DRH in ATL Journal-Constitution, 1997

Pop Music
PREVIEW
David Ryan Harris.

Ex-Follow for Now vocalist Harris steers his soul to solo waters

Expectations have hung over David Ryan Harris' head since he and four other black guys ---some with dreads ---stepped on the stage. And didn't sing reggae. Or R&B.

No. His band, Follow for Now, was a rock band, folks. A few years later, more expectations when Harris served as the musical director on the tour of local vocalist Dionne Farris, whose critically r received debut, "I Know," generated all the attention that goes along with being the New Big Thing.

This week, more expectations for Harris. The 29-year-old Atlantan's eponymous solo debut hits the Billboard charts with a record mixed by Grammy-nominated producer Brendan O'Brien, on O'Brien's new Atlanta label.

Expectations. Expectations. And more.

"Yeah, and I tend to stay really separate from it," says Harris, sipping a "Shot in the Dark" espresso at the Little Five Points Aurora Coffee, just a few doors down from where he'll have his CD release show tonight. "Especially now that I'm married and have kids, I don't really get out. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing. But it allows me the time to figure out who I am and just try to really please the spirits that are giving me my gift.

"The thing that's strange but different is that for as long as I've been at this it's still like my debut," adds Harris, who gets so many enthusiastic "Hey mans" from the people in this area ---papered with his fliers ---that you would think he was passing out money. "No matter how big (Follow for Now was) here, we didn't sell any records in Wichita. So I'm just focusing and trying to make sure that my first step is the step that I want and need to take."

His footing has to be secure. He's headed out of the gate with the kind of record that radio hasn't embraced and even the artist has trouble neatly summing up.

"My record is different in that it's guitar-based," Harris begins to explain. "People are making the D'Angelo and Maxwell and Seal and Terence Trent D'Arby comparisons. And although all those artists are good artists, and make good music, none of that stuff is based in guitar. Which makes i it difficult. Because black folks in particular ain't really trying to hear no guitar.

"At times I don't think my record is really that R&B. I guess because I think R&B has, recently, . . . stopped being about songs and live instruments and substance. But, then again, I don't want to say it's a rock record. It's hard to say what it is."

Such is the result when you're a kid like Harris growing up in a town with no distinctive musical sound.

"There's no mecca for Atlanta, there's no central anything," says Harris, who was born in Evanston, Ill., but moved here when he was 6. "People are in their own pockets doing their own thing. Which is a good thing.

"For myself, when I was growing up, I was all about being in my bedroom and listening to my records. I wasn't really into the music mags, I had never seen Creative Loafing. And it seemed perfectly normal to me to listen to Prince, Gino Vannelli, Bad Brains and Steely Dan. That was just my experience."

Harris' experience, coupled with O'Brien's obvious gifts, makes him confident about whatever happens to him come Labor Day, when he officially hits the road and meets his public. "I've got what I've learned since we put out that Follow for Now record six years ago," Harris says. "I've got the benefit of Brendan's experience. The benefit of his ear. And more than anything, the benefit of the doors that have been opened for him.

"Now it's just a matter of getting out there and making sure we give this record its best shot. It's like being a door-to-door salesman. If you know you went to all the houses in the neighborhood then that's all you c can do. And a lot of that's out of my hands. As far as the music is concerned, I've done my thing."

WILLIAM BERRY / Staff


***Thanks to Furious Rose for submitting this interview.