On his upcoming CD, ‘The Chronicle of a Literal Man,’ songwriter/composer Rob Morsberger takes surreal inspirations and builds an intellectual rock feast for listeners. His esoteric writing is fueled by such diverse source material as Dalton Trumbo’s hearings (and subsequent blacklisting) as a writer during the McCarthy era, Russian Socialist expatriates, murdered civil rights workers, donkeys, Latin novelists and even Burt Bacharach.
With a wonderfully twisted perspective, lyrics that are never dumbed down for the listener, and an ear for dark melody, Morsberger has delivered an album of richly drawn tales that are sure to delight fans of cinematic, literate rock. Though Morsberger has rightfully drawn comparisons to Tom Waits, Rufus Wainwright, Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson and Warren Zevon (mixed with a touch of Randy Newman’s absurdist wit,) he solidifies his standing as an artist of distinction on ‘The Chronicle of a Literal Man.’
Listen to a streaming audio sampler here: http://www.sethcohenpr.com/player/robmorsberger/ Morsberger recorded the CD (which will be released May 11th,) in his upstate NY studio, and co-produced with Stewart Lerman (Dar Williams). The cover art features a classic photo of Dalton Trumbo, writing in his bathtub.
The CD booklet will include artwork by Morsberger’s renowned father (see more details, below) and by his oldest son Ben, an art student at Cooper Union. Morsberger recalls the process of writing the title track, “The Chronicle of a Literal Man”: “There is a funny backstory to this song. The lyric is a surreal collage of Dalton Trumbo titles (screenplays, novels etc) and references to his life story, the McCarthy hearings, life in exile, the blacklist and so on. Of course, the big payoff is the line, ‘I’m still here you bastards!’, shouted memorably by Steve McQueen at the end of the movie Papillon, which Trumbo wrote.
So when I was done writing the song I was quite excited about it and found a way to send it to Christopher Trumbo, Dalton’s son. (He had recently written a play about his father, which was made into the film ‘Trumbo’.) Christopher wrote back a very nice note, gently telling me that the bastards line was written, uncredited, by William Goldman! …and so therefore he felt that perhaps my song had a fatal flaw. That gave me pause for a few minutes…but (such is the shamelessness of songwriters) in fact it became a great story to share with audiences.
Recently I contacted Christopher’s sister Mitzi, who gave me permission to use her wonderful photo of her Dad writing in the bath for the CD cover. Mitzi declared that as far as she was concerned, her Dad wrote that line! So…the story continues. Particularly performing the song I find that the Johnny Got His Gun references seem so relevant to America’s current wars. Unfortunately.
” The powerful track “Old Jolly Farm” is about the murder of civil rights workers Schwerner, Goodman and Cheney. “Oddly enough, shortly before their deaths in Mississippi, they went to Oxford, Ohio for voter registration training, where I was living as a young boy. I grew up with paintings that my father obsessively created (six in all) about their story. Filmmaker Dave Davidson is making a short film to accompany the song – the film will feature my father’s paintings, interwoven with archival and original footage.”
The short film will be ready to coincide with the release of the CD in May. Other highlights include the weary imagery of “Like Eating a Stone,” and the propulsive “Stroke of Insight”. On “Where Is The Song”, Morsberger weaves a historic tale of the nineteenth century expatriate Russian socialist Alexander Herzen, memorably resurrected by Tom Stoppard in his recent Russian trilogy ‘The Coast of Utopia’. “The song evokes Herzen in his London exile, publishing the propaganda newspaper The Bell and in love with Natalia, the wife of his best friend, poet Nikolay Ogerev.
It is also a valentine to the band Procul Harum.” Of “Modestine,” Morsberger recalls “Robert Louis Stevenson wrote memorably about his journey through the south of France in the book ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes’. The donkey’s name was Modestine. Musically, the song, together with the orchestration, is an homage to Burt Bacharach.” Morsberger and his beloved band of 15 years, guitarist Jon Herington (Steely Dan, Madeleine Peyroux), bassist Paul Ossola (Levon Helm) and drummer Robin Gould (GE Smith) continue their free, monthly Residency at Banjo Jim’s in New York.
The band, which features Morsberger on piano and vocals, will soon announce U.S. tour dates to coincide with the release of ‘The Chronicle of a Literal Man’. The son of Philip Morsberger, an itinerant American fine artist, Rob grew up in Oxford, England and studied composition at the University of Edinburgh. Morsberger comments: “My father is an inspiration to me. I grew up in Oxford because he ran the art department at the University there for many years (The Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing).
He has had a remarkable career, and I have chosen, obviously, to incorporate his work into the albums in this way.” Last year, Rob Morsberger released a remastered version of his CD ‘A Periodic Rush of Waves’. The album was the third in a trilogy of albums he has written which explore the oddly interconnected themes of love, science and literature (in fact, one of the songs on the new CD was sung in the imagined character of naturalist Charles Darwin, with lyrics shaped by some of Darwin’s actual writings.)
The CD featured guest appearances by Marshall Crenshaw and Jules Shear, and was produced by Stewart Lerman. “I Want To Be The One,” with Marshall Crenshaw, has remained on the AAA charts for months. Morsberger’s Trio of CDs ‘The End of Physics,’ ‘Relativity Blues’ and ‘A Periodic Rush of Waves’ are available now via iTunes as well as via http://www.robmorsberger.com/ Samples may be heard on the website, or on http://www.myspace.com/robmorsberger .
Now based in NYC, Rob Morsberger’s keyboard and arranging skills have led to sideman work with Crash Test Dummies, Marshall Crenshaw, Jules Shear, Loudon Wainwright III, Dan Zanes, Willie Nile and many more. He will appear on forthcoming new releases from Crash Test Dummies and Lucy Wainwright Roche, and he co-wrote songs on the upcoming CD from Greta’s Bakery (Decca Records).
A classically-trained pianist and composer, he also scores the acclaimed PBS series NOVAscienceNOW, with host Neil deGrasse Tyson. The program is currently in production for its fifth season. Morsberger recently composed music for a two-hour NOVA TV special about Charles Darwin (‘What Darwin Never Knew’).
THE NEW YORK TIMES took a look at Morsberger’s unique career in a feature article, here: At Last, a Space for Creativity (and Loud Music) to Flow http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07EFD71530F931A35757C0A9609C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1 Rob Morsberger
Biography
Rob Morsberger is a professional freelance composer and songwriter with diverse interests. As a record maker he has released three acclaimed solo CDs. Classically trained, he has become a top- call composer for PBS and a regular contributor to the series NOVA. He is composer for the series NOVAscienceNOW, which has just been renewed for 2007. His credits as an arranger and sideman (on keyboards/accordian/vocals) include Jules Shear, Loudon Wainwright III, Dan Zanes, The Roches, and Marshall Crenshaw.
He also works frequently with educational book publishers as a songwriter-for-hire. The son of an itinerant painter/fine artist, Morsberger moved to England as a child and attended secondary school in Oxford. He studied bassoon, piano and composition and was awarded the sole entrance scholarship, for most outstanding applicant in music, at Edinburgh University in 1977. There he studied with composers Kenneth Leighton and Edward Harper, among others.
In Scotland Morsberger also began apprenticing with local funk and jazz bands, worked as a dance accompanist and began receiving commisions for original scores. He composed Randombach 3, a three-movement electro-acoustic work for Scottish Ballet in 1983, conducted his own orchestral works in the Edinburgh Queens Hall and elsewhere, created an improvised dramatic underscore for BBC Radio Scotland (with clarinettist Dick Lee) and worked regularly with experimental saxophonist/composer Steve Kettley.
He graduated with the sole first (summa cum laude) awarded in 1985. Moving to New York City, Morsberger landed a songwriting publishing deal with Famous Music/Paramount and began composing for national television, with clients including PBS, ABC, CBS, A&E, National Geographic and others. His background in classical music, coupled with an active engagement in and genuine love for a wide range of vernacular styles, made him a versatile musical craftsman. He devoted many years to mastering the tools and techniques of electronic musicmaking and the effective use of synthesizers and samplers.
Orchestral scores became a particular area of interest and expertise. In 1995 he forged an ongoing and fruitful collaboration with guitarist Jon Herington (Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs), bassist Paul Ossola (Saturday Night Live, Levon Helm) and drummer Robin Gould (Michael Franks, Carly Simon), with Morsberger on vocals and keyboards. Their third and latest release, A Periodic Rush of Waves, was produced by Stewart Lerman (The Roches, Dar Williams) and features cameo appearances by songwriter greats Jules Shear and Marshall Crenshaw.
Morsberger’s work as a songwriter has increasingly synthesized his disparate musical interests; ‘Hieroglyph’, scored for piano, strings and voice is the most overt nod to his love of concert music. Thematically all three CDs reveal his overriding belief in pop songwriting as an ideal medium for exploring ideas that interest him. Love is often viewed through the twin prisms of science and literature. The End Of Physics, his debut album, concludes with a scientist announcing his discovery of the Universal Theory (‘The End of Physics’). Elsewhere, Morsberger playfully tips his hat to Shakespeare’s gender comedies with the song ‘As You Like It’.
His second CD, Relativity Blues, is centered around a tryptych of songs exporing the legacy of Einstein in the postmodern world. The new album opens with ‘Sense and Sensibility’, the result of a lifelong love for the novels of Jane Austen. The Beatlesque homage ‘It’s Only a Song’ was inspired by the literary gamesmanship of authors like Paul Auster, Michael Frayn and Ian McEwan. Morsberger plays with listeners’ perceptions and loyalties and declares (humorously) that they have been deceived by an aural sleight of hand: a periodic rush of waves wrongly invested with meaning.
‘The Music of Time’ is sung by an imagined Charles Darwin on the SS Beagle. Featuring some lines lifted from actual correspondance, Darwin sings passionately of his growing insight into the theory of evolution while bemoaning his newly discovered betrayal by former girlfriend Fanny Owen. Likewise, the protagonist of ‘Hieroglyph’ contemplates the mysteries of hieroglyphic art and a photograph of the woman who has left him. Another theme prevalent in Morsberger’s songwriting is parenthood; he is the proud father of three sons. Relativity Blues concludes with the song ‘This Enchanted World’.
A direct reference to Christopher Robin’s farewell to childhood, the song takes issue with A. A. Milne’s view of childhood as the unique repository of enchantment. Instead, Morsberger suggests that all of us, adults and children alike, grow more enchanted with each passing hour. Randy Newman meets Tom Waits at Stephen Foster’s house.
Party anyone?” Willie Nile ” I love literate, melodic, sophisticated pop music for adults like Rob’s! Late-period Lennon-McCartney, Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson – Rob belongs in that category.” David Mansfield (Bob Dylan, Bruce Hornsby, Lucinda Williams) ”The kind of writing that makes you turn your head… uncondescendingly hip stuff, with the all too often ‘missing link’…MELODY!” Meg Griffin, SIRIUSradio.com http://www.siriusradio.com
Reprint of NY TIMES article referenced above: http://www.robmorsberger.com/media/robNYTimes.pdf http
http://www.myspace.com/robmorsberger
For more information about Rob Morsberger, or for a review copy of ‘The Chronicle of a Literal Man,’ contact SethCohenPR@earthlink.net or 212.873.1011.
