INTERVIEW: Crossing Bridges Music Fest celebrates Americana
Photo: Paul Cole will be featured at the inaugural Crossing Bridges Music Fest at the Schimmel Center in New York City. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by Michelle Tabnick PR with permission.
Americana, both traditional and modern, will be celebrated May 10-11 at the inaugural Crossing Bridges Music Fest at the Schimmel Center at Pace University. On the lineup is a variety of eclectic bands and performers, consisting of Adam Ezra Group, Janie Barnett, Paula Cole, Jonathan Coulton, Dom Flemons, Abbie Gardner, Vance Gilbert, Paul Guzzone, The Kennedys and John Platt.
Guzzone curated the entire two-day festival, which has separate ticketing for the various grouped concerts. Guzzone is a songwriter and producer, perhaps best known as bass player and vocalist in the Bacon Brothers band.
Recently Guzzone and Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails about the new music festival. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What attracted you to join the inaugural Crossing Bridges Music Fest?
After the success of a concert I helped to produce and curate called If These Walls Could Talk, A Celebration of the Life and Times of The Bottom Line, the executive director of [the] Schimmel Center, Martin Kagan, asked me, ‘What else would you be interested in doing?’
I felt that we needed a mid-level music festival in NYC [that] was aimed at a sophisticated audience. There are lots of entertainment options [in] NYC, and this would be a very cool option for those who are not necessarily interested in camping out or committing to a road trip.
[The] Schimmel Center is the perfect size and has an intimacy which gives the audience an especially close connection to performing artists.
The festival celebrates Americana music. What do you love about this particular genre?
Americana music is a big tent! There’s a wide variety of styles and performers, so as a presenter we have a lot to choose from. My idea was to assemble four artists a night whose individual audiences would discover new music by each of the other artists on the bill.
There is synergy in the eclectic mix of the groupings. Each of the artists brings something very different to the stage. I can’t wait to see and hear it play out!
In terms of Americana music itself and why I love it, let me illustrate how connected we all are to this form. I was watching the documentary Ole, Ole, Ole! The Rolling Stones in South America. Some of the concerts were attended by half a million people or more. As the cameras panned out across the ecstatic crowds singing along and dancing, I couldn’t help but think how much the Stones were inspired by Muddy Waters and Hank Williams.
So, this music made by poor black and white southerners back in the 1940s in Stovall, Mississippi, and Montgomery, Alabama, traveled to Chicago and Nashville, then over to London where it was relaunched by young British musicians and is celebrated today all over the world! What would Muddy and Hank think?
When did you pick up your first instrument?
My first instrument was violin, which I played for three years. Then, I saw the Beatles on [Ed] Sullivan, and like most boys my age I switched to guitar. There was such joy in their performance! I wanted to do that! Oh, and it helped me meet girls.
How did you join the Bacon Brothers band? What were the early days like?
Michael Bacon opened up a concert for Tom Rush back in 1986 I think. I was playing bass and singing in Tom’s band. Our percussionist was Marshal Rosenberg. Mike was impressed with our little folk-rock rhythm section. Years later, I guess around ’95, Mike and I were both music producer/composers working in NYC. It’s a small community, so we [are] always recommending players, singers or recording studios to one another.
One day he called me up out of the blue and said, ‘Me and my brother are starting a band, and you’re the bass player.’
The early days were very simple indeed — Mike and Kevin in their station wagon and me and Marshal in my car. The rider was a six pack of beer and some snacks. Everybody was curious about Kevin, so we got opportunities to perform on shows like Rosie O’Donnell and The View. After seeing us on one of those shows someone offered us a record deal, and we were off to the races.
We’ve done nine or 10 albums since then and toured every year. Now we have a four-person crew with six of us in the band.
You have taught for a number of years. Why is it important to give back to students and audiences?
I’m finishing my 35th year of teaching at Pace. One of the classes I teach is called How The Entertainment Industry Works, which I developed 18 years ago with my wife, Mary Ellen Bernard. Today we each teach a section. In that class we explain that the entertainment biz boils down [to] a very simple thing: a person telling a story and an audience listening.
I find teaching is very much like performing. My lectures are stories. I want to engage my students and make them as excited as I am about ideas, music, creativity and business. I don’t like the idea of online teaching at all. Students are online and looking at screens quite enough thank you. Just like in the entertainment business, there is nothing that compares with a great live performance. I want to be in the same room with my students, face to face. Like the song says, ‘Ain’t nothing like the real thing baby!’
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Crossing Bridges Music Fest, curated by Paul Guzzone, will play May 10-11 at the Schimmel Cener at Pace University. Click here for more information and tickets.
