Also this issue:

Folk Gone Wild
Philly's own Full Frontal Folk doesn't have time for angst, ballads or clothes.
-Mary Armstrong

An Evening of Russian Romances
-Peter Burwasser

Lady Alma
-A.D. Amorosi

Tandy
-A.D. Amorosi

Erick Sermon
-Elisa Ludwig

Goldie
-A.D. Amorosi

DJ Nights
-Sean O'Neal

Beat Box
-Ain Ardron-Doley

December 25-31, 2002

music

Prime Meridian

Steve Forbert exhumes a country legend from his hometown.

by Nicole Pensiero

When Steve Forbert released his first album, Alive on Arrival, back in 1978, there wasn't really a name for his kind of music. These days it would probably be called alt-country, but the 47-year-old singer recalls, the best critics could come up with back then was dubbing him a "new Dylan."

"I wasn't alone in that," Forbert says by phone from Iowa, where he's in the midst of a three-month solo tour that winds up New Year's Eve at The Tin Angel. "Me, Loudon [Wainwright], John Prine -- we were all new Dylans, allegedly."

True, Forbert wore a denim jacket and played a mean harmonica, but his link to the legendary musical bard pretty much ended there: Forbert was no political troubadour, but rather a balladeer of the New South, as evidenced on songs about the "dirty, stinkin'" Mississippi town of Laurel, and 1980's "Romeo's Tune," which sweetly refers to the pleasures of "Southern kisses."

It should be no surprise, then, that Forbert's latest outing is a tribute album to country music's first superstar, Jimmie Rodgers, a fellow native of Meridian, Miss. Only thing is, Rodgers was a star so long ago -- he died at age 35 in 1933 -- that many people know only his name, not his music.

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"I'd like to get people interested in his songs, and this is one way to do that," Forbert says. Rodgers was such a huge star in his lifetime that he became The Country Music Hall of Fame's first inductee (he's also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), even though his recording career lasted only six years.

"Jimmie Rodgers defined everything that is still used today to create successful country songs," Forbert says. "He set the standard." While Forbert admits that some of Rodgers' songs were "a bit hokey," others -- such as "Waiting on a Train" and "Any Old Time" (the title of Forbert's album) are well-covered classics.

"He was a seriously great songwriter," Forbert says. "And he managed to retain this amazing joie de vie despite the fact he was dying the entire time he was famous." Even as Rodgers' TB was "killing him by degrees, he kept on recording, right till the end," Forbert notes, adding that "in terms of what he gave his audience, he was pretty heroic."

While Forbert was aware of Rodgers from the time he was a youngster -- "everyone growing up in Meridian knows about him" -- and even took guitar lessons at age 10 from one of Rodgers' cousins, it wasn't until years later that he really tuned in to his music.

"It's about going back to your roots and appreciating your influences -- even if you didn't know they were influences at the time," Forbert says. "It leads you into the bigger picture."

Rodgers' life had all the makings of a legend: a meteoric climb and a tragic, young death. A self-taught musician who mixed black blues with folk and hillbilly music, Rodgers was a railroad worker forced into retirement because of his failing health. He started recording around the same time as The Carter Family and had his first million-selling record, Blue Yodel, in 1928. His records sold well even during the Depression, he made a movie, and then he was gone.

Forbert says his kinship with Rodgers derives from a "deep respect for his musicianship, rather than from any kind of cosmic, Œwe're-both-from-Meridian, Miss.' connection.

"I will say this, though: Meridian is a very honest town and I do think we were both influenced by the city itself," Forbert says. "It's a pretty genuine place and I still go home a lot for that very reason."

His own career, like Rodgers', took off fast and furiously when he was young -- Forbert's hoarse, sometimes whispery voice drawing in listeners traditionally appalled by country music -- but nearly stalled out many times.

"The first album got so much attention, and I was really just a kid. It was hard to know which end was up," says Forbert, adding that he made some "serious career missteps," and that a longstanding dispute with Sony has held up an album for more than a decade. ("I'm not holding my breath for that one anymore.")

"I made some mistakes, but I'm a performer and a musician and I've managed to make a life of it."

For his current shows, Forbert mixes up his own material with Rodgers' songs. "I relate to Jimmie's songs and I certainly relate to my own, so why not mix 'em all up? I don't think Jimmie would mind."

Steve Forbert performs Tue., Dec. 31, 8 and 11 p.m., $35, with Amos Lee, Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770.