Madison Smartt Bell and Wyn Cooper, "Forty Words for Fear"
(Gaff Music)
Whatever hip may look like, it sounds like this album.
True enough, the project has all the makings of a pretentious fever
dream, but it saves itself with a sincere, native talent that never
ceases to fascinate.
Inspired by "Anything Goes," a novel about a musician
by author Bell, "Forty Words for Fear" is an amalgam of
blues, spoken word, sonic experimentation, rock and an ethereal
existentialism that seeps into the mind during traffic jams and
TV dinners.
With music by Bell and lyrics by Cooper, whose poetry inspired Sheryl
Crow's "All I Wanna Do," these 13 songs have a kind of
gritty intellectual rock appeal, as though Rilke had spent a night
drinking with Warren Zevon.
The sentiments can be smart and evocative - "Foursquare church
in a mobile home, no one ever answers the phone, God won't call,
he speaks directly to those who hear in the key of E, Voice comes
through the metal walls, tells me every man must fall" - and
elusive, even self-conscious: "No angel flies down to rescue
me, no one wants me to be saved."
But the affair is salvaged from mere dank fatalism by the presence
of N.C. music gods Don Dixon and Mitch Easter, whose instrumentation,
production and recording intuition made the early work of REM and
Let's Active legendary on college campuses.
This pair molds Bell's minimalism and Cooper's abstractions into
something tenable, adding foam to the chill of a cold glass of beer.
The result has a drunken bite, the free-floating insight of an all-night
drive, the gentle freefall of radio in the dark.
By Mike Morgan,
The Myrtle Beach Sun News
review from The New York Observer by Mac
Randall
The world is not exactly rife with rock musicians who’ve
made successful forays into writing. But at least a few rockers—Pete
Townshend, Nick Cave and Julian Cope among them—have shown
they can manage a pen as well as a plectrum. On the other hand,
I can think of only one proven writer who’s gone on to create
decent rock music: Leonard Cohen. Most novelists or poets or critics
who attempt to rock usually wind up sounding like Stephen King’s
infamous Rock Bottom Remainders: The so-called band members may
be overjoyed by the amateurish racket they’re making, but
everyone else could use a couple of Advils.
For this reason, I wasn’t expecting much from Forty Words
for Fear (Gaff Music), the new CD by novelist Madison Smartt
Bell and poet Wyn Cooper. Even so, the album’s back story
was tough to resist. Mr. Bell’s novel Anything Goes, published
last year, concerned the to-ings and fro-ings of a fifth-tier bar
band. While writing the book, Mr. Bell asked his friend of two decades,
Mr. Cooper, to help him come up with song lyrics for his fictitious
group. (In rock circles, Mr. Cooper is best known for writing a
poem, "Fun," that, with some modifications, became Sheryl
Crow’s 1994 megahit "All I Wanna Do.") Not only
were the lyrics included in the book but, as a lark, Mr. Bell, who
plays guitar, also set them to music and recorded a demo tape of
the songs.
Thanks to the intercession of Gaff Music label head Scott Beal,
that tape made it into the hands of producer Don Dixon, famous for
his work with the Smithereens, Let’s Active and R.E.M. Mr.
Dixon liked what he heard, set up some studio time with long-time
collaborator Mitch Easter (who engineered the record), recruited
co-producer Jim Brock and hired some crack musicians—and before
long, Mr. Bell’s lark had become an honest-to-goodness record.
This is what we in the journalism trade call a nice hook. But again,
it’s a novelist and a poet making a rock album; the precedents
aren’t tremendous.
Which makes Forty Words for Fear all the more surprising.
Though no masterpiece, it’s a thoroughly absorbing piece of
work. Songs with titles like "The Here Below" and "What
God Had Up His Sleeve" lay mordantly humorous lyrics and a
general air of foreboding over rustic blues backdrops. Call it woodshed
noir.
Mr. Bell won’t win any singing competitions, but his gruff,
quaky voice—reminiscent of the aforementioned Mr. Cohen, as
well as folkmeister Greg Brown and the late Boston hipster Mark
Sandman of Morphine—is just right for the music’s thoughtfully
ragged tone. (Mr. Cooper, on the other hand, limits his vocalizing
to the recitation of a few stray lines.)
Better still are the arresting sonic touches sprinkled throughout,
courtesy, I assume, of Messrs. Dixon and Brock. The percussion underlying
the album’s opening track, "On 8 Mile," sounds like
somebody banging metal garbage cans together, and probably is. The
heaviest rock number, "Anything Goes," could almost pass
for ZZ Top—except that the lead instrument is a banjo. Elsewhere,
accordion, trombone and short-wave radio make memorable appearances.
The creativity on display here is such that one can’t help
concluding a second career is within Mr. Bell’s grasp, if
the novel-writing thing doesn’t pan out.
Esquire - July 2003
Obscure Southern Record Of The Month.
We tend to be skeptical of actors who try to write or singers who
try to act or, frankly, anyone who parlays success at one art form
into a stab at another. So when novelist Madison Smartt Bell e-mailed
us about his debut album, Forty Words For Fear, with Wyn Cooper,
we didn't expect much. We were wrong. This is sonic moonshine -
weird, bluesy, and not a little bit ragged. But it will get you
where you're going.
Philadelphia Weekly, June 18, 2003
ON THE BOOKSHELF
Watching the Behind the Music special about Sheryl Crow,
I learned something interesting: that the first incarnation for
"All I Wanna Do" was as a poem by Wyn Cooper. Record producer
Bill Bottrell read it and turned it into what turned out to be her
breakout hit. As writer Madison Smartt Bell was finishing his most
recent novel, Anything Goes, he asked Cooper to write song
lyrics to go into the body of the story. They worked so well the
two decided the songs were pieces of art in their own right. So
they recorded them with producer and musician (and fellow gritty
Southerner) Don Dixon. The result is a bluesy, dusky rock record
called Forty Words for Fear, out this week on Gaff Music.
Think Tom Waits with adenoids. The other result is that now I want
to read the book.
Creative Loafing, Charlotte, June 18, 2003
VIBES FEATURE 06.18.03
For Whom
Bell Toils:
Author makes jump from books to guitar hooks
BY KEN JOHNSON
Three words: William Shatner album. Whoa...Didn't mean to scare
you like that. But Captain Kirk's 1968 foray into recording, The
Transformed Man -- with its overly dramatic and unintentionally
absurd cover songs -- nicely illustrates what can and usually does
go wrong when artists attempt to, er, expand their horizons.
When most performers invade other genres, the results are excruciating
at worst, yawn-inducing at best. At least Shatner's release is good
for a hearty laugh. Rock stars might want to be movie stars and
movie stars might want to be rock stars, but everyone is generally
better off sticking to the day job.
This all makes writer Madison Smartt Bell's musical debut, Forty
Words for Fear, that much more of a unique triumph. A brooding
collection of late night music for fans of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen
or James McMurtry, the CD impresses with its devilishly playful
vibe and engaging musicianship.
Released Tuesday, June 17, by Lincolnton-based label Gaff Music
(gaffmusic.com), Forty Words developed in tandem with Bell's
2002 novel Anything Goes, a coming-of-age tale of a bass
player in a Tennessee bar band.
As he was penning the story, Bell -- author of 11 novels, including
1995 National Book Award finalist All Souls' Rising --
asked poet Wyn Cooper, a friend since their undergrad days at Hollins
College, to write song lyrics for use throughout the story.
The lyrics turned into true songs once Bell, a singer and guitarist
in his spare time, set them to music. Gaff Music founder Scott Beal
heard a demo, offered to release a full-length CD, then arranged
for Bell and Cooper to record it with NC music scene heroes Don
Dixon, Mitch Easter and Charlotte percussionist Jim Brock at Easter's
Fidelitorium studio in Kernersville, NC.
CL and Bell traded emails recently to talk about the album and his
budding recording career.
Creative Loafing: Did you have to work
up courage to step outside your main gig and record an album?
Madison Smartt Bell: I was nervous about
choking on the session with Dixon et al, since I had done that on
the previous session and it had been kind of hard to pull out. There
were going to be journalists at the Fidelitorium from the start
and I really wanted to delay them until we had a groove going. I
talked to Dixon about it and he said, "Let "em come. I
got nothing to prove!" And I thought, damn, I wish I could
say that. But then it occurred to me that I could say I got nothing
to lose. And that was helpful.
CL: "Fess up: When you asked Wyn
for lyrics to use in the book, were you secretly harboring plans
to set them to music?
MSB: It wasn't that much of a secret.
We had a simple letter of agreement about use of the lyrics and
the possibility of me setting the words to music was a footnote
to that. The only secret was I had previously tried a couple of
times to do the poem "On Eight Mile" -- unsuccessfully.
So my expectations were low.
CL: Did you set the lyrics to music after
you wrote the book, or during?
MSB: The book was about half done when
I first showed it to Wyn. I began setting the lyrics almost as soon
as I started getting them from him. For some reason it just suddenly
started to work and I'd write the songs I liked as songs into the
story line. Then the manuscript sat around for a couple of years,
so as new songs got done I'd write them into the novel.
CL: How did the deal with Gaff Music come
about?
MSB: I knew Scott Beal [Gaff founder]
as a book collector in the 80s. He used to send me books to sign.
It was all by mail. We never spoke, but he sent me a fez and some
other stuff. I knew he was a bit of a joker.
Scott told me he was thinking of starting a record company and I
sent him our tape. He told me he liked it but I didn't hear anything
more for a couple of years. I made the final demo, to be used to
promote the book, and promote the songs to other artists. When I
got back from a trip, I had an email from Scott saying he was gearing
up to start his label and was interested.
CL: How did you hook up with Dixon and
Easter? Were you familiar with their previous work?
MSB: Scott set all that up. I didn't know
much about them before I got there, which is probably for the best
or I really would have been too spooked to function.
CL: Was it your first time in a recording
studio?
MSB: I did three sessions in Vermont home
studios so I sorta knew the basics. I had also done some sound work
in my twenties so I knew a little about that. The Fidelitorium is
just an extraordinarily luxurious and well-equipped situation. Fantastic
board, a dozen tape machines, beautiful architecture and every instrument
ever invented, practically.
CL: You had stellar musical accompaniment
on the CD. What are some of your favorite contributions by others?
MSB: Jim Brock playing the stairs is high
on the list. Don and Chris [Frank] were getting ready to drive themselves
insane trying to change the tempo of a percussion loop without changing
the pitch and Jim wandered up and muttered, "I wanna play the
stairs." He did and it was brilliant. It makes the song.
Another involves Chris. When he showed up, we helped him unload
and Don was asking what all he had brought. Chris is ticking off
-- trombone, tuba, ukulele, tenor banjo... and Don really went rabid
over the banjo. For some reason he said you can stick a light in
it but don't think you're gonna play it. Then, when Don was mixing
"Anything Goes," a song that might not have made the record
if not for it being the book's title on account of it being too
much of a classic Stonesy rock song. We hadn't found a way to make
it fit the rest of the record. Chris walks in and starts doubling
the signature guitar riff on the banjo. Everybody cracked up but
Don and I were looking at each other thinking this is it, the missing
link!
CL: Will there be a second CD?
MSB: Well underway. Don suggested we
concentrate on a series of Wyn poems, called Postcards, for a second
album.
CL: Any interest in jamming with Dave
Barry, Amy Tan and Stephen King?
CL: And John McEnroe, too. You know it!
AllMusic Guide.
In an unusual but not unprecedented collaboration, novelist Madison
Smartt Bell and poet Wyn Cooper join with producer/musicians Mitch
Easter and Don Dixon to produce an album that falls near the intersection
of their worlds. The result is a collection of lyrics that feel
more like short stories, set to songs that function like illustrations
in a book of dreams. The instrumental performance has a raggedy
quality that plays up the rough edges of the words. Bell has the
dominant vocal presence; his semi-tuneless, weary and worn delivery
feels so natural that he almost seems to be improvising in response
to the music. In this sense Forty Words For Fear follows
the formula pioneered by Tom Waits, except for the absence of affectation
in Bell's performance, which more often brings Mark Knopfler to
mind. With all these parts in place, the tracks that feature Bell
(eleven of the thirteen) are consistently powerful: The gloomy rumination
of "What God Had Up His Sleeve" receives a perfect backdrop
of organ, percussion, and, briefly, a chilly, haunted choir, while
trombone, mandolin, and accordion add a bleary festivity to the
sodden saga of "Blue Nun."
