Bob McCann Biography

Biography

There exists a special place in American popular music, a region with loosely-defined borders straddling the equator that demarcates the serious musician from the drunk-and-crazy sing-along saloon troubadour. It is an exhilarating place to visit, like a Santa Fe sidewalk where the boundaries between styles and cultures become a dynamic, ever-changing blur. And over the past three decades this borderland has been home to a host of folk-oriented musicians who have become icons of American music. Jimmy Buffett used to live there, until he made so much money that his flamboyance began to irritate the locals. Jerry Jeff Walker still keeps an apartment in the neighborhood, but these days makes rare – always welcome – visits. John Prine moved there following his discharge from the Army and never left. More recent arrivals include Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, and Todd Snider.

All of these great writers and many more are represented in the song list of Columbus, Ohio-based singer and guitarist Bob McCann. Into this blend Bob contributes many of his own well-crafted songs, the result being an evening of acoustic entertainment where beer and bourbon are as welcome as and ballads and barre chords.

“The quality of the song is what is most important to me, and I think that has shaped the set list over the years,” Bob explains. “Early on, there was a period of time, a little embarrassing to talk about now, when all I played were Gordon Lightfoot songs and originals, and the overall mood was way too somber, too serious. I still play a few of Gord’s tunes, and I think he’s about as good a role model as a songwriter can find, in terms of melody and in terms of language. But there’s a whole other side to the show now that wasn’t there in the early days. I’m having a bunch more fun than I used to when I was so serious all the time, and the audience seems to be having a pretty good time, too.” Although Bob generally steers clear of novelty tunes and lyrical parodies, preferring genuine wit to an easy laugh, he has no problem throwing Lovett’s amusing “If I Had a Boat” alongside “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

“When I was younger and more mature,” Bob adds with a sense of irony, “I thought every song had to be deep and meaningful. I’ve learned that there’s at least as much value in cracking people up as there is in moving them or informing their consciousness. And that some songs are worth singing just because they’re fun to sing. As a result, the mix of songs is much, much better these days.”

Bob’s own writing has always reflected this dual allegiance to humor and substance. Of his more recent work, the blues-inflected “Margie Moe” began as an attempt to break through a case of writer’s block and ended up as an exercise in word-play ranging from unabashed nonsense to subtle double-entendre. As he sings in one verse, “That stuff is so cold that it hurts your head, so don’t eat ice cream before bed.” In “Road Song 3,558,” a rocking retelling of the highway-as-life metaphor, the narrator peers out the window of an airliner and longs to be a passenger instead in the lone car seen below, imagining a better adventure there. Bob sings, “I guessed that she was rolling out of one tortilla pan right into a brand new fire.” And “How to Dance” is a hilarious ode to anyone in possession of more than one left foot.

From the other side of the imaginary border comes the moving “Avalanche,” a tribute to the victims of 9/11. “If there’s an advantage to being a writer or a painter or having some other creative outlet, it’s that you have the opportunity for catharsis. Without any desire to be opportunistic about it, writing that song was the best way I knew to get a handle on how I felt in the wake of that tragedy.”

Bob has been performing and writing since high school in the early seventies, occasionally as part of a duo but more often as a solo act. “I even did the obligatory move-to-California bit at one point, but I’ve always had better luck playing in Ohio and thereabouts,” he says. Highlights through the years have included regular appearances on a WOSU radio songwriter showcase, “hoot night” performances at L.A.’s Troubadour (part of the California adventure), and a three-year stand at Columbus’ now-defunct Black Forest Inn.

Bob’s vocal style is a straightforward, casual delivery with a bit of a rasp that sneaks into the faster, louder selections. He recalls with a chuckle, “This drunk guy told me at a gig one time, ‘Your voice reminds me of that guy from Seals and Crofts, not the Crofts guy, the other one. What’s his name?’ And I said, ‘Seals?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, that one.’ So I thanked him and he said, ‘I didn’t mean it as a compliment.’ I love playing in bars.”

On acoustic guitar, Bob moves fluidly between rhythmic flatpicking and melodic fingerstyle approaches, faithful to his roots in folk and ‘70s acoustic music. “I’m not a lead guitar player by any stretch, but when you play solo for a long time, you learn things to make a rhythm guitar part more interesting, to yourself and to the audience,” he explains. More attentive crowds might be treated to a Leo Kottke song or similarly challenging instrumental. A Dylanesque harmonica embellishes several of Bob’s songs as well.

Recently, in addition to the one-man shows that are his mainstay, Bob has been contributing bass guitar to The Lost River Band, “a bunch of guys I’ve been picking around the campfire with almost since I was a kid. We got to where we were playing out quite a bit and I realized at one point that, unless you’re the Eagles or Crosby, Stills and Nash, there’s a limit to how many acoustic guitars you can have on stage at one time before it starts to get silly. Plus, I’ve wanted to play left-handed electric bass ever since I saw how cool Paul looked doing it.”