Bruce Hornsby has long been an adventurous artist exploring almost every genre under the sun in his long, 16 album spanning career. After breaking into the charts in 1985 with his biggest hit “The Way It Is,” later sampled by Tupac Shakur, Hornsby continued expanding and shape shifting as an artist with his distinctive piano playing serving as the root.
Hornsby is currently on a solo tour following his summer tour with the band in support of his 25th Anniversary reissue of his 1998 double album Spirit Trail. He will make a stop in Houston for his sold out show at The Heights Theater but fans can still get their hands on the box set, due out October 27.
For a long time Hornsby and his band have taken a freewheeling approach to his live shows creating in the moment new versions of songs a la Grateful Dead, a band Hornsby toured with extensively in the ‘90s.
“Every night is really different and we are always changing it in the moment so it’s very spontaneous in that way and really rewarding musically because of that it’s not straight. This is going to be the solo tour in October and November so that’s also very free. I don’t have a set list, I take requests.”
“Every night is really different and we are always changing it in the moment so it’s very spontaneous in that way and really rewarding musically because of that it’s not straight.”
Free and loose as it is, Hornsby still has to find a way to represent his extensive musical catalog, make his fans happy, highlight Spirit Trail and keep himself entertained as well while not having the support of the rest of his band on this tour.
“I can do whatever I want so that’s probably the most freeing and the most difficult because my left hand is the band so I have to be very on it. The concentration level is so much higher solo than with the band because it’s all on me but I’ve done it for a long time and I feel fairly confident in my abilities but we will see.”
Despite being a veteran performer because Hornsby goes out of his way to play different songs each night and give his fans a new show town after town, the pressure of solo shows is high. “I’m walking tightropes quite often and sometimes I fall and there’s no net. You’ll hear it if I screw up, whereas it can be a little blurry with the band in a good way when you’re screwing up.”
Even though this tour is in support of the Spirit Trail reissue, no one should expect Hornsby to limit his song selections to that album as he intends to “cover a lot of bases” in his performance bringing in tracks from each era of his career with Hornsby describing his set list as “For that crowd of real long-time fans who have followed me through this stylistically disparate journey.”
Spirit Trail The 25th Anniversary Edition gives fans some glimpse into how Hornsby evolves his sound with different versions of tracks showing the progression and changes he can play around with without losing the central strength of the tracks.
The Anniversary edition will contain the original album remastered by Bob Ludwig a “venerable institution in mastering in the popular music world” as rightfully described by Hornsby. Ludwig has in fact mastered some of history’s most important artists ranging from Jimi Hendrix, Queen and Led Zeppelin to name a few.
Then there is also Live Trail, a collection of live versions of songs from the album captured throughout the years. “We don’t stand pat on the record versions so we will expand upon those and in some cases as anyone would hear from listening to this Live Trail, some songs have really developed in a great way through the years.”
Hornsby cites “Funhouse” as a song that has shifted from the easy Grateful Deadesque groove on the original album to becoming a full blown “big song.” The collection also houses four previously unreleased tracks that were intended to be on Spirit Trails follow up including the new breezy single “Living In The Sunshine.”
The collection will be available on CD as well as vinyl and comes with a booklet with expanded liner notes and a photo collection by Danny Clinch. Of his many albums, Hornby honed in on Spirit Trail for a variety of reasons but mainly because of how it resonated with his hardcore fans.
The original Spirit Trail showed Hornby diving deeper into his piano playing and songwriting making the songs on the album, though maybe not as known to the casual listener, resistant to the hands of time.
His sample of the famous Grateful Dead lick in “Chinacat Sunflower” lives on in a new life with his “Sunflower Cat.” In a deeper way, the album has songs that touch on Southern race issues and references like “Sneaking Up On Boo Radley” with themes that hold up to this day.
“I’ve been writing about the race issue for years, from the very beginning. There are three or four songs that deal with intolerance, bigotry and prejudice on this record. It’s sad to say that those topics are still extremely timely and so I wish it wasn’t so but it remains topical.”
Bruce Hornsby will perform on Wednesday, October 25 at The Heights Theater, 339 W 19th. Doors open at 7 p.m, sold out. Spirit Trail The 25th Anniversary Edition will be available on Friday, October 27.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
