Old Interview/Review - Boundary Jumpers

Boundary Jumpers
Friday, February 04, 2005
MARTY HUGHLEY

Let's put this simply, shall we? David Ryan Harris is a musician you really should go to hear.

His name isn't widely known, and if you've heard him at all, chances are it's been in the role of sideman. But his own work is richly rewarding, eclectic yet accessible, brimming with chops and soul. Rock, funk, soul, blues mingle in refreshing ways that remind you why you liked any or all of those styles in the first place. Highly recommended.

Same goes for Citizen Cope. Like Harris, Cope (as he's called for short; his real name is Clarence Copeland Greenwood) makes music that doesn't conform to simplistic classification. He hasn't had the best of luck getting through the major-label mill and reaching a sizable audience. But he's gaining traction with his second release, the critically praised "The Clarence Greenwood Recordings."

Both singer/songwriter/guitarists play Monday at Berbati's Pan, on a bill headlined by Marc Broussard. All three acts straddle genres, show the influence of Southern roots, can groove well and play with passion, so the evening should have a certain cohesiveness to it as well as variety.

"Everybody has their own take on it," as Harris put it recently by phone. "Everybody's mixed up the pot. Marc has his Louisiana thing, Cope is more East Coast and mine is kind of a Southern thing, but now maybe also So Cal -- though not in a No Doubt way."

Broussard, at least to judge by his first major-label release, "Carencro," isn't nearly as imaginative or as compelling as the others. (Though he does serve as a common connection: Harris co-wrote two songs on "Carencro," and that album's first song includes the line "me and my daddy and a kid named Cope, making music that nobody would hear.")

Harris first emerged in the early 1990s as an Atlanta teenager in a punk/funk band called Follow for Now that tried to squeeze through the black-rock door of opportunity briefly opened by Living Colour. Then, as musical director for Dionne Farris, he helped the former Arrested Development singer reach the Top 10 with her hit single "I Know." In recent years he's played in John Mayer's band.

Harris' big solo shot came in 1997, when he released an album through Sony, on a boutique label led by Pearl Jam producer Brendan O'Brien. It was a brilliant amalgam of the Stevie Wonder, the Allman Brothers and the more earnest side of Prince. But its unclassifiability and the vagaries of record biz politics and promotion doomed the record to relative obscurity. Later, he teamed up with ex-Black Crowes bassist Johnny Colt in Brand New Immortals, issuing an album on Elektra. Harris' more recent works "Soulstice" and "Atlanta" have been put out on his own and are available online. Perhaps the cultural climate is better suited now to accept music that goes beyond category.

"(In the mid-'90s) we didn't have the culture of iTunes and of indie music being low-hanging fruit," he said. "I think the thing that's changed is there being a greater number of people who seek out new things. I don't have to homogenize what I do so much."

Harris won't be bringing a band for this tour, but that shouldn't diminish the power of his presentation. Citizen Cope, in a separate phone interview, recalled being "blown away" seeing Harris open for Farris long ago with a solo acoustic set like the one he'll perform in Portland.

Cope will have a four-piece backing band including players who've worked with the likes of OutKast and Robert Randolph. The inspirations for his character-driven, cinematic soul-rock range from Willie Mitchell's productions for Al Green to Radiohead to the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

"I don't want to sound like anybody else," Cope said. "But at the same time, I want people to enjoy my music and be inspired. Ultimately, people like they sound 'cause they sound like they sound. But you make more of an impact when you change the boundaries of what came before." DAVID RYAN HARRIS

Source: The Oregonian