CLARENCE BUCARO - 'TIL SPRING

From the very first moments of 'Til Spring (20/20, November 18, 2008), when Clarence Bucaro wraps a voice the texture of worn corduroy around the lines, "This city's cold/But something's on its way/I could feel it when I woke today," it's apparent that we're in the presence of a captivating new talent ready to take his place among the first rank of modern-day singer/songwriters. Produced by Tom Schick (Norah Jones, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright) and Bucaro over two intensive days in New York City, the album reveals a remarkably genuine and expressive young artist who seamlessly intertwines the introspective singer/songwriter tradition of Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and the acoustic Neil Young with the silky soul of Curtis Mayfield and pre-What's Goin' On Marvin Gaye. The New York Times compared Bucaro's sound to "late-1960s Van Morrison"; that, you'll recall, is Astral Weeks territory.

These 10 songs traverse the emotional gauntlet from despair to renewal, as the protagonist of this real-life tale is buffeted by the bitter final stages of one relationship and enflamed by the first tantalizing blush of the next in a song cycle laced through with hard-earned insight and emotional resonance. Written with poetic simplicity and sung with soulful understatement, 'Til Spring marks the arrival of a gifted artist who has found his own unique voice through a process of disappointment and self-doubt on the way to an abiding self-belief, the struggle bringing a vital – and highly relatable – dimension of psychological nuance to Bucaro's songs and vocals.

He cites two primary inspirations for the album: Wait Until Spring, Bandini, a 1938 novel by his favorite author, Jon Fante, and You Must Believe in Spring, recorded in 1977 by the great jazz pianist Bill Evans shortly after his former girlfriend's suicide. Both works accompanied him through some difficult times.

On the record, the artist is joined by an adept set of players and friends from far and wide: L.A.-based guitarist Kirk Fletcher, keyboardist Glenn Patscha of New Orleans' Ollabelle, and the New York rhythm section of drummer Konrad Meisner and bassist George Rush. They're augmented by Neal Casal, who splits his time between solo projects and Ryan Adams' lead guitar slot, plays and sings backing vocals on two tracks, while Clarence's longtime friend and musical cohort Anders Osborne plays guitar and sings backing vocals on another. As a unit, these tuned-in musicians manage to evoke The Band one moment and the Muscle Shoals crew the next, bringing another layer of timelessness to Bucaro's songs, which seem to exist out of time to begin with.

Bucaro is only 28, but the road that led to these shimmering songs was relatively long and twisting. The Cleveland native, who started playing guitar and piano at the age of eight, was surrounded by music from the start. His father is a classical buff who worked as a DJ at a country station, while his older brother, a guitar playing motorcyclist, not only served as an early role model but also turned him on to a number of what Clarence calls "life-changing records," including landmarks from all of the artists mentioned above. Though he knew from the start he wanted to make music and played in the requisite casual high school bands, Clarence didn't get serious about singing, playing
and writing until he headed to Columbus to study political science and natural resources at Ohio State. There, his extracurricular studies included immersion into the deep veins of American roots music, including Woody Guthrie and other early folk artists, Delta blues and New Orleans jazz.

Energized by his discoveries and hungry for experience, Clarence worked out a deal with his profs to extend his summer break to four months so that he could hike the Appalachian Trail by himself. Naturally he brought his acoustic, and just as naturally he wrote songs by the campfire and in his tent, a flashlight propped to illuminate his open notebook. This experience, combined with the wealth of musical inspiration he was assimilating led Bucaro to start "seriously writing" and demoing up the resulting material. On a whim, he sent packages to a handful of indie labels and was gratified when Portland, Oregon-based Burnside offered to release his demos on CD. The resulting Sweet Corn, juxtaposing originals with covers of folk and blues chestnuts, found him still working through his influences.

Bucaro continued his studies, all the while knowing full well what he wanted to do with his life. After graduation, he hit the folk club circuit and built enough of a buzz to get a record deal with Rounder. But he was deeply dissatisfied by the resulting Sense of Light, a realization that forced Bucaro to come to terms with the fact that he still had work to do in order to get to the core of his artistic identity. What followed was what he describes as "a long, difficult process of regrouping – the pivotal point where the real artist that I am began to come out."

After moving to New Orleans to soak up its rich culture and make music with Osborne, Bucaro found himself enmeshed in a relationship. The combination of new love and the enchanted city naturally opened the creative floodgates, and he let it all out, recording a dozen newly penned songs with Osborne in a single six-hour session. "I was really young, and everything was happening really fast," he explains. When the relationship flamed out, he headed west to find new direction and a new record deal, but instead lost direction altogether.

Eventually, Bucaro roused himself and made the move to New York, but that, too, proved to be tough going at first, as he endured an especially harsh winter living on what felt like the edge of civilization, holed up in a funky sublet deep in Manhattan's Lower East Side. These brutal, hope-starved months were among the lowest he'd ever experienced.

He took a job at a "doggie-daycare center" as a way to make ends meet and distract himself from his misery and – in a twist worthy of a movie script – fell in love with the owner of one of the dogs he was caring for. In the following months, Bucaro's black-and-white world exploded into Technicolor, and a new set of deeply romantic, life-embracing songs came pouring out. And soon thereafter, winter turned to spring.

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