After interviewing Chuck yesterday and then last night and this morning capturing and compressing a whole show's worth of video, I'm satisfied that he's one of the few great original characters and knucklehead geniuses playing rock and roll today.
A quick trip to iTunes and the 150 great songs that are there to audition and dutifully buy relieves you of any excuse you have that resembles or begins, "Oh yeah, I've heard of him, but..." Because if you're sick of all the crap that's just a bunch of morons imitating each other imitating somebody great, listen to somebody great instead.
He's really funny, too, both onstage and in conversation. Between questions, sometimes the pause would be so long that I wondered if he'd hung up on me or was doing something unmentionable with the receiver. But when he'd finally return, it was almost always something good, sometimes something funny. I laughed a lot, loudly.
On the video, too, I'm hooting and hollering after the song, as usual. If somebody's really good, I can't help myself. I can't just be camera guy, I'm there for the show, first and foremost. (You'll find those video clips at the end of the interview.) And you should Not miss Chuck Prophet and company when they come to your town, hell no. They throw down like a traveling minstrel show, complete with snake oil and intoxicating elixirs.
There aren't any bad albums by this artist, but we're currently raving about his latest, which with him is always the greatest, Soap And Water. It's produced by Nashville son Brad Jones, the man. Features Chuck's secret weapon wife Stephanie Finch on keyboards and vocals, too, and a couple of co-writes with his longtime partner klipschutz.
We thank Dan Kennedy for his help and Henning Ejnefjäll for a great website. (See the links after the video.)
