'Queer Urban Folk' on tap at Tin AngelWhile guitar seems to be the instrument of choice for most singer/songwriters, Tom McCormack prefers the white and black keys. Like Elton John, Billy Joel and others, McCormack is a piano man.
"I like the range that piano can give you," McCormack said in a recent phone interview. "What I like about it is you're able to create a tremendous amount of varied environments that can be tremendously evocative. So, it's kind of like creating not just a mood, but a whole environment that people can sit in, and basically travel somewhere with you.
McCormack's Feb. 25 performance at the Tin Angel will also feature sets by Grant King and Melinda DiMaio.
"It's all acoustic," says McCormack, describing the upcoming show. "Melinda's stuff ranges from very comic songs to very jazz-inflected. She's been described as the love child of k.d. lang and Kate Clinton -- that kind of crooning voice with a sense of humor -- and she plays guitar. Grant also plays guitar, and is a very strong songwriter who speaks very poignantly from his experience as a gay man. It's sort of queer urban folk."
While McCormack, King, DiMaio and another artist, Zenobia, sometime perform as a group, Zenobia was unable to appear Feb. 25; each artists will do an individual set. McCormack said they may sit in with each other for a song or two.
McCormack's last album, "Missing" (Spotted Dog), was released in 1995. He said he has been compared musically to Tori Amos, John, Joel, and lyrically to wordsmiths ranging from Tracy Chapman to Peter Gabriel. McCormack often performs at colleges and clubs. Songs from Missing have also snagged radio play, and the title track will be used in the upcoming film "David Searching." McCormack is also co-founder of executive producer for the Gay/Lesbian American Music Awards.
Through his work with GLAMA, McChormack has become an important promoter of gay and lesbian music an artists. Still, performing remains a true love.
"For me it's about connecting with the songs, where they came from originally, that same sort of energy that pushes you to write or express something," he said. "When you're on as a performer -- it's somethin I reconnect with. So it's kind of like getting that same kind of energy back."
"The other part is...being someone who writes from the inside out, like I said, (my lyrics are) fairly introspective, it's really great when someone listens to your music and just identifies with it so strongly. People have said, 'You've been able to express something that I was never able to find words for,' and that's always a wonderful thing. It's a lesson that sounds kind of cosmic, but it just reinforces how much common ground we have as people."
-- Harriet Schwartz
February 21-27, 1997
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