<\/p>\n
Bruce Hornsby<\/a> wasn\u2019t planning to write a new album. Or even new songs.<\/p>\n After a nearly seven-year span from 2019, when he\u2019d written more than 40 compositions for four records and collaborated with New York chamber sextet yMusic<\/a>, Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon<\/a> and Shins founder James Mercer<\/a>, he was, admittedly, burned out.<\/p>\n Then the \u201cgerm of an idea\u201d for what would become the title track to his new album, \u201cIndigo Park,\u201d<\/a> out now, infiltrated his brain.<\/p>\n \u201cI was giving it the stiff arm for months and months,\u201d Hornsby, 71, says, chatting from the wood-paneled studio at his longtime scenic home in Williamsburg, Virginia (\u201cMy next move is into a pine box,\u201d he jokes).<\/p>\n But he couldn\u2019t quash the burgeoning song concept.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would wake me up in the middle of the night so I finally said, \u2018OK, I will take this deep dive and write the song\u2019,\u201d Hornsby says. “A lot of this record could be called my Roger McGuinn<\/a> record because the Rickenbacker 12-string is in full force.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, though Hornsby\u2019s heady musicianship as a pianist<\/a> is well-documented, he\u2019s also playing the electric 12-string guitar on the first five songs of what he calls \u201ca pretty wild record.\u201d<\/p>\n A musical adventure<\/a> is expected from an artist who broke into the mainstream in 1986 with the philosophical jazz-pop smash \u201cThe Way It Is\u201d<\/a> (hardly typical MTV fodder), cowrote and played on Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence,”<\/a> toured for a couple of years with The Grateful Dead, composed numerous scores for Spike Lee\u2019s films and worked with artists including Chaka Khan, Stevie Nicks, Robbie Robertson and Bonnie Raitt.<\/p>\n The latter adds to the electronic-spiked, beat-propelled \u201cEcstatic,\u201d<\/a> while Vampire Weekend\u2019s Ezra Koenig guests on the sprightly \u201cMemory Palace\u201d and late Grateful Dead stalwart Bob Weir adds his unconventional style to \u201cMight As Well Be Me, Florinda.\u201d<\/p>\n The cerebral Hornsby \u2013 who will tour most of the year<\/a> starting April 9 with his band The Noisemakers \u2013 delved into how \u201cThe Way It Is\u201d still resonates, working with Weir and Raitt on \u201cIndigo Park\u201d<\/a>, and why hallway-walking is his fallback exercise. \u00a0<\/p>\n (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)<\/em><\/p>\n Question: Before we talk about the new album, it\u2019s the 40th<\/sup> anniversary of \u201cThe Way It Is.\u201d When you wrote the lyrics<\/strong> \u201csome things will never change,” what were you thinking about?<\/strong><\/p>\n Bruce Hornsby: I was just reflecting on my upbringing, growing up in a small, Upper South Town where those narrow-minded attitudes prevailed. That’s how I grew up. It’s referenced in a sort of interesting way on this new record on “Silhouette Shadows,” which is a look-back song. The last verse is about where I was and what happened when Kennedy was assassinated. (Recites lyrics) \u201cThe kids erupted in glee\/shouting \u2018Hooray, Nixon can take over\u2019\/Ms. Nimmo jumped their ass and tore \u2018em down\/I was really alarmed and confused\/watching the children parroting parents’ views.\u201d And that was sort of Exhibit A of the pervasive mindset in Williamsburg, Virginia, at that time and \u201cThe Way It Is\u201d is sort of another version of that.<\/p>\n And the song has lived on.<\/strong><\/p>\n It seems to be a song set up for the ages, and that’s lucky me. The hip-hop community’s embrace of (“The Way It Is”) plays no small part. Tupac’s is of course the most notable (1998’s “Changes”)<\/a>. But hell, in 2021, the great Chicago young rapper, Polo G, did an amazing version called \u201cWishing for a Hero.\u201d<\/a> It was basically his homage to Tupac, but then (laughs), it’s my song. But he had a beautiful gospel choir. So it’s still being sort of refreshed in that way.<\/p>\n Is it the one song you can\u2019t take out of your set list?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, occasionally I won’t do it. And the reason I won’t do it is that we’re up there and the place is so deeply involved and so intensely demonstrative about (the music) that I go, well, you know, we don’t need to play this tonight because (the audience) is so ready to receive what we’re doing now. But invariably I’ll get a nasty Facebook or Instagram screed from some fan, quote, unquote, who’s not really a fan, but \u2026<\/p>\n He knows your hits.<\/strong><\/p>\n Exactly. I understand that. But I’m not going to be a prisoner to that idea, that I have to be that guy who plays those old songs. I could never do that. I’d rather teach driver’s ed than do that.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the backstory on getting Bob Weir on \u201cMight As Well Be Me, Florinda\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n I ran into him at the Robbie Robertson tribute concert<\/a> at The Forum in Los Angeles (in October 2024) a few months after he had passed. It was a wonderful night and we were hanging out in this bus and I thought, “hmm, this might be a good match, Bobby and this song.” So I told him I had this song I wrote with (longtime Grateful Dead collaborator Robert Hunter) and if you hear yourself singing on it, great. He went, “Send it to me. Yeah, maybe. Oh, forget it, I\u2019m in.” It was so funny, so great. We finally got it to him in May last year and he sent us this wild vocal. His vocal is crazy.<\/p>\n It\u2019s so him.<\/strong><\/p>\n It really was just perfect. And that was really lucky. You never know when you ask somebody to perform for you what it will be like when you get it back \u2026 We called and gave him all the laudatory remarks and then he went off to do the Dead & Company Golden Gate Park concerts<\/a>. I was hearing little rumblings about some health challenges that he was dealing with, then I didn\u2019t hear anything else and all of a sudden, wham, in January, I get the call about his passing<\/a>. That stuff hits hard because you\u2019re not expecting it. So I feel fortunate and so happy we have this last little recorded document that might be the last thing he recorded.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also great to hear Bonnie Raitt\u2019s voice on \u201cEcstatic.\u201d You played on her <\/strong>\u201cI Can\u2019t Make You Love Me,\u201d<\/a> and the last time you were on record together was for your 1993 \u201cHarbor Lights\u201d album. Why was this the ideal song for her?<\/strong><\/p>\n