to be. We had a mission that we didn't realize ourselves."

What's apparent from the album and the live shows is that Bryndle is much more than four solo artists joined together. It is very much a band with its own distinctive sound. A large part of that comes from their decision to jointly write most of the songs. "We did that on purpose," said Edwards. "We knew we could all write songs individually. We thought there would be something amazingly special if the songs were crafted by Bryndle. Everyone has something different to bring to the party. We just thought that we could get the most out of that by trying to co-write."

"I co-write for my daily bread," said Waldman, "but to write for Bryndle is to co-write a mural, to do a painting."

Not to be understated is the inter-relationship of four musicians who are also good friends. "I think that the complexity and length of our history of our relationship," said Edwards, "really is evident up on the stage."

"We're all real music junkies," added Waldman. "In the folk world that's still expected; you still know and love and get off on the music. In pop that's almost an unusual thing to actually want to play real well and to want to have a connection historically to what you loved when you were growing up."

If anything is the key to the future of Bryndle, it is that combination of roots and pop sensibilities. "We're talking about people who've worked 25 years in the industry," said Waldman. "We're craftsmen. None of us were rock stars, we've always been craftspeople and I think in that sense we're lucky we didn't become stars and we can still do a lot of things that are fun and keep growing musically."

"I like to think of us as the band version of Richard Thompson," said Edwards, "where we write for other people, have a lot of different ways in which to interface with the industry and then we have Bryndle just the way he has solo records."

"And it takes four of us," a laughing Waldman added, "to make one of him."

"We aren't so easy to catalog any more than our heroes, The Band, were," continued Waldman. "One of the things that makes us different is that we're not a pure heartland act, we're not as pure as someone from Austin. We're a product of Hollywood. In some cases being from Hollywood would actually make people turn their backs and go, 'Oh you're slick and you're L.A. and you're everything I've learned to hate.' I have a great deal of pride that the Hollywood side of us marries the mountain music side of Kenny and me or the seamless pop side of Andrew and the pure folk singer/songwriter side of Karla and as players have survived and have been a strong influence in helping friends and artists make records that have lasted. And being a product of this incredible, insane, and glitzy city, that I'm still able to make authentic music. Hollywood is something to be proud of, but it also keeps the heartland purists from wanting to embrace us because we have those entertainment and business roots and we don't hide them."

"There's a lot of music that comes out on alternative radio that gets credited or considered 'real' simply because it's half-baked, that it's not allowed to take on the context of craftsmanship or slickness," said Edwards. "But one can be mistaken for the other, so the safe way is to get someone who can't do it yet and you know that they're not slick."

If anyone does dismiss Bryndle for their Hollywood roots, it will be their loss. What Bryndle does with their music is take all the good things from pop music, filter it through their collective 25 years of musical experience and wed that with a sense of enthusiasm. The end result is something that's rare to find in music today, mature music that an adult can enjoy. As Waldman explained it, "There's not a lot of enjoyment when you're young, it's too serious. The thing is to get to the point where you can control it, but yet still let go. I think we're getting to that point. It's serious in that we're dead serious about our music but we don't take ourselves seriously."

"We're still at the point," Edwards added, "where we haven't been doing this that long where we take it for granted. There's a sense of bemused thankfulness that we're doing this at all."

The four musicians in Bryndle don't take their early success for granted; they're in for the long haul. Though all will still carry on with individual projects, it is Bryndle which will be the major focus. Wendy Waldman summed it up best: "There's something that happens between the four of us that does not happen anywhere else. It's too late for us to join the cookie cutter bunch anyway," she laughed, "No one would believe it.!"