The Oppenheimer Report 3/12/18

Last Wednesday afternoon, I listened to an interview with Singer/Songwriter Jon Brooks and Hunters Bay Radio host Sarah Coombs, shortly before I attended Jon’s concert at Michaels On Main At The Ridge in Sundridge. In the interview, Jon discussed the sometimes disturbing subject matter of his songs. Two of his albums in particular, Ours And The Shepherds and The Smiling And Beautiful Countryside, are collections of war anthems and murder ballads respectively. Those albums beg the question: does a talented artist lose a potentially larger audience when he or she presents stories about mankind’s darker side?  You don’t need to convince me that Jon Brooks is a remarkable Singer/Songwriter, I’m a fan. For those of us who appreciate great songwriting, we accept the good, the bad, and the ugly. Regrettably, much of the best song writing goes under-recognized, and I think it’s because people aren’t listening to each other the way they used to. How does a great songwriter manage to resonate and capture a large following in this attention-deficit-disorder-instant-gratification Satan of social media, where PODUS tweets out irrational, thirty-word rants to tens of millions of followers?  It’s a crazy, and increasingly inarticulate world, and we don’t need our art to reflect the bad news; we prefer to get that message from CNN, right?

Wrong. Jon’s superb ability to craft words, along with his unique, percussive, and beautiful musical treatments, draw me effortlessly into his message. Jon can write songs which resonate with the masses, in fact he has written many such songs, but he also writes some deeply disturbing short stories (The Only Good Thing Is An Old Dog / TWA Sisters). Marketing aside, I think there is an untapped demand for Jon’s darker prophecies. I am skeptical, but I hope he succeeds in waking up my generation, because I fear that the most intelligent among us are either oblivious or running for cover. Jon is the consummate folk artist, who reflects the society we live in while straddling that fine line between righteous indignation and objective reporting. He’s a modern day Brecht, who makes his stories interesting by always maintaining his distance from the voices in his songs. He’s a troubadour with multiple personalities, and it is those voices who present his inconvenient truths. Whether it is the mass murderer, or the gun dealer, or the WW1 soldier in a foxhole, or the Yugoslavian cage fighter, Brooks shines a light on the darkest corners of the human psyche, and I for one find that exploration fascinating.

Never before have I been more skeptical of the information I glean, from the news, and from my so-called leaders. I’m fearful, discouraged, confused, and I’m ashamed that we as a species have screwed things up so badly. Jon isn’t on a soapbox preaching “the” truth, in fact he may be just as lost as you or I. What he does do, with uncanny eloquence and a spellbinding delivery, is paint unforgettable, sometimes nightmarish pictures with his songs, and those songs compel me to listen to his truth. He explores the foul underbelly of mankind, all the while maintaining a perplexing hopefulness, and nothing is presented as black or white. In his song Cage Fighter, he refers to a quote by Alexander Solzhenitzyn about the divided heart. It is a universal theme for Jon that good and evil reside in us all.  We all harbor good and evil, and it is that uncertainty about which one will prevail that makes life interesting and meaningful. He may not have the answers, but Jon Brooks’ songs reflect the belief, the hope anyway, that love can prevail.  His songs entreat me to explore the abyss with him, to listen to his truth, to be the teetering idealist, in hopes that together we can find our way through this hellacious maze of disinformation and spin. His stories are far more captivating than all the cinema noir to which I gravitate, and I can’t look away from his car wrecks. It’s a crap shoot whether good or evil wins in the end, but there is much to be learned from Jon’s songs. Watching him perform live, well that’s a different kind of epiphany. His performance last Wednesday night with accompanist and producer Alec Fraser Jr was superb; I doubt anybody in the audience left disappointed. I certainly didn’t.

It’s been four years since Jon Brooks put out a new album, and he has a new CD due to be released in the spring. I anxiously await what he has to say next. The other night, he ended his show with a couple of songs from this soon-to-be released CD, and the songs suggest a different theme. I always hope Jon will reach a much larger audience, but regardless of his commercial success, I look forward to every new chapter in the Book of Jon Brooks. His songs emanate from the divided heart of one of the world’s great songwriters. Jon, thank you for you for your art.

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED