Las Vegas CD review
by Frank Kocher
San Diego Troubadour, August 2009
San Diego singer/songwriting duo Berkeley Hart have honed a winning sound on four CDs since talented Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart joined together over a decade ago. The pair can play and sing in almost any style and are both excellent songwriters and singers. Their last CD, Pocket Change from 2005, was acoustic, highlighted by unadorned arrangements, perfectly blended harmonies, and vivid lyrical tales as the focal points. They have paired again for a new disc, Las Vegas.
The sound on the new disc, produced and mixed by studio whiz Berkley, features more instrumentation than Pocket Change but wisely features a similar, intimate, unhurried sound. The songs are observational tales of human beings: their failings, relationships, and occasional spiritual struggles.
"Conversations with the Moon" starts off and sets the tone for what is to come, as Berkeley's soft folk song combines shimmering keyboards, finger-picked guitar, and swelling harmony choruses. Two Hart tunes follow, the lyrical storyboard "She's So Beautiful" and "Hey, Darlene" The latter is Appalachian-flavored, with a catchy hook brought home with banjo, dobro, fiddle, and plenty of twang about kinfolk coming over and putting momma's ashes on a shelf. The title tune is a country ballad, a highlight co-written by both artists, with steel guitar sighing behind lyrics like "She was a dancer, Las Vegas show/ She moved through me like cancer, subtle and slow".
The two rock things up on "Misery," with a bluesy brew of drums and guitar. Different than the rest of the disc, the tune is memorable and fun. "Sliver" is an acoustic folk tune about Berkeley's childhood, again with strong imagery. Hart chronicles the spiritual odyssey of a flawed man with "Looking for Jesus Again," another example of combining great lyrics ("He's been reading the Bible like it was a mystery novel"), a memorable melody, and a crisp arrangement. Berkeley follows with "Scarlet," a folk tune about a girl who was named after a Grateful Dead song. A folk-style arrangement of Bob Marley's "Stir It Up" works surprisingly well as the close harmonies and uncluttered percussion convey a relaxed flavor to the original reggae classic.
This is a disc that features carefully composed songs that are personal and engaging, drawing the listener into the music for the duration of the experience. There isn't a wasted note anywhere.
Hart tells another spiritual parable with "God in a Drawer," with observations about today's brand of religious hypocrisy, without preaching. "Six More Hours" offers sweet harmonies wrapped around finger-picked figures, to quietly close things as the singer is on the road to his California home.
Las Vegas is a superb and engaging collection of songs by two artists who are hitting on all cylinders, and not to be missed by lovers of great roots music.
Las Vegas CD review
by Jim Trageser
North County Times, May 2009
A throwback celebration of the glories of harmonized vocals, San Diego's Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart are such gifted performers that they instantly elevate any song they touch. Soaring vocals in the model of Seals and Crofts or Loggins and Messina combine with virtuosic playing on guitar to create that elusive sense of magic that most bands never manage.
And yet, there's also the nagging feeling that the duo have yet to produce a song that's the equal of their talents. On their latest CD, every track is lovely and listenable, but the only song likely to get stuck in your head for days on end is their relaxed cover of the Bob Marley song "Stir It Up" ---- although it owes far more to Johnny Nash's hit version.
Their own songs are pleasant enough, but not the kind of instantly immortal tunes that could push them onto the national stage. There's no "Summer Breeze" to be found here, no "Danny's Song." Their title song, "Las Vegas," is notable both for its gentle melody and its pure honky-tonk arrangement, breaking from their usual folk-rock approach.
Not that an album full of gorgeous playing and singing is to be sneezed at ---- it's just that listening to the very pure magic to be found here leaves one feeling that these two men could be on the verge of something even greater, with material to match their ability as performers.
"San Diego's Finest on the Beat"
Earthly Musical Musings by George Varga
Who made you God?
San Diego Union Tribune, August 2, 2007
There would be a major void in the San Diego music scene without Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart. Their work together, as solo artists and with literally dozens of area artists, has enriched many concerts and more than a few albums.
The fact that their 10th anniversary concert Saturday night at AcousticMusic San Diego appears to come a year early might be an issue, except that musicians this gifted should be celebrated at every opportunity. A former rock drummer, Berkley
sings and writes better than most drummers not named Levon Helm or Don Henley. Hart is an equally gifted tunesmith who sings and writes with insight, grace and an ability to make something fresh of even life's most familiar events and archetypes.
Berkley, who grew up as the son of a traveling evangelist, cut his teeth in various alt-rock bands here before becoming an in-demand percussionist for Jewel, Lisa Sanders, Gregory Page and other leading lights of San Diego's fertile singer-songwriter scene in the 1990s and beyond. His evolution into a singing frontman was aided greatly by the fact that he has one of the best voices in town. He's good enough that, in 1999, he won New Folk Songwriter honors in Kerrville, Texas, an honor previously bestowed upon Lyle Lovett, Sean Colvin and San Diego's Joel Rafael.
Hart, a Utah native, has held his own alongside such nationally prominent musicians as dobro master Jerry Douglas and national fiddle champ (and ex-San Diego bluegrass mainstay) Stuart Duncan. His 1992 solo debut album, “Red-Eyed and Blue,” was a cathartic work by a recently divorced musician who turned his pain and loss into a collection of heartfelt songs, and Hart's only improved since then.
Berkley Hart have made four terrific albums. While both are experts at using a recording studio to layer their music, their most affecting album is last year's “Pocket Change,” an earthy, no-frills duo outing that was recorded quickly and with a minimum of overdubs. No doubt, they'll be joined by some special guests Saturday night, but they'll need no help to charm their listeners.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Berkley Hart Celebrates a Decade of Harmony"
Peter Bolland, San Diego Troubadour
July 2007
All great partnerships have one thing in common: a shared realization that the sum is stronger than the parts. In the mysterious space between partners a spiritual alchemy occurs. In the emptiness between egos, there is room for the manna of heaven to pour down and fill in the serrated edges between souls, binding two together in a strength not attainable within a single individual. Over the years a potent dialectic emerges. You unconsciously adapt your strengths to the other and, like the ocean and the shore, you form a perfect harmony where your beauty only enhances the beauty of the other. You become each other's teacher, therapist, cheerleader, and, depending on what part of town the show is in tonight, bodyguard.
Great partners have to have a lot in common, but they need to challenge and push each other as well. Most often, songwriters and artists of all stripes work within the stillness of their own solitude. In the push and pull of a great partnership, however, the wheat has a much better chance of separating from the chaff. There's even a hint of competition, not the destructive kind, but the kind that impels each partner to his or her best work, if only to keep up. You have too much respect for your partner to turn in anything other than the best.
It's been ten years now since Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart decided to cast their lots together, but they've known each other for longer than that. Their paths first crossed at the legendary Java Joe's in its first incarnation in Poway. It was the mid-1990s and the fertile San Diego singer-songwriter scene was starting to heat up. John Katchur introduced Berkley to Hart. If Katchur is the Moses of the folk scene, leading us all out of the wilderness, then Berkley and Hart are David and Solomon, establishing a solid temple of folk around which so many San Diego notables have orbited.
In the early years Berkley was best known for his percussion work, most notably his spot-on and much sought after djembe playing. He's on pretty much every folk record that ever came out of this town and for good reason. The man has more heart, soul, and feel in his little finger than most musicians have in their entire body. But he was also a singer-songwriter, and while he was often asked to sit in on djembe with everybody in town, only a few of the artists he backed had the sensitivity and grace to ask him to play some of his own songs : artists like Dave Howard, John Katchur, and Calman Hart.
Hart heard something special in Berkley's songs and suggested they start doing some shows together. Their voices were a surprisingly warm fit and their guitar playing styles formed a perfect counterpoint. Hart's plain-spoken prairie strum lays a seed bed out of which the vines of Berkley's ascending and descending DADGAD lines emerge, winding like Mulholland Drive through Laurel Canyon, like smoke from a pipe, like prayers through the heavens, mesmerizing audiences and reminding many people of another great pair of guitarists: Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia.
Soon they began writing together. Hart's songs tend to be story songs with linear narrative and sharply drawn characters. Berkley favors impressionistic non-linear portraits of sensual and emotional terrain as seen from a bird's-eye view : broad images and distant longings flowing through timeless dreamscapes. Put these two approaches together, and you get an amazingly rich palette from which to paint folk songs, startling for their clarity, depth, power, and beauty. But writing songs together is the high-wire act of songwriting. It's one thing to lock yourself in your room and draw a song out of the depths of your own psyche, but to risk the delicacy of the process by bringing in another person, another whole set of experiences and expectations and aesthetic standards : that takes courage and faith. But Berkley and Hart have that kind of trust. They bring their musical ideas to each other and expect great things to happen. And they almost always do. 'Co-writing is hard for me,' admits Hart, 'because it's a struggle to get into my creative space with another person around. However, when it clicks, it's great. Some of my favorite songs are Berkley Hart co-writes.'
'Ultimately, co-writing works really well for us,' adds Berkley. 'I generally have a riff and a chorus and Calman will add verses. He's great at verse writing. I love that. I feel strongest coming up with musical hooks and writing choruses and bridges. That was one of the ways the sum was stronger than the parts. We both excel at different parts of the song. Our co-writes are my favorite songs.'
In 1999 Berkley and Hart joined forces with John Katchur and Dani Carroll, another up-and-coming singer-songwriter, to form the Redwoods. Soon they were wowing audiences with the depth and breadth of their live performances. Katchur's top-tier lead guitar work, Berkley's percussion, Hart's and Carroll's guitar stylings and voices, rendering each other's songs with delicate yet powerful strokes : the Redwoods packed houses and raised the bar for all other folk artists. That same year Hart suggested that Berkley submit one of his songs to the country's most prestigious folk songwriting competition, the Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk Emerging Songwriter contest. 'I thought he was crazy,' said Berkley. 'I mean Kerrville is a huge deal that was started 35 years ago by Peter Yarrow [of Peter, Paul and Mary] and has a long list of past winners like Shawn Colvin, Lyle Lovett, David Wilcox, Nancy Griffith, Joel Rafael, the list goes on - .' Hart persisted, Berkley entered, and, surprise! He won. To this day, Berkley's most requested song is his Kerrville winner 'High School Town.' The Redwoods went to the festival and performed that year. 'It was an amazing experience,' said Berkley, 'and something we'll always remember.'
Soon thereafter John Katchur and his wife moved to New Zealand and Dani Carrol moved to Nashville. Berkley and Hart decided to put their last names together and make it official. After a long gestation period, Berkley Hart was born. 'It's really rare to find two folks who have the same kind of ideas about writing and performing, how to craft and edit a song, and how to lead an audience through a show,' Berkley said. 'We both had the same instincts and our voices fit so great together.'
For both Hart and Berkley, the best part about being a musician is that moment in the middle of a song when it's going really well, and the crowd is hushed and riveted, and the room falls away leaving only a nameless, sacred, intangible connection that draws everyone into a shared, communal reverie. 'It took a while to learn how to make that happen,' said Berkley, 'but now it's so completely satisfying to have success in this area.' Where does this magic come from? What is it? Jeff takes a deep breath. 'I don't know,' he said. 'There is some shared force in the universe. Some call it God, some call it Great Spirit, some call it rock and roll. Something happens in a room when a group of people gather to create and experience something together. It happens in theaters, concert halls, stadiums, amphitheaters, churches, nightclubs, bars, and coffeehouses everywhere. A collective trip of some kind. It sends shivers up my spine when we all hit it together at a gig. There is a lift-off feeling. I can see it happen to people's faces and I feel it in my own heart at the same time.'
'It's electric,' said Hart.
'And we've finally learned how to create that feeling,' Berkley continued. 'It's like being Merlin or something, but it has nothing to do with me, or with us. We're caught up in it just like the audience is. It's something that honest, pure art creates in the beholder and the artists. It's better than any drug.'
With four Berkley Hart albums behind them and countless shows all across the country, Berkley and Hart bring years of experience to everything they do. What advice do they have for young singer-songwriters coming up? 'Be true to who you are and don't get caught up in all the trappings of the music business,' said Berkley. 'That will work itself out if you do what you know is real and right.'
'And don't try to write what you think other people want to hear,' added Hart. 'Write and play songs that make you happy. That way, if you get lucky and catch a wave, you won't get stuck playing music you don't like for the rest of your life. And if you don't get lucky, you won't have wasted your time sacrificing your art trying to please other people.'
Being a musician can wear you down. You're only as hot as your last gig. Essentially, you're perpetually unemployed until you can put the next tour or house concert or recording session together. Sometimes you draw a packed house, sometimes not so much. Self doubt, envy, anxiety, compulsion, exhaustion, and other demons in a performer's life rarely leave you alone for long. Rapacious promoters, false promises, and empty threats are the norm in the music business. It's hard on family and on relationships, it's financially challenging, and it can unravel the hardiest of souls. In spite of all these challenges, Hart claims immunity. 'I find it easy to stay positive,' said Hart. 'Having anyone want to hear us play original music, whether it's 30 people or 300, is a gift.'
Berkley, on the other hand, admits it isn't always easy. 'You don't always stay positive,' he said. 'We just try and get positively motivated by the bad stuff. Make it your goal to create something positive out of the negative. It works!' But then he admits, 'I'm real bad at getting to that point. It's the hardest part of our job as artists: keeping up the force field while letting folks in. Everybody does it differently, but you have to figure out how to beat that negative stuff to succeed, both as a human being and as an artist. I fight it every day.' 'Being away from loved ones is for sure the hardest thing about being a musician,' Berkley adds. 'The second hardest thing is dealing with the music 'business' and all the weird stuff that goes with it. It's just not in my nature to know what to do next business-wise and very often the folks who know what to do in the business world are not real patient about what needs to be done artistically. We've had our biggest challenges in this department.'
But Berkley wouldn't change a thing. 'I honestly just love the lifestyle of a musician. I think I feel strongest when I'm on tour, racing from gig to gig to airport to hotel to meal to gig. Passport in pocket, flight cases in rental car, clothes in suitcase, sleep deprived, still high from the music the night before, and carrying that spirit to the next show - it's in my DNA. I can't live without it.'
Berkley applies his long-time love affair with music and his road-tested expertise on a daily basis in his recording studio, Miracle Recording. Though he's been involved in the recording process for 23 years, his own studio had its official launch in 2003 with Berkley Hart's award-winning album Twelve. Since then Berkley has produced, engineered, and mixed dozens of albums for other artists, bringing that warm, burnished, or, as he likes to call it, 'furry' sound to a who's who of bands.
With ten years gone and their whole lives ahead of them, Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart show no signs of slowing down. They've struck a nice balance between family and career, and they've successfully negotiated the pitfalls of the music business with their artistic integrity intact. A triumph of simplicity over artifice, the long-lived career of Berkley Hart deserves celebration. Join Berkley Hart and special guests in concert at Acoustic Music San Diego, 4650 Mansfield Street in Normal Heights on Saturday, August 4 at 7:30 p.m. For tickets and dinner package information, visit www.acousticmusicsandiego.com, and for all things Berkley Hart, visit www.berkleyhart.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
European Reviews for Pocket Change
It may come as some surprise to find that Berkley Hart (that’s Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart) have been performing and recording together for ten years. Such time has not been wasted - these guys have really, really got the playing and harmonising thing together. In fact this record proudly says “produced by no-one” in the sleeve notes and it is a testament to their craft that they could sit round a single microphone and play, sing and do it mostly in one take. Remind me again what ‘Pro-Tools’ is for? The fact that they can write songs of delicacy, intimacy and immediacy is the icing on a very palatable cake. It’s a pity that someone nicked the phrase ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ for a series of records containing anything but for this is surely what Americana fans (or anybody with an ear for decent songs and folk to sing them) would call music. Sweet, soft, subtle, sparse and pretty special.
-americanaUK
This is the 4th CD from the California duo Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart. They joined together in 2000 after first becoming a name on their own in the local café scene and their admirers have steadily grown from local to regional. It's very fine guitarpicking, subtle texts and cosy pitchsong but... Berkley Hart is up to their knees in a humus cultivated of American singersongwriters like Jim Corce, Seals and Crofts, Don McLean, James Taylor and more. It's the perfect music to a bottle of red wine, some crackers, maybe a gorgonzola or two after a long day's work. Lean backwards in your favourite armchair, cork up the bottle and put on the hi-fi. It's beautiful, it's nice and it's very well produced. After yet another glass you maybe find one or two harmonies that stands out.
-Otakt
The duo Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart makes acoustic pitchsongmusic in the neighborhood of folk/country/pop music and on Pocket change they strongly convince you. It's relaxed, swinging and radiates a peculiar warmth. They have written most of the songs themselves but they do a surprisingly and nice cover of Waterboys tribute to Hank Wiliams "Has anybody here seen Hank?"
-Trots Allt Magazine
(loose translation): Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart have played several years together and has since 2000 made 4 studio CD and Pocket change is their best album. The CD's before were OK and good. Both Jeff and Calman has each wonderful singing voices but when they sing together it's magic, when everything becomes more intensive and intimate. Love the cover of Has anybody here seen Hank. Their big strength is when they combine their voices singing in pitches giving them a perfect sound. Pocket Change is a CD by two men that doesn't need to prove anything more. This album is a full, rich, warm album from a duo in their prime.
-Rootstime
Berkley Hart have also received airplay on the following stations:
Swedish National Radio (04.11.06)
Dutch National Radio (A Shake Of Music 05.07 + 12.07 + 19.07.07)
American Music FM (Belgium 26.04.07)
Belgium National Radio (Mojo Dreams 01.05.07)
American Music (Belgium - Best Of 2007)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"O Berkley, Where Hart Thou?" DVD review
Jim Trageser, North County Times
October 2006
Last fall, San Diego acoustic duo Berkley Hart (Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart) invited the 7th Day Buskers and a bunch of other friends to perform songs from the film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (the soundtrack to which became a huge, and unexpected, best-seller) and other songs from the old-timey canon. Now, on the eve of their second such event (which is apparently going to be an annual confab), they've released a CD/DVD of last year's show.
It's not only a wonderful celebration of traditional American music, but even more it's in effect an all-star gathering of some of San Diego's best acoustic and Americana musicians. With guest artists such as Eve Selis, Tim Flannery, Gregory Page, Lisa Sanders, Robin Adler plus the Berkley and Hart clans, the quality of the performances is top-rate.
The 7th Day Buskers provide the traditional instrumentation ---- banjo, fiddle, steel guitar, stand-up bass ---- that gives this soundtrack its old-timey feel. (Interestingly, the performers also dress in midcentury garb, giving the film the look of an old-timey hoedown.)
The DVD follows the musicians both in performance and in informal backstage gatherings and does capture the creativity of the artists and the magic of their playing.
And that's what it's really about: the music. On that score, Berkley Hart and friends nail it perfectly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
press for "O Berkley, Where Hart Thou?"
Peter Bolland, San Diego Troubadour
October 2006
Beauty and truth are timeless—they never go out of style. Great art seems to break the bounds placed on lesser creations. Tidy classifications of genre and style fade in the bright light cast by masterpieces. Out of the unique American musical vernacular came the tap roots of blues, jazz, gospel, folk, country and rock. O Berkley Where Hart Thou celebrates those roots. Who knew that eternal transcendence could pour forth from a five string banjo, a flat-picked guitar, a low-slung fiddle and a slapping upright bass?
San Diego folk icons Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart are once again gathering together some of their talented friends for a second installment of their sold out 2005 tribute to old time American music, O Berkley Where Hart Thou. Riffing on the Coen brother’s film, O Brother Where Art Thou, Berkely Hart will take center stage along with the 7th Day Buskers, Eve Selis & Marc Twang, Gregory Page, Lisa Sanders, Randi Driscoll, Cindy Lee Berryhill, Robin Adler, Tim Flannery and more to render songs from the film’s best-selling soundtrack as well as other songs of the period. But what sets this show apart from other tribute shows is the seamless integration of original material. Folk music is, after all, alive and well here in San Diego. And whether you call it folk, bluegrass, Americana or roots, one thing’s clear. It’s damn good stuff.
On Friday, October 13 at 7:30 the Seaside Church Auditorium in Encinitas, California will be transformed into an Appalachian back porch. Also on hand will be the just released DVD/CDs of the original O Berkley Where Hart Thou, recorded before a packed house in February, 2005.
In the late nineties, Ethan and Joel Coen began conceiving a film project around an unusual idea. They wanted to film a new version of Homer’s Odyssey set in the American south of the 1930s. An unusual melding of two classic eras, ancient Greece and the Depression-era south called for an unusual approach. Typically, music is added to a film at the end of the process. But before the Coen brothers wrote or shot one scene, they hired T Bone Burnett to record the soundtrack. Using field recordings and a core group of musicians to create new material, Burnett created a powerfully moving musical experience. With Burnett’s soundtrack playing in their headphones, the Coen brothers set out to write and shoot the film. The soundtrack became a surprise best seller with the “single” “A Man of Constant Sorrow” even garnering extensive radio play on top 40 country stations, including KSON. Some even credit the success of the soundtrack with paving the way for a resurgence in alt-country and Americana artists like Allison Krauss, Gillian Welch and a host of others. But one thing is sure. The success of this music proves that there is a hunger out there for heartfelt, simple, true American music, something Nashville stopped providing decades ago.
Serving as “house band” for the night, The 7th Day Buskers, (Shawn Rohlf, Robin Henkel, Dan Broder, Beth Mosko and Jim Austin), bring the authentic roots feel and masterful chops the material so dearly requires. According to Rohlf, this music matters because, “it seems to go deeper than my ears. I can feel it in my bones. I hear my ancestor’s pain and struggles as they crossed an ocean and braved the elements to find a new life. I feel the excitement and joy of dancing on the front porch to the banjo and fiddle after working from dawn till dusk. There was no Hollywood glamour, no MTV, no CD sales or Grammy awards to complicate, sterilize and exploit this music. It was simply played to entertain, comfort and pass along some history to the next generation. We are so far removed from that today.”
The show is the brain child of Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart, but the endless details of management and production are handled by Jeff’s long-time collaborator and partner, Lizzie Wann. When she isn’t booking her highly successful and long running Meeting Grace house concert series, or pursuing her own career as a poet, Lizzie pours hundreds of hours into arranging rehearsals, working the phones, booking the facility, stage managing, handling the financials and in short doing everything but sing and play guitar. For Wann, it’s a labor of love. “When I hear this music,” she says, “I am transported to another time and yet, I can easily relate to the words and music. They are spiritual without being preachy, they make me feel lifted up. They are easy on the ear without being simplistic. They are funny without being ridiculous. I don’t grow tired of these songs because they feel more real than so much of what you hear on the mainstream radio these days.”
“It’s so much fun to be a part of these shows,” says singer-songwriter, folk musician and voice of the Padres Tim Flannery, “it’s just a sure night of feel good music on the ears.” For long time friends and collaborators Berkley and Flannery, the real strength of the show is the camaraderie of the musicians. Gathering around one or two microphones, just like they used to do in the thirties, keeping it lo-tech and hi-warmth, makes the magic happen. “Getting everyone together is the real prize for me,” says Berkley, “it’s a party and a half. The audience feels it, we feel it and it goes with us when we leave.” And if between songs you see them passing around a Mason jar full of clear liquid, chances are it isn’t water. Flannery still has deep roots in the hills of Kentucky where he’s from, and maybe, just maybe, he might have slipped a jar or two of genuine Moonshine past customs on the last Padres road trip. It’s possible. For O Berkley Where Hart Thou, no detail is left to chance.
Flannery, Berkley and everyone involved feels the same way about the music and its timeless relevance. And that’s what sets this tribute show apart from the flurry of other tribute shows to come along in recent years. For these artists, this music has been the heart and soul of the inspiration for their own songwriting. “It’s meant everything to me to go to school on this music,” says Berkley, “it’s infused in everything I do.” Listen to any of the original recordings of Berkley Hart, Eve Selis, The 7th Day Buskers, Tim Flannery, Gregory Page and the rest of them, and you’ll hear the ghosts of American music brought to life. This show is so much more than just a cover band party. There is an almost religious reverence to this show. Maybe it’s the innate spirituality of the material itself and the way it illuminates the darkest corners of the soul with the possibility of redemption and salvation.
What strikes you first when you listen to this music is its naked intimacy, honesty and fearlessness. Willing to grab the devil by the horns, these songs spread a healing balm over the existential wounds of loneliness, poverty, death and despair. Hear Ralph Stanley’s “O Death” and feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Feel the cold darkness slide through your veins when the Cox Family sings “I Am Weary (Let Me Rest)”, a mournful lament sung by a dying child to her grieving mother. Feel the relief of the belly laughs as you hear the classic hobo fantasy, “Big Rock Candy Mountain”, with its cigarette trees, lakes of stew, and chickens that lay soft boiled eggs. Weaving sorrow and joy together in a life-like tapestry that wraps around an audience like a warm embrace, music like this, performed by artists like this make you remember why you fell in love with music in the first place.
If you had the misfortune of missing the first O Berkley Where Hart Thou back in February of 2005, here’s your chance for redemption.
Calman Hart’s Top Ten Reasons Why He Loved Doing the First O Berkley Where Hart Thou
10. Got to see the 7th Day Buskers dressed like they just stepped out of a 1920's southern speakeasy
9. Got to shout "How 'bout some fiddle!" and "Take it away dobro!" in the middle of our songs
8. Got to hear the audience sing "I Went Down to the River to Pray"
7. Got to hear Eve Selis sing like Ralph Stanley
6. Got to watch Robin Henkel shred in suspenders
5. Got to hear Lisa Sanders sing the blues
4. Got to hear Gregory Page play the kazoo
3. Got to hear Jeff Berkley play banjo
2. Got to play music with my daughter
1. Got to yodel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pocket Change CD release show review
Kenny Newberry, Espresso Newspaper
April 2006
Thank God for songwriters. It all starts with the song. A great song can take a mediocre performer much farther than a great performer can take a mediocre song. The song is the life's blood of every performance. It's the song that touches the heart of the audience. Yes, it's all about the song. That being said let me talk about San Diego songwriters Calman Hart and Jeff Berkley.
Last month I was invited to Berkley-Hart's CD release party celebrating the release of their fourth album, a worthy effort called "Pocket Change". I love good songwriting and couldn't wait to see what these guys had come up with. Myself being somewhat of a reluctant songwriter, meaning I write but it usually doesn't come fast or easy, I appreciate the efforts of the ones who do make it look easy.
As I walked across the parking lot of the Seaside Church in Encinitas I noticed a crowd already assembled for the show. It was a crowd representing all ages from young children to what appeared to be their grandparents and everyone in between.
It was a full house. The instant the lights dimmed the crowd erupted into enthusiastic applause. These people have probably seen B-H countless times and were more than ready for this gig to begin. Ahh, new songs. Remember? It's all about the song...
B-H walked on stage and opened the show with an instrumental. How's that for the element of surprise? These songwriters came out and kicked things off with an instrumental! It's okay, because you know what? These guys can play. Jeff Berkley has a phenomenally tasteful touch on guitar and seems able to send any lick in his mind down his arm, through his fingers and make the guitar a welcome receiver. How do guys like this do it? Wish I knew. Anyway, next the storytelling began.
Both Jeff and Calman's songs are extremely personal and meant to connect with the listener on an intelligent level, with a flair of comedy at the same time. Calman's songs are blessed with solid hooks worthy of commercially successful songs. Old habits never die. Seems I remember him taking a run at Nashville way back when. Hey, we like you better here Calman. This is not to slight Jeff in any way, though. Jeff is a past winner of the Kerrville Folk Festival songwriting contest in Texas. Among past winners are Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen. Great company to keep.
The songs they played for the show that night were a good mix of B-H standards and cuts from the new album. Cleverly written songs such as "Pocket Change", "Lay Me Down" and "I Love Waking Up With You".
After briefly setting the audience up with an upcoming song which Calman wrote with his son, the duo stopped cold and they called upon the younger Hart, Charlie, to come up and sing the song instead. What's going to happen here? Is the kid gonna freeze? He's ten years old. Has he sung on stage at a serious gig like this before? He walked out, sat down and sang "Bald", a song about having to get his hair cut (twice) to appease Sister Ursula and be accepted back in his Catholic school. He sang the song with the same comedic phrasing his father is capable of (hmm... Berkley-Hart-Hart down the line?). The kid can write, sing and perform. Gee, I think I was just learning to tie my shoes when I was ten.
Are Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart a likely pair or a mismatch? They are both very serious songwriters yet I'm sure a good party was never wasted on them. They are as one together yet completely different. Jeff is amiable, always laughing and joking (could be crying on the inside, these songs have to come from somewhere) and Calman appears very serious, almost unapproachable, but with a sharp sense of wit (could be laughing at us all on the inside). Who knows and who cares? It works.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
press for release of Pocket Change
John Phillip Wylie, San Diego Troubadour
March 2006
Berkley Hart's new CD, Pocket Change, is satisfying and enjoyable from beginning to end. The title cut, a moving tribute to Calman Hart's single-parent mother, is one this reviewer would place squarely in the brilliant category. It chronicles her struggle to raise the Hart clan on the meager salary she made from waitressing. Hart sings, 'when I look back on it now it seems beautiful and strange how much she overcame with pocket change.'
Not to be outdone, Jeff Berkley took a Lizzie Wann poem titled 'For Lillian' and added a catchy melody to create a song that acknowledges a type of woman that many can relate to. Lillian may not treat you right all of the time, but there is something special about her that keeps you coming back for more. Be forewarned - once you listen to this song it will stay in your head for days and you may find yourself inadvertently humming the chorus at the most inopportune times.
Hart counters with what might just be his best song since 'Barrel of Rain.' 'Two Small Birds' is based on an unhappy long-term relationship wherein the husband is content with the relationship flawed as it is because it at least offers security. However, the wife yearns to break out of the cage that their life has become to spread her wings and fly in search of a life more fulfilling.
Another gem is 'Lay Me Down,' Berkley's making up song. He starts out by singing, 'It was all my fault' and then evokes a picture of balmy summer night and a lover's skinny dip in the healing waters of a river. The visual imagery found in this and in many of the album's other songs are just part of what make it superb.
They say that siblings often produce the best harmonies, think Phil and Don Everly and Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson. Although Berkley and Hart are not siblings, their rich, tightly woven harmonies are present on many of the tracks, including Hart's beautiful love song, 'Waking Up With You' and their cover of Mike Scott's and Anthony Thistlethwaite's tribute to Hank Williams, 'Has Anybody Here Seen Hank?'
Pocket Change finds this duo at its best, combining poignant lyrics with masterfully crafted melodies and harmonies. There are no gimmicks, studio effects, or outside musicians here. It captures their live sound in its purest form: two guys, two guitars, and an occasional harmonica or banjo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
review of Pocket Change
Buddy Blue, San Diego Union Tribune
March 2006
Berkley Hart, a distressingly hyphen-free/quirk-free duo, but one I admire despite their dearth of eccentricity. I've seen 'em as an acoustic duo and I've seem 'em with a backup band; I've heard 'em bust out jam-rock and I've heard 'em unplugged, singing clear 'n' sweet as a virgin rainforest stream.
Berkley Hart's new CD, “Pocket Change,” features the latter methodology; it's a straightforward acoustic duet effort featuring superior songcraft and mellifluous harmony that recalls Crosby, Stills & Nash minus the one guy that doesn't sing as well as the other two, whichever one that was.
Blessedly, the guys don't engage in me-me-me singer-songwriter conceits; rather, they serve up impressionistic elegies that seem to comprise equal measures trad Americana and 1970s songster sensibility. If I favor the former, fans of CSN/James Taylor/Seals & Crofts et al. will be drawn to the latter; if you're guessing BH ain't always my personal cuppa java you'd be correct (“mellow” would be the operative term here), but one can't help respecting the duo's stellar vocal and writing chops in their chosen mode.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
review of Pocket Change
Ed Decker, San Diego CityBeat
March 2006
Goes well with: living room concerts, wine, cheese (I’m thinking gouda), and apple slices.
I like this album. It takes courage to make a record this way—entirely pared down to just the two artists, two guitars and one shared microphone. Less is more, I think it’s called.
I like that.
I like the vocals and gentle strumming.
I like the tranquil, melancholic melodies.
I like how you can hear everything that’s going on in the songs: a vocal sigh, the gorgeous squeak of a chord change, a percussive hand-slap on the back of a guitar.
I like the title cut, “Pocket Change,” about a boy who steals some coins from his mama. She’s a waitress and the boy later feels terrible about it.
I like that they love their mamas.
I don’t like the lyric, “Crying out to spread her wings and fly.” I believe that particular lyric should be illegal, even if the song is about birds.
I love “Lillian.” Lillian rules!
I like the imagery of the songs, like “Jade jaguar on the back of a crocodile. . .”
I don’t like how the tempo doesn’t change much, but if it did, I think I might not like that, either.
I like who this album reminds of (Harry Chapin, Don McLean, Hank Williams) while at the same time reminding me of nobody.
I like this record. I like it a lot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
press for release of Pocket Change
Jim Trageser, North County Times
March 2006
No one is likely to confuse the warm harmonies and acoustic guitars of Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart for the latest musical trend. Now, they might be confused with Seals and Crofts, perhaps. Loggins and Messina, possibly. Maybe Cecilio and Kapono. It should be pointed out, however, that all of the above acts hit their peak of popularity some 30 years ago. Not that such things bother Berkley Hart as the duo release their fourth CD, "Pocket Change."
"We don't have delusions of grandeur that we're going to be big stars," Berkley said during a recent interview. "I think what we do is pretty unique. It was just a thing where we kind of happened upon each other, and we liked writing similar types of songs, we write pretty well together and we perform really well together. Our voices just fit together; mine is in a certain range and his is in a certain range ---- a very natural fit."
Both men had found significant success in San Diego's music scene before they ever met or played together. Berkley was an original member of the Joel Rafael Band, Hart a solo artist sharing bills with Steve Poltz, Jewel and Gregory Page. Hart said he and Berkley had run into each at various shows and got on fairly well to the point that playing gigs together seemed very natural.
"It just was subtle, like osmosis," Hart said. "I can't really think of a specific incident, other than the first time I ran across Jeff playing percussion. And I remember the first time I heard this guy, whom I thought of as a percussionist, pick up a guitar and play a song he wrote, and thought, 'Wow.'"
"Calman encouraged me to play my songs in front of people," Berkley said of their first times playing together. "When we sing, it sounds good. We literally just started getting together for hangouts with our families, then slowly but surely people started asking us to play. We started in Poway at Mikey's after Java Joe moved to OB."
Berkley said that while he and Hart both continue to play solo and with other artists, they are increasingly identified by their fans as songwriting partners.
"We really are thought of as 'those two guys,' but as a single entity," Berkley said. "It really is a duo, in every sense of the word. I think it's really cool for an audience to have that. Calman and I are very different alone than we are together," he added.
If their music seems spontaneous and relaxed, it's a reflection of their creative process. The two said a lot of their songwriting happens in informal settings ---- often while traveling to a show or hanging out before a gig.
"We don't create set lists for our shows," Hart said of choosing which of their songs to play ---- and even record. "A lot of it is what kind of reaction we get from audiences; if they clap, we'll play it again. Sometimes there's just a song we really like to play." Despite their growing local success as a duo, neither of them makes a living strictly off his playing. Berkley owns a recording studio and produces other artists' sessions, while Hart has a non-music job to pay the bills.
But it's the music that matters to them. "I promise if people come out to our show, they'll go home with a smile on their face," Berkley said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on "Twelve"
Melanie Haupt, The Dallas Observer
"The men's collective keen eye for the stories that happen in the expansive spaces we variously call home shines through in the songwriting, which is a rare gift indeed."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Troy Johnson, City Beat/Slamm
"They’ve got the pretty-as-heck harmonies. ...The mostly acoustic Twelve sounds like your grandpa’s back from the dead to offer a swill of the moonshine he poached from his maker...some of the best feel-good roots music in the world."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will K. Schilling, Pacific Beach Block Party
"This year's masterpiece, Twelve, has vindicated both the forward thinking artistry of the duo-and their devoted cult following."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SXSW (performers 2004)
"Berkley Hart continues to be one of the most influential groups in Southern California. If you miss their performance, you will be sad."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
review of Something to Fall Back On
Home-of-Rock.com
Special thanks to WAYNE NELSON of THE LITTLE RIVER BAND for his BERKLEY HART references. The release of SOMETHING TO FALL BACK ON is the second album of the two musicians and their band. It's music for all the fans of the music from THE REMBRANDTS or THE THORNS. They also will like the fantastic harmonies of BERKLEYHART.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
review of Wreck 'n' Sow
Troy Johnson, SLAMM Music Magazine
"Occasionally, an album [Wreck 'n' Sow] surfaces that is so emotionally and musically authentic that it crumbles resistance to its genre."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Kirlin, Taylor Guitars
"Wreck 'N Sow makes the perfect soundtrack for driving America's blue highways."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
about Berkley Hart
SLAMM Music Magazine
"Together, Berkley Hart is one down-home guitarist, one African drum specialist, two songwriting gurus, and a harmony more powerful than moonshine."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Phillip Wyllie, Uptown Marquee
"Whether it be the often pain-filled contributions spawned by Hart or the more upbeat and whimsical tunes generally emanating from the fertile mind of Berkley, the combined efforts of this talented twosome take the listener out on the road and into the lives of the people they meet there."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris McKay, California Country Music News
"Berkley Hart is one of those unique talents you hear and just know they'll make it in the industry."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Mraz
"San Diego's Nashville saints. Jeff Berkley and Calman Hart bring classic americana to life with smiles, Jesus and plenty of Jameson."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
