Bobbyisms: Hornsby has range

I write about random things a lot. I write a lot about random things. As much fun as it is to look ahead to another new year of music, it always bears looking back and realizing how far it is that the art and industry of music has come and changed.

It's funny sometimes to foray back into the 1980s and look at music, because in a lot of ways it now seems ridiculous and masterfully kitschy. And rightly so — music exploded forth in the 1980s in ways unlike any decade has since, and any way that an artist or band could stand out was really just considered business as usual.

However, there were a plethora of artists that stood tall among their contemporaries based on talent alone, and among them was Bruce Hornsby.

Hornsby grew up mainly in Virginia, but worked as a session musician and writer in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. He eventually formed his own band, called Bruce Hornsby and The Range, and in 1985, at 31 years old, he got signed to RCA Records. The resulting album, The Way It Is, went triple platinum and peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 in 1986, led by the single of the same name.

It's likely that the song The Way It Is is familiar to you, because it's been sampled more than a halfdozen times by hip-hop artists since the 1990s; its themes of unemployment, discrimination and hard luck made it very accessible to audiences in the U.S. at the time. In fact, with music being as cyclical as it is, the song would likely resonate with many audiences today, 25 years later.

Hornsby is unquestionably gifted as a songwriter and an artist, but his real talent shines through when he's playing the piano. And as his dozens of full-length concert LPs will testify, there's something magical about watching Hornsby play.

In fact, his piano technique has been the subject of many interviews over the years. There's one important factor to keep in mind, however, to the chagrin of pianists the world over trying to emulate him: he has giant hands.

On the piano, each key is representative of a note, ascending up the keyboard from left to right. Every eighth key is an octave, a complete scale, and it is common for pianists to employ octaves in their music, stretching their hands to bridge the eight to 10 keys to achieve the chords they desire.

Hornsby, meanwhile, can span 14 keys to play what he calls "chords with balls" — chords with emphasis on resonant or dissonant tones due to the extra keys that he is able to reach and play. And its effect is unmistakably heard on recordings; there are arguably no other pianists in the world that have so distinct and recognizable a technique that it can be noticed instantly upon being heard. With Hornsby the connection is made instantly.

Perhaps the most relatable fact about Hornsby is that he's simply a music fan, an average person that is as drawn to and motivated by music as much as any of us. And he openly states this fact as his raison d'etre, his personal drive to grow and improve.

"Music is my life. I'm an avid pursuer of new music," he told Dominick Miserandino of The CelebrityCafe in August 2000. "If I made a record that illustrated the range of my taste, it would go from everything from modern classical, very dissonant, to the most simple old folk song ... I have to do what I like, and that includes a lot of complex harmony."

His love of music is what led him to move to Los Angeles to pursue session work and to join The Grateful Dead from 1990 to 1995, when frontman Jerry Garcia passed away. His love of music is what led him to find inspiration in the work of Keith Jarrett and Sam Cooke, and led him to spend his life and his career expanding his personal repertoire both musically and vocally.

And it's a love of music that Hornsby will forever advocate, a lesson for musicians around the world in motivation and determination.

"I saw Elton the other night in the Richmond Coliseum," he told Jim Newsom in 2002. "And I realized that almost exactly 30 years ago I saw Elton play at the Hampton Coliseum in the fall of '72. Thirty years later I'm going to see him, and he's dedicating songs to me."

Hornsby continues to make music and record to this day. His most recent project is SCKBSTD, a musical set to make its premiere in Virginia on January 18. For more information on this, visit sckbstrd.blogspot.com, a blog set up by Hornsby and the other producers of the show.

And for all the latest in music news, views and downloads, follow @FSU_Bobbyisms on Twitter or check out the Music Recommendations thread in our FSU social network. Thanks for reading the 40th edition of this column, I'm out of words.