Main Street, Wyoming Classics; 112; Jackson Songwriters (Part 1)

The chime of the gun isn't the reason this week of Main Street will be quite a success. We revisit a bunch of singer songwriters the 900 tunes we're making great music in Jackson Hole. It's part one of the two part Main Street while this is you guys by the way most of these guys are still playing. You knew love when you can. For over 15 years the program mainstreet Wyoming has been bringing you the pictures the voices the music the art the history and the stories of the Cowboy State. Now you know our series of Main Street classics. We're bringing those stories back and bringing them up to date.

This week on Main Street Wyoming classics we read is a bunch of singer songwriters that in 1992 were making great music in the Jackson Hole. It's part one of a two part Main Street Wyoming and by the way most of these guys are still playing. Driving. Down the aisles are singing the song I love I want I'm just a little bit street. Now really. Means to me the same thing as dance room Becky. You smile. Will you get your feet down in the street. It's.

A shame. That. Bruce Hauser is the founder and longtime leader of the sawmill Creek band. He might be considered the senior member of Jackson hole's enclave of successful singers and songwriters. He's had national tours he's at international tours. His recordings have gone up and down the charts. I think I first started hearing Bruce's music in the early 1980s on the radio but I suspect that the story begins a lot earlier than that. So Bruce why don't you give us a recap of your career to date. OK let's just go to the beginning of the musical career. That started in Kansas when I was about seven with singing in church playing the accordion. And then evolved to the guitar and I put together a little band and that eventually turned into. A nine piece rhythm and blues band. And when you're young like that personalities are really conflicting and I. Got to the point where I wanted to be alone so I moved to Colorado and started doing folk

music which is my first love anyway I love folk music. And started playin in places like Dale and Aspen because singles were big time and you know because you know the right people would sit and listen to you and it was very enjoyable. And then from that point I met other musicians and they wanted to start a band they would come and listen to me and say look we need you we need a lead singer we need a writer let's get a band together. So we eventually put together Saw Mill Creek in 1972 in Colorado Springs and. From there we started doing recordings and we moved to Wyoming. We had some gigs up here we had the first place I played Wyoming was in Riverton in the Teton hotel. And then Cody and I fell in love with Cody. Cody was my first love in the wild and really not to say I didn't like rivers and Cody was just incredibly beautiful and. And then I went over the mountains to Jackson and that's where I ended up. That's And I you know I love Jackson a lot and so they just keep getting more and more beautiful as it were and decided to stay here and then we base Saw Mill

Creek out of Jackson Hole for a long time and. You pretty much always done your own recording. You've handled your own distribution on your own label. I'm curious to know how somebody a musician in the Rocky Mountains who's doing all this for himself manages to get the word out manages to get airplay and get known nationally. That's not easy. You know and marketing has a lot to do with that. I think. For somebody to get their music out. Without having some marketing expertise it's almost impossible really because you have to have distribution. And a good distribution you pretty much need airplay because people have to have a reason to go into a place and they want to buy your album. So what we've done is we got a lot of airplay in the early 80s and we're getting airplay in in Europe right now. So I do sell product over in Europe. And I have a few record stores that my products and they sell off the stage.

Let's take as an example the record that you put out in the 80s barely getting by. That one got national airplay it got some good reviews here and there. How did that one actually get out. Well we hired a record promoter named Richard Collines he would work with Alabama and some people like that. And just Richard's expertise was able to get barely getting by in the 80s in the national charts on the Billboard charts were in the top 100. And that's you know for an indie label and for first thing it was it was really a great ego booster and also it was refreshing to know that we could at least get in the back 50 somewhere. In a number of songs that you've written and recorded Bruce the name of the state Wyoming comes up either in the title or in the content of the song. I'm curious to know when you're touring when you're off in places like Germany or Indiana or whatever when you actually say the word Wyoming does a roar go up in the crowd does that help you. Well I think it is. You know I think glomming is still perceived by

most people as being the the real West the real wild west. You know we're still. We still have wild horses and. And Anil opened moose and grizzly bears and we have the mountains and the. Wild and we don't have a lot of people so we have a lot of wide open spaces this is a very unpopulated state. What benefit do you see for yourself as a musician as a creative person and locating yourself here in Jackson. Oh yeah there's a lot of magic in this country. And for a songwriter I think you need to look search for magic in your surroundings and in that it's peaceful. I like the people here. You know it's a it's like a big community it's whole state is everywhere I go I feel like on the whole the stagecoach band is something of an institution in the Jackson Hole area for something like 1200 consecutive Sunday nights. They have played here at the stagecoach bar and Wilson.

Is so popular summer and winter that you'll find people spilling out into the parking lot dancing and talking and carrying on having a good time. It's even something of a pick up band it changes from one Sunday to another. There are some regulars. John Byrne Cooke a historical novelist often sings and plays with him. Bill Briggs the first guy to ski off the grand everybody has another job they do other things and play with other bands. One night I think Bob Dylan even showed up and played with him. Anyway let's see who's playing there tonight. Yeah. Yeah like this. I'm not sure whether you're more famous for staying off a grander for playing on the stage goes beyond but let's start with a little bit of a history of the band if you could give me that because one of the things that you're most famous for

here is that you played for 1100 or whatever it is consecutive Sunday night I did go seven OK. How did it all start in the bag. There was a fellow by the name Brian Scott here. I was with the fire service and he had come. From Oklahoma and he had gotten his way through playing Sunday afternoon at country western music down there at a bar and he started doing it here and he invited me to come in with him. Are you the only member of that original band somewhere. OK but what did people just come along and join them in how to put the band together every week. Well Ron and Ron took people from around town that he had known. We have played from time to time. Bill Townsend he played a dumb call. OK I guess from considering he was a percussionist I guess you could go for a while and

then Buddy boys. Have been under. So we could really play with this but he had sung OK and not in that place I can hear in those directions. Anyway. He eventually came up to Jerry and he joined him and John Sidell arrived in town drunk in my life and the guys at risk IDing with me and my ski school joined us here. Well it's a it's a fun situation here the interesting thing about it is that sort of. Actually this scene here has its roots in the sort of the sixties movement you know when it started here as sort of a hootenanny. You know so there was a lot of interaction all along between the crowd and the and whatever group was playing you know and it still has that they're still not a really clear din of delineation between the crowd in the band concert or just about standing there with your great great great and you never know who's going to pop

out of the hard to get get up and play the real work to get it down like a regular. Playing is easy. Week of riches which is a little song a little over a year this is a song bird sir Carver says out of her hatred of her private family. Just over two three two three. I did at 16 I started out it was tough. Stay

with me. Let's go. Why all the steps that I heard her

letter and the crazy thing around me and say here is that everywhere you go. See the five steps

with the sun. Is it under. Threat. Why 60

percent. Rates in the membrane. Does anybody have any urge to take take the show on the road and get out of jobs and start playing other places.

The only way to do that would be pick up the bar itself take all the people with us and it really is I think the truth of the matter it's now it's not the BND it's the interaction between the band and the people and and and. It's not really something. It's not really wouldn't look meat sticks. It stays here. That's a lot of people around town think of you as a singer songwriter whose career is right in the midst of taking off. I won't ask you to comment on that specifically but I would like to get a musical autobiography. Well let's see. I did my first professional job when I was 19 in Boston Massachusetts or actually outside of Boston on an island called Martha's Vineyard. And. From there I finished college and went on to graduate school and did a little bit of music. Here and there. Degrees in unrelated fields

and came to Jackson when I was 22. And I started sort of playing the small venues that are in Jackson for a few years and then in 1986 I went back to the Berklee College of Music in Boston to study jazz guitar. And I studied with a guy there named will love it. William Leavitt who was a wonderful guy. And a great guitar. Teacher. He started the Berklee method of guitar. And then I came back to Jackson and from there I guess the trajectory was pretty quick I was in radio at the time and I ended up stopping radio shortly thereafter and just launching it to you know music exclusively. For my living. So that's sort of. So if you come back specifically to Jackson to work on your music career neither of those things. I came back to Jackson because it was a strong. Impulse and intuitive feeling that I should do that. And and I figured that my music career

would work out somehow. And you began performing did you perform with people by yourself. Both but primarily I've always been a soloist with either backup musicians or a company assts but I've never really been in a band. For say. When did you make your first recording. I started my first recording which is called Original The second I got back. From Berkeley and 1986. And. To do that here in the studio XM I did do that here. And. It was a great thing to do it started. I started a lot of processes just getting the first stuff down on tape. Was that the original music things that you'd written or was it. Were you redoing other people's music. No it was all original material. It was everything I had done to date. Pretty much your most recent recording Grizzly's walking upright has gotten you a

lot of attention it's one that a lot of people are talking about. I wonder where does that take you in your career. Does that move you beyond Jackson in some sense. You have to take some big step at this point. Wow it's you know I think most musicians would agree that a music career is somewhat like a horse you're riding it and you know you have a certain amount of control over it and you also just have to come see work. I mean some people who ride horses I guess know exactly where that was going to go but. But I don't I really couldn't predict what's going to happen next. But I do have to say that I'm so pleased about this album and and about things in general what's been happening and. I think that at the same time that perhaps the album is bringing me further out of the valley and also just maybe what you would consider to be to higher levels. It's also getting broader levels on a real regionally based way which which is just

as exciting to me as any kind of real big growth in the industry kind of thing. People are just being really supportive and. I just feel like the region has has really. Been right there for me with this project. People are very excited about it. Through having ridden out of the place was billboards and God isn't that great. I knew that without you there is great nowhere nowhere for spirit to beat this.

Is meet. Someone without me and then be less mistaken planted in death on your. Feet. It was magnificent our

future revenue will be just I mean. There's Lee. This week looking at looking at a grid. Most artists I know don't like to categorize their music but I'd like you to try. I would like you to give us a

musical category for the songs that you produce. Well people ask me that question a lot actually. So I'm as much as I should be used to answering it. I'm not. I think it's hard to categorize your own art anyhow but. There are a lot of people out there that are doing what I'm trying to do that I identify with. People that are sort of peers of mine. And they sort of call themselves sometimes you know acoustic or new folk. Or contemporary acoustic. Newspaper articles call me folk a lot because I'm a soloist with an acoustic guitar. And I'm a songwriter. It's not real traditional folk music that I do. Fact it's most people think it's not traditional at all. So would you say the new folk is some kind of a hybrid between New Age and traditional folk music.

Yeah I think that's not really what people are trying to do but it does imply sort of maybe some fusion aspects where you're you're fusing maybe rock. You know that there's a there's actually a really wonderful CD out called legacy by Wyndham Hill and it's a collection of American songwriters very talented people. And it sort of goes all the way from people who are. You know maybe using more caustic. Instruments. And but by using elements of all kinds of music from all around the world actually and. Untraditional arrangements of traditional songs or on traditional instrumentation or things like that are you know. And also the songwriter element being the original music is important on that particular CD and I like to think of myself in that vein of what's happening and it's very exciting I think. You know it's a lot of good folks doing some good stuff.

In your liner notes at one point you refer to composing music in front of a window with a particular view. Why don't you describe the process that you follow when you're making a music. Well here's the. High tech. Studios that I use. The person that built my guitar also built this cabin. So there's a certain. Nice reverberation that happens in here. And I compose on the road too in hotel rooms is kind of the place to completely. But I. Compose a lot right upstairs in the. In that room up there that looks over onto the field you want to guitars that. Yeah yeah. Or if I have a keyboard sometimes I'll put I'll compose on the keyboard and translate it to guitar but. Generally just mean it. At this point in your career do you find yourself drawn at all to the larger music centers places where you could work say with a greater variety of musicians make more contacts. Or you can tip here in Jackson.

Well there's it's an interesting thing it's like riding a wave I think there's always those centers that have those things. And Boston is one of them for me I have a lot of family there as well as a lot of connections in the music industry and it definitely is exciting to think of getting into a situation where the distribution networks are more developed and I mean when people talk about getting a contract with a label the appealing aspect is that you know you would have a much larger field of people that you can get to. And I don't think any musician would claim that they'd they wouldn't like that. That's a that's a very appealing thing is just a case of what do you have to do to get that. And there are varying theories Everyone's got their own as I'm sure you'll find talking to people everyone's got their own road. Some people start at the top and work their way back to Jackson Hole and some people. For me it spends you know starting here and keeping really close to what I

think is the truth of my art and I guess for me if that evolves itself into a larger network of people that are interested in what I'm doing then that's wonderful. And I'd be very pleased about that if it doesn't then I think I'm OK. You know I think that that it's more important for me to maintain what I'm doing.