The Dahl House: • Foyer • Guestroom • Observatory • Summer Home
| Richard ‘Dahl defines folk as, “the intangible aura that surrounds a performance, making it pure and relevant—a connection between words and music; performer and audience.”
And so it is that Richard is a folk-singer. Though his music crosses genre, from intricate finger-picked open tunings and aggressive worldly rhythms to simple back-porch country waltzes, he always maintains this connection. As if the stage is his living room, he invites his audience in and offers the comfort of a casual conversation. Then the room shifts, and so begins the journey—through sorrow into joy, humor into poignancy, ultimately to a realm of hope and understanding. Richard’s music draws comparisons to such diverse artists as Nick Drake, George Harrison, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Tori Amos. His songwriting is fresh, poetic, and surprising—sustained on stage by a clear tenor voice riding over artfully arranged acoustic guitar. In venues from New England to Virginia, Richard has enjoyed the respect of peers and presenters and, of course, his audience. His debut CD, Jealous Muse, has received radio airplay across the United States and in Canada, and has earned great reviews in many publications including The Washington Post, which declares, "the music he creates draws on a worldly palette of colors and rhythms...both intimate and intelligent." |
| I
never meant to be a songwriter. I didn’t spend my high school weekends
in a garage band dreaming of the big time. I didn’t start singing before
I even learned to speak. And I didn’t stay up late every night in college
practicing scales on the guitar until my fingers bled. I did have a guitar
though—even in high-school. A cheap, unnamed classical I bought for $45
in Tijuana. I hardly used it, but I liked having it around. Not until it
was stolen years later from the back seat of my friend’s car in Greenwich
Village did I finally decide to take the guitar seriously. In order to
justify the expense of replacing it, I resolved that I would actually have
to play. My thanks to the thief, who was no doubt disappointed with the
worthless loot.
I call my music folk because folk can be defined very loosely. In fact, I don't like to define it at all. Not as a style anyway. Folk, to me, is the intangible aura that surrounds a performance, live or recorded, that makes it pure and relevant. It is a connection between words and music; performer and audience. Music is magic—a method by which a person, or several people working together, can influence the minds, bodies, spirits, and emotions of others. Folk music uses this magic to awaken, to heal, and to inspire. This may seem a broad definition, but I find that it works. People agree to call my music folk, yet when comparisons are drawn, the names that come up most frequently are George Harrison, Roger Waters, Nick Drake, and Tom Petty. I smile, happily counting them all as folk singers. Two important things happened right around the end of my college years: the Gulf War broke out and I discovered Phil Ochs. Listening to Phil during the Gulf War was, among other things, a lesson in the power and timelessness of music. I came to understand that songs use a language beyond lyrics. In a tirade or a ballad, Phil could express a story and all of its connected emotions. Reading his lyrics was like reading a newspaper, but listening to him play brought me into his world—like putting on 3-D glasses and suddenly seeing depth in an old, familiar picture. When I found myself relating so strongly to topical events which occurred, for the most part, when I was an infant, I realized that there was some sort of magic at work. Something was connecting me to this other world. I was determined to learn this language. So I started writing my own songs. And I began listening more closely to other artists, searching for the Rosetta Stone of this magical language I had discovered. I found eloquence everywhere, of course—in the purest love songs of the Beatles, in the deepest metaphysical album-length epics of Jethro Tull, in the theatrical mysticism of Kate Bush, and even in the simple inanity of Jimmy Buffett. Everyone I listened to, regardless of genre, influenced and guided my writing—every performer an unwitting professor. And in the learning came the need to share, to sing this language, to communicate. With the advent of songwriting, my guitar work also matured. Frustrated by earlier attempts to imitate my favorite players, I instead embraced this opportunity to create. I developed my own style by default, having failed to copy anyone else’s. To me, learning to play the guitar is synonymous and simultaneous with songwriting. I write songs that I am unable to play—perhaps using a new tuning or new chord voicings, a new rhythm or right-hand technique. Then, as I grow into the song, I acquire these new elements—this new vocabulary, and store it away for future conversations. I first found the courage to perform during a week of musical intensity at the National Guitar Summer Workshop in Connecticut. Surrounded by an entire campus of encouragement, I braced myself against the lights, thought back to my days of community theatre, and found the stage...inviting. I found similar support at home in such organizations as the Songwriters’ Association of Washington (SAW) and the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA). Soon I was spending summer vacations traveling to the folk festivals in Colorado, or New York, or anywhere in between. Even an adventurous rail-tour through Great Britain, a guitar on my back, eager for the chance to share my songs. Today, asked whether my music is a vocation or an avocation, I respond, rather, that it is an invocation. And if music is magic, then performance is its spell. The language of songs—an inseparable fusion of lyric and melody—can stir and shape the spirits of an audience. It can lead a crowd, each person individually, from one reality to another—from one paradigm to the next. It can open minds to new ideas and idealistic thoughts. It can open the doors to the world of fantasy—not as an escape, but as a liberation. Throughout my performance, I strive to initiate this journey, to cast this enchantment and transport myself and audience together to a new realm of understanding. |
The Dahl House: • Foyer • Guestroom • Observatory • Summer Home
