Michael Fracasso

Michael Fracasso who moved there in 1990. His Saint Monday (Little Fuji) is a badass rock, folk and country statement that combines literate compositions, hellfire attitude, sterling musicianship and some unforgettable melodies. Funny thing, that town’s so rich in talent, he’s more the norm there than the exception. But in listening over and over to Saint Monday, one gets the feeling he’s learned his lessons well. From a Nick Lowe, Marshall Crenshaw, Roy Orbison base, Fracasso juxtaposes humor and anger with verve and resolve. He has the balls to cover John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” with the proper venom yet the smarts not to sing John’s line “if you want to be a hero, well just follow me.” And he’ll even look for love in his neighbor’s trees when it comes to the object of his affection, “Eloise.” In song after song, Fracasso’s high ethereal tenor cracks in the all right places.
- Mike Greenblatt

Every year there are left-of-center albums that deserve to be on everyone’s “best of” year-end lists. This year, two records blew me away right out of the sleeve: Michael Fracasso’s “Saint Monday” and Tom Morello/The Nightwatchman’s “World Wide Rebel Songs.”

They are as brilliant as they are, perhaps, unlikely.

Fracasso’s alliance with novelist-turned-record producer Jim Lewis delivered an album that rocks. In a masterstroke, Lewis amps up the Austin singer-songwriter’s Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan stylings with raw, sometimes ambient, garage rock.

“Saint Monday” opens with “While the Night Is Young,” awash in R.E.M. and U2-worthy tremolo guitars and proclamations born to run.

The move allows Fracasso to frolic and gallop like Buddy Holly and Nick Lowe on tracks like “Eloise” and “Little Lover” or get electronically moody on John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” (serendipity put me in the KUT studio with Dave Marsh at South By Southwest when he debuted the track).

Absolutely gorgeous is the title track and “Broken Souvenirs,” which will break your heart. But for all the reinvention and reinvigoration, Fracasso’s voice and soul is front and center. It was always there, but this is stunning.

For his part, Morello’s “World Wide Rebel Songs” (New West Records) is high-noon music that is rarely made anymore – or at least is rarely heard – and it’s no wonder he is a hero for the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Rolling Stone rightly praised the record.

The former Rage Against the Machine guitarist comes out swinging with politics on his sleeve, mercy in his heart and trouble on his mind on a 12-song folk-rock collection that can only be described as a tour de force. It’s the kind of album that’ll drop a musician to his or her knees and, if they’re honest, ask, “Why can’t I make a record like this?” or “Why is he so damn good?”

With his half-spoken voice, Morello recalls Leonard Cohen and Jakob Dylan and delivers a moving, haunting call to arms worthy of the lineage of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and the Clash at those giants’ scathing best.

Harmonica sounds the populist clarion on the brilliant one-two opener “Black Spartacus Heart Attack Machine” (underpinned by the chord sequence of Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”) and “The Dogs of Tijuana,” a dusty Quentin Tarantino movie set to music.

Morello’s Freedom Fighter Orchestra — with special guest Ben Harper on “Save the Hammer for the Man” – rocks with the abandon (and courage) of another time.

Timelessness is perfectly achieved with “Speak and Make Lightning” and “Stray Bullets” (written with Ryan Harvey).

Somewhere in this universe Joe Strummer is smiling. Maybe because neither of these records is for the VMA crowd. Maybe because he loved rock ‘n’ roll soul. For me, they were simply two of the absolute best of 2011.
- San Antonio Express News 12/22/11

Every year there are left-of-center albums that deserve to be on everyone’s “best of” year-end lists. This year, two records blew me away right out of the sleeve: Michael Fracasso’s “Saint Monday” and Tom Morello/The Nightwatchman’s “World Wide Rebel Songs.”

They are as brilliant as they are, perhaps, unlikely.

Fracasso’s alliance with novelist-turned-record producer Jim Lewis delivered an album that rocks. In a masterstroke, Lewis amps up the Austin singer-songwriter’s Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan stylings with raw, sometimes ambient, garage rock.

“Saint Monday” opens with “While the Night Is Young,” awash in R.E.M. and U2-worthy tremolo guitars and proclamations born to run.

The move allows Fracasso to frolic and gallop like Buddy Holly and Nick Lowe on tracks like “Eloise” and “Little Lover” or get electronically moody on John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” (serendipity put me in the KUT studio with Dave Marsh at South By Southwest when he debuted the track).

Absolutely gorgeous is the title track and “Broken Souvenirs,” which will break your heart. But for all the reinvention and reinvigoration, Fracasso’s voice and soul is front and center. It was always there, but this is stunning.

For his part, Morello’s “World Wide Rebel Songs” (New West Records) is high-noon music that is rarely made anymore – or at least is rarely heard – and it’s no wonder he is a hero for the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Rolling Stone rightly praised the record.

The former Rage Against the Machine guitarist comes out swinging with politics on his sleeve, mercy in his heart and trouble on his mind on a 12-song folk-rock collection that can only be described as a tour de force. It’s the kind of album that’ll drop a musician to his or her knees and, if they’re honest, ask, “Why can’t I make a record like this?” or “Why is he so damn good?”

With his half-spoken voice, Morello recalls Leonard Cohen and Jakob Dylan and delivers a moving, haunting call to arms worthy of the lineage of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and the Clash at those giants’ scathing best.

Harmonica sounds the populist clarion on the brilliant one-two opener “Black Spartacus Heart Attack Machine” (underpinned by the chord sequence of Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”) and “The Dogs of Tijuana,” a dusty Quentin Tarantino movie set to music.

Morello’s Freedom Fighter Orchestra — with special guest Ben Harper on “Save the Hammer for the Man” – rocks with the abandon (and courage) of another time.

Timelessness is perfectly achieved with “Speak and Make Lightning” and “Stray Bullets” (written with Ryan Harvey).

Somewhere in this universe Joe Strummer is smiling. Maybe because neither of these records is for the VMA crowd. Maybe because he loved rock ‘n’ roll soul. For me, they were simply two of the absolute best of 2011.
- San Antonio Express News

Michael Fracasso
Saint Monday
(independent)

It would seem that Michael Fracasso has all the environmental input needed to ensure success. Carving out his career in New York’s thriving folk scene, he eventually relocated to Austin Texas, a place that seemed tailor made for his savvy songwriting skills and high lonesome style. His latest, Saint Monday, demonstrates how well he’s merged the influence of those two locales, and yet, the result is a compelling set of songs that defies the musical norms of each. Unlike many of his fellow Austin artists, Fracasso often propels his melodies at a kinetic pace that keeps the propulsion but boosts the sentiment in the process. “ADA, OK” boasts the brooding rumination of a terrific ballad that’s been boosted by its charging tempo. Likewise, his skittish remake of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” adds a veracity that eluded the original. In fact, “Gypsy Moth,” with its loping rhythm, may well be the best song Paul Simon has yet to write. Still, he can be tender; the tongue-in-cheek desire of “Another Million” and the slow shuffle induced in the title track demonstrate that Fracasso’s music is ultimately fueled by its earnest emotion.
- No Depression

Michael Fracasso—Saint Monday: I love this album! You may have heard some tracks on KUT—with guests including Patty Griffin, Kevin Russell, Jimmy Smith and long time collaborators George Reiff and Mark Patterson on bass and drums. This album marks an experimental path for Fracasso. He calls in his friend and novelist Jim Lewis to produce and play the record. Strongest tracks are, “While The Night Is Young—“ anthem/life soundtrack vibe that is catchy and upbeat. “Elizabeth Lee,” with a hard hitting back beat and a Dylan-esque vocal beginning that picks up the pace and adds in some instrumentation further along that creates a crossroads of Americana with some experimental rock and roll all the while with the back beat churning along. “Saint Monday,” is a sweet, soulful song that emits loneliness without going sappy on the listener. The entirety of this album is a creative and less conventional celebration of what music is by a true, weathered musician.

5.5 McRiprock’s - Austin Daze

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=12feac8e25cdaa2e&mt=application/pdf&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3D658843b11a%26view%3Datt%26th%3D12feac8e25cdaa2e%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26zw&sig=AHIEtbSl7oP6M9URN67NkEfqj8p_sYZP_g - Maverick - June 2011

. music
Texas Platters
BY JIM CALIGIURI, FRI., APRIL 8, 2011
Michael Fracasso
Saint Monday (Little Fuji)
He's certainly not prolific. Saint Monday is only Michael Fracasso's third studio effort since 1998, but the payoff plays as passionately and convincingly as he does. Offering a change of pace for the local songcrafter, novelist Jim Lewis as co-producer, auxiliary guitarist, and assistant songwriter makes for a harder-hitting sound, one that's definitely louder, but also one that forces its local singer-songwriter into a space where his vocals are as dynamic as their superb musical contextualization. Churning murder ballad "Elizabeth Lee" and the starkly muted, piano-only "Another Million" find Fracasso stretching but never breaking, his literary vision intact. A revival of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero," given a clattering reading, proves the song's continuing relevance 40 years on. Though he makes new music infrequently, Fracasso remains one of Austin' most distinctive voices. - Austin Chronicle

They are the Austin folk music scene's odd couple. And I don't mean Felix and Oscar.
When singer-songwriter Michael Fracasso and novelist Jim Lewis joined forces, reinvention and reinvigoration weren't a given — but it was the mandate.
“Most of the credit goes to Jim,” said Fracasso, 58. “He saw me kinda just languishing. I just didn't know what I was going to do next. He kept saying I just hear you way different than you've ever done.”
On his latest record, an electrifying adventure called “Saint Monday,” Fracasso plays Dylan to first-time producer Lewis' Daniel Lanois dreams.
That's evident from the opening song. “While the Night Is Young” is awash in R.E.M. and U2-worthy tremolo guitars and proclamations born to run. The beat doesn't let up on joyous revelations “Eloise,” “Little Lover” or John Lennon's “Working Class Hero,” rendered into a long-lost David Essex track circa 1973.
The attitude: Hey kids, rock 'n' roll. Rock on.
What began as a casual friendship at one of Fracasso's famous Italian fish stew Christmas Eve gatherings nearly two decades ago has developed into an unlikely, sometimes contentious, often brilliant musical partnership.
“People are going to assume my contribution was to the lyrics, but I had more effect on the music,” said Lewis, author of “The King Is Dead,” ‘Why the Tree Loves the Ax” and “Sister.”
Lewis added minimalist electric guitar and piano on the project.
“I wanted to bring out more aggression in Michael, which I think has always been there,” he said.
That was partially achieved by recording and engineering the album themselves. They learned the technology on the fly.
“This is the most rocking and raw album I've ever made,” said Fracasso, who is known for his quieter style, reminiscent of Leonard Cohen.
He tapped into rare garage band moments of his youth in his native New York, when he would take stabs at the Animals' “House of the Rising Sun” and the Nightcrawlers' “Little Black Egg.”
“I always wanted to be in a band, but frankly I wasn't good enough as a musician,” Fracasso said.
By the late '70s in New York he was, and Fracasso was fronting bands and playing his music “totally rocked up.”
“It was fun, you know,” he said.
But it'd been 30 years since Fracasso had shown that cocky swagger.
“Jim was a little more adamant about what he was looking for, and less reverential about what I was as a ‘folk singer,'” Fracasso said. “Basically, he eliminated every one of my influences. That's what his goal was, I think. I'm sure there will be some fans that will not like this.”
Both Fracasso and Lewis share New York roots and strong personalities. Lewis saw his role as one of challenging the artist. He co-wrote three songs, but his biggest role was as editor and advocate.
“No one ever tried to re-write my songs before,” said Fracasso, a bit incredulously.
“I had 15, 16 songs, and he kept rejecting them. I got mad at him. He makes it sound like it was easy, but on my end we fought. At the beginning I got really, really mad at his total certainty. It was galling to me. How dare this guy who's never produced anyone before talk to me (like that).”
Lewis encouraged Fracasso to go through old lyric books and journals for inspiration. Still, they often clashed.
“There is certainly an aura around Michael. People respect him so much that they don't want to interfere,” Lewis said.
“I'm not afraid to say to him, ‘You can't sing that.' It wasn't my intention to play on the record. It's more like I was the football coach, ‘Give me 10 more laps.'”
Out of such skirmishes came the utterly gorgeous title track.
“It definitely refreshed my batteries,” Fracasso said. “I forgot how much I enjoyed playing with a band. It just made me so happy.”


Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/article/Folk-singer-throws-out-his-playbook-1293870.php#ixzz1LFwUUEgt - San Antonio Express News

I’ve never been one to decline an opportunity just because I don’t know what it is or how it’s done. So when a close friend, Michael Fracasso, a singer-songwriter based in Austin, asked me to produce his seventh album, I didn’t think twice. I knew him well, I loved his work and I was frustrated by the fact that he’s famous mostly for his inexplicable lack of fame.

Much of Austin feels this way, and half of the city’s musical elite have donated their time to help correct it. Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams and Kelly Willis have sung with him, and Charlie Sexton and Ian McLagan have played with him, along with a host of stunningly good guitarists, bass players and drummers.

“Someday Michael’s going to get the attention he deserves,” one of them once said to me. “I just want to be there when it happens.”

I did, too.

Never mind that I’m not a producer and have never been in a studio. I’m a novelist, and it’s been a long time since I’ve thought of myself as anything else. But I cut my teeth in a world where everyone did everything: New York in the late 1970s and early ’80s, when painters made movies, photographers played in bands, musicians acted. In time, we all shook out into our natural calling, but I still believe what I believed then: that sensibility counts for more than technical prowess, that art is a form of gang war, that friends help friends however they can.

I know something about music, and I can play the guitar. So when Fracasso asked, I said yes.

Then I started phoning the musicians I know. “So,” I said, “what does a producer do, exactly?” They all replied with the same vague advice: “Well, it depends ...”

I don’t think there’s a comparable role in any other art. It’s like directing a movie, except that you’re working for the performer rather than vice versa. It’s like being a book editor, except that you’re there throughout the creation of the thing rather than coming in at the end. It’s like being a basketball coach, inasmuch as your job is to keep track of the larger picture and to persuade your players — to cajole, exhort, bully or inspire them — to do things that you’re quite incapable of doing yourself.

That last aspect took some getting used to. Writing is a profoundly solitary and autonomous activity. I’ve spent my adult life without having a boss, and I’ve never been one. But there I was, standing in a room with a group of musicians who expected me to tell them what to do. There were a few times when I came up empty and said so, and many more times when I pretended to be more confident than I really was, because any path is better than none at all.

Mostly, I was there to provide a certain energy, though it’s difficult to describe or explain (I like horrible noise, I like intense harmony, I like to be surprised by both). That feel for things was meant to feed Fracasso’s, and it was expressed in an endless series of decisions, large and small: what instruments to use, what parts to play, which microphone, which take, how a line should be phrased, how much reverb do we need here, and maybe we should cut that verse, and maybe play this faster, or slower, or backward or not at all.

Over time we made a lot of mistakes, which was not surprising, and we used a lot of them, which was. Sounds emerged magically from the mix; to this day, I don’t know where they all came from.

It wasn’t all a perfect joy; there were long, frustrating nights, endless arguments, hours of effort that led to nothing. But there were several moments of uncanny pleasure, among them, an afternoon when Fracasso showed up at the studio with a new song, one we had worked on together, sometimes factiously — “Saint Monday” it was called, and we named the whole album for it.

We taught it to the band and started to rehearse it for the first time. There were four of us, sitting in different rooms, wearing headphones; I was plunking at a piano (I don’t actually know how to play one), and suddenly the song simply emerged, like an apparition. We gathered it up and played it through, just once, and I knew immediately that it was done, it was gorgeous, and we could only make it worse by trying again. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a more perfect experience.

We made it up as we went along, and it’s a sign of how loose the whole thing was that Fracasso ended up listed as co-producer, and I ended up listed as co-writer of three of the songs and guitarist on most of them.

“Saint Monday” will officially be released Tuesday, though it’s already available in stores, and on iTunes and Amazon. Early reviews have ranged from high to ecstatic praise. (That’s one gratifying thing about being a producer: I can promote the work shamelessly, because it’s not really mine.) I’ve joined Fracasso’s live band, and we’ve just started talking about recording again.

So what did I learn about producing a record? That it’s more fun than writing — but then, so is everything else. And what does a producer do, exactly? Well, it depends.

Jim Lewis is the author of three novels, most recently “The King is Dead.”
- The New York Times

Michael Fracasso releases CD of his career with 'Saint Monday'
by MICHAEL CORCORAN READ LATER
By Michael Corcoran
Austin singer-songwriter Michael Fracasso wanted someone to rattle his cage for his eighth album, so he asked his friend, frequent New York Times contributor Jim Lewis, to co-produce. "He always has interesting ideas about music," says Fracasso.

One problem: Lewis had never produced a record and had barely stepped inside a studio. The New York native, whose third novel, "The King Is Dead," was published by Knopf in 2003, has lived in Austin off and on for about 25 years and learned to play the guitar. He's been going to Fracasso shows since the early '90s, when the singer-songwriter moved from New York to Austin. Lewis said he had a Fracasso album in his mind that had yet to be made.

"It took me a while to trust him as a producer, just as it took him a while to trust me as an engineer," Fracasso says.

As soon as it was decided that Lewis would co-produce the record with Fracasso, the novice boned up. "Jim went out and bought every book on production he could find," says Fracasso. "He called up producers and asked them what they did, and, of course, no one had an answer."

Lewis wanted Fracasso to make a rock record, which Fracasso wasn't so sure about. "I thought, `Well, I have a few fans; now I'm not going to have any,'" Fracasso said with a laugh.

But "Saint Monday" is the album of Fracasso's career. The sweet-voiced songwriter had explored the tender side of the Everly Brothers in his earlier work, but Lewis was thinking more Rockpile on such tunes as "Eloise" and "Ada, OK" and added an intriguing world beat aspect to "Gypsy Moth." Fracasso's voice is up for the more forceful approach, plus he retains his sense of concise pop on "Broken Souvenirs," one of three co-writes with Lewis.

If anything, Lewis approached the project with the mind of an editor. "I had about 15 songs, but Jim kept eighty-sixing them," Fracasso said. After a couple months in Fracasso's home studio, he had only six songs recorded and no new material in the works. "One afternoon, Jim called and said `How about Saint Monday?' And I said, `What?'" Lewis said he liked "Saint Monday" as a song title.

When Fracasso was going through his old journals and notebooks looking for a spark, he found the words that open "Saint Monday." He and Lewis collaborated on the rest of the lyrics by email . But Fracasso struggled to get the right vocal. "One time I played it wrong and sang it differently, and at that point I knew I had found the song."

Even more importantly, Fracasso said, "Jim and I had found our footing."

Earlier in the production, Lewis would get under Fracasso's skin by using other artists as reference points. "Not knowing the language of the studio, he'd say, `That sounds like a Carpenters song' or `That's too Leonard Cohen,'" Fracasso says. But the singer followed through on Lewis' instincts.

On "Another Million," the producer kept Fracasso at the vocal mike for take after take. "Right after I did the worst vocals I've ever done, Jim goes, `That's it, that's the take' and I said, `You've gotta be kidding me.' But Jim was right. That was the take."

Fracasso worried how "Ada, OK" guest singer Patty Griffin would handle being produced by a studio virgin. "Jim made her do several takes until he got the vocal he was happy with," Fracasso says. "Patty was cool with that. I think Jim's dedication just kind of rubbed off on everybody."

It's every fan's dream, to go into the studio with a favorite artist and make them record the album you want to hear. But what's next?

"It's funny," Fracasso says. "At one point Jim said, `That's it. I can't work on this any more,' and he went home. But I kept getting messages from him, ideas about songs, ideas about the sound. After we finally finished the record, I thought we'd kind of sit back and see what happens. But I just got a call from Jim, asking if I wanted to do some more recording. And I said, `Heck, yeah.'"

mcorcoran@statesman.com; 445-3652

'Saint Monday' CD release

Michael Fracasso celebrates the release of his new CD at 9 p.m. April 26 at Justine's, 4710 E. Fifth St. $12. www.michaelfracasso.com .
- Austin American-Statesman

For almost the entire history of this here magazine, Ohio-born Fracasso, who
moved to Austin from NYC in 1990, and was promptly voted Best New Artist in
my Music City Texas ‘Insiders’ poll, has ranked among the best songwriters in a town
that has no shortage of great songwriters, on top of which, he’s a far better singer than
most songwriters, However, while a perennial favorite with a small army of music
writers and music lovers, he’s never really broken out of Austin. This is the kind of
thing that’ll drive you nuts if you think about it too much, but thankfully Fracasso
keeps making records and never fails to deliver. On his seventh, he gives full rein to
his rock & roll and pop sensibilities, though using them to frame songs a good deal
more complex than the norm, opening with the edgy, electric guitar-driven While
The Night Is Young, followed by Eloise with its Bobby Fuller sound. They’re followed
by such outstanding songs as Little Lover, the brooding murder ballad Elizabeth
Lee and the title track, a ballad which showcases Fracasso’s marvellous vocals, often
compared to Roy Orbison’s (Saint Monday, incidentally, refers to a tradition of not
showing up for work on Mondays), Then comes the stunning Ada, OK, on which
Fracasso is joined by Patti Griffin in a jangly look back at a home with only bad
memories. On the only cover, John Lennon’s Working Class Hero, Kevin Russell
of The Gourds plays mandolin. The album closes with the delicate Another Million,
on which Fracasso accompanies himself on piano, “All I want is another million of
whatever made you smile.” If only J Hulett Jones hadn’t committed several Deadly
Sins in the artwork, this would be very close to perfect.
JC
F - 3rd Coast Music

ALBUM REVIEW: Michael Fracasso, Saint Monday, Little Fuji Records

By Robbie Woliver

Michael Fracasso has a wonderful backstory. He grew up in an Ohio steel-mill town to Italian immigrant parents. His music background began with listening to AM radio as a kid, then attending country music jamborees, and eventually, after college, he became a part of the influential Greenwich Village singer-songwriter circle that included the likes of The Roches, Suzanne Vega, Steve Forbert and the very talented singer-songwriter Mark Johnson, with whom Fracasso now occasionally performs as The Pomus Brothers. Fracasso eventually moved to Austin, Texas, where he found the perfect home for his Americana-tinged music.

I have been familiar with Fracasso’s music since those days at Folk City in the Village, and he has always been one of my favorites. I was thrilled to get a copy of his new recording, Saint Monday, his seventh recording; it’s been a while in the works, and the result, I’m pleased to report is splendid. It will be released April 5.

Fracasso has so much going for him—an ethereal, gorgeous vocal gift and a knack for strong songwriting, with pervasive appeal.

The opener, “While The Night Is Young,” kicks the album off with a jittery, driving, rockabilly-influenced gem that easily showcases the raw side of Fracasso’s smooth, silky tenor. As with all the songs, the production and musicianship is impeccable—part U2/part Carl Perkins. He’s backed by Kevin Russell and Jimmy Smith of The Gourds, and his longtime bassist George Reiff and drummer Mark Patterson. Only an expert, and confident, craftsman would dare to write a line like this, and have it sound so brilliant “I’m sending home the army, no battle to be won, I found peace, love and all that stuff, while the night is young.” Hints of Leonard Cohen, eh?

“Eloise Eloise,” is Buddy Holly-ish pop perfection, danceable and sing-along flawlessness. Co-written with novelist Jim Lewis, even the lyrics celebrate the song’s musicality: “Eloise Eloise, the bass drum and piano keys, are pounding out a melody, aching for your love.”

“Little Lover “ is an outstanding song that straddles the worlds of both Dwight Yoakum and the British invasion. This treasure is packed with great lines like “They talk about her at the diner, like she’s something good to eat, just like sugar in my coffee, little lover tastes so sweet.” Fracasso easily slips into the roll of both Everly Brother on this one, and the song glides away toward perfection. “Little Lover” like so many of these tracks, is the height of songcrafting.

The gritty, dark “Elizabeth Lee,” is stunning. Like a taut rubber band, it stretches the perception of what Fracasso can do. With its Lucinda Williams swampy tone, this song about infidelity and murder will send a chill up your spine. “I had my foot to the floor, I had my head in a fog, there was Elizabeth Lee, I ran her down like a dog.” The full circleness of the song is simply genius—the done-wrong guy who works “down at the Pitttsburgh Steel” who “turn[s] a river of fire, into an automobile,” ends up running his cheating lover in a Coup de Ville—“the only thing in this world, that could give me a thrill.” You are in that steel mill; you are in that car. Stepping out of the box musically, lyrically and vocally, “Elizabeth Lee” is dazzling.


“Saint Monday” is a shimmery, dreamy ballad co-written with Lewis, searching for redemption. “This slattern hotel, she once was a grand one, in one hand there's a bottle, in the other there's a handgun.”

Fracasso’s sweet, yet powerful vocals and memorable melodies ascend to the heavens. The thing about music is when its perfect, every note, subtle nuance and syllable, fit perfectly, and that’s Fracasso’s expertise.

“Ada, OK” is about a home gone bad—the polar opposite of Miranda Lambert’s predictable and saccharine-in-comparison “The House That Love Built.” Unlike Miranda, there are no sweet memories here: “In this old house the doors won't open, the window's cracked, the screens are broken, believe you me it ain't worth hoping, in a house where love's gone bad. “

Sung with the fantastic Patty Griffin, this is an obvious country hit. Fracasso is comfortable in so many genres, without being a dilettante. His music is universal in a way that actually turns various genres into his style. Genre-busting—instead of Americana, country, folk, rock, blues—it’s…Michael Fracasso.

You want to hear a song about love and loss, try the heartfelt “Broken Souvenirs,” which opens with “Dear Valentine, the days are cold and dreary.” “Gypsy Moth,” is one of my favorites on this stellar recording, thanks to a jazzy, Beatnik-y bass and Byrds-worthy jangly guitar-driven groove, and, of course, that soaring vocal singing lines like “She gave me three wishes and now I still have two, I said, Hey now, darling, all I really want is you.”

“Another Million” is a fragile entreaty to a lost love, an elegy so soft and wishful; “All I want is another million of whatever made you smile.”

Fracasso’s one cover is John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero,” and it gets a dub reggae workover that’s chillingly good.

This is the essence of what songwriting, singing and music, in general, should be. Fracasso is an extraordinary rock songwriter, and his sublime vocals are beyond compare. If there were feng shui in music, Saint Monday would be order achieved. Perfection. This is an artist and a recording that simply cannot be ignored.

- WWW.examiner.com National

HOME: APRIL 23, 2004: MUSIC

Working-Class Hero

In search of Michael Fracasso, his audience, and his niche
BY DAVE MARSH



Photo By Traci Goudie

Michael Fracasso's SXSW 04 showcase took place 1am Friday morning at the Lounge, West Fourth Street, which is not really a club, more a wine bar with a stage tucked in the corner. A small stage, barely big enough for Fracasso and his three bandmates to turn around.

A small crowd, too. These are hardcore fans, almost every one of whom has seen Fracasso numerous times. Even for them, such a weird place, at such an inconvenient hour, makes the experience a little awkward. If it fazes the performer, he doesn't show it. In fact, he gives the same kind of intense performance he always gives. The only kind he knows how to give.

Nobody knows quite what to expect. Even though Fracasso has a new album on Austin's Texas Music Group, A Pocketful of Rain, there's no guarantee he'll play those songs. He might sing anything. He might come off as a particularly insightful singer-songwriter; he might make rock & roll noise. Someone once said, "He's like Buddy Holly if he went to college."

He plays many new songs, but the evening's surprise is the emphasis on guitar interplay between Fracasso and Mac McNabb. It's pure music-making, on the spot, and it's quietly fierce. Not jam band stuff: There's nothing hit-or-miss about how Fracasso makes music. But it's still not the kind of singer-songwriter stuff with which he's most strongly identified.

If he's identified at all.

Fracasso has spent 15 years in Austin, and he's worked with some of its icons. Charlie Sexton has been a band member and produced several Fracasso albums. Patty Griffin, who's all over Pocket, regularly sings duets with Fracasso. Alongside Alejandro Escovedo and a classroom of local third-graders, he wrote the "The Big 1-0." He's an irregular part of the Woody Guthrie road show Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway, with Jimmy LaFave and Eliza Gilkyson, among others. After all that, Michael Fracasso remains Austin's best kept musical secret.

No one can quite explain why he's a secret. Fracasso can do everything a fine musician needs to do. He writes strongly melodic songs with lyrics that offer narrative, characterization, and aphorisms. He plays mean guitar. He can carry a solo show fine, and he's a first-rate bandleader. He's best heard with a group, although that's not a universal opinion.

Most of all, Michael Fracasso has an extraordinary voice, a bright, high tenor that can drive a song or float through it, well suited to material indebted to Sixties beat music or to country blues, as well as the folk material he occasionally includes in his sets. (He does a great "John Hardy," and a stunning "1913 Massacre.") His singing routinely elicits comparisons to Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly, though Fracasso himself talks about the day, back when he lived in New York, that he heard Gene Pitney sing "Only Love Can Break a Heart."

"I thought that's how I'd like to sound," he smiles.

These are reference points only, though. Fracasso resembles other great singers because, like them, his voice and the way he uses it is singular. He's compelling because he sounds so much like himself. There's no flash to what he does, nothing like Orbison's "operatic" expropriations from norteño, none of Pitney's swoops and crescendos. Like them, Fracasso doesn't cheat his way up to high notes, and when he finds, as he frequently does, a certain inflection, he can break your heart or stir your soul on the beat. When he's rocking, he sometimes inserts a quick, Holly-like hiccup, but he doesn't really rant like Buddy.

You could call what he does sweet. Michael Solomon, who manages John Mayer, says that thinking about Fracasso, "The word angel always comes to mind," but it's not that simple either. His blues numbers don't snarl, but they have real bite, which is appropriate since there's much more bite than snarl in the country styles on which his blues are based. His lyrics take care of the snarl.

Always, there's a sense of nuance, especially in the phrasings, and in the ways he inserts quavers and slides. It makes sense for a singer this good to turn to songs like the Temptations' "Just My Imagination" or Ellington's "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me." Because he can. Frankly, most singer-songwriters can't, because they're pretty much all writer.

"That's probably why other musicians get me," reasons Fracasso, "because they understand music, so they find it more intriguing than people who are passively listening."

He's not interested in a great many things, all of them things that get in the way of expressing his vision. Asked whether he does much co-writing, he responds, without a trace of sarcasm, "I'm really not that interested in sitting around trying to find rhyming words."

Fracasso, a small, modest, soft-spoken man, lives with utter assurance about what he should and shouldn't do in music. He isn't unerring; he didn't see the point in putting out the 2-CD Retrospective, one disc live, the other gathering songs from his previous five albums, that TMG released alongside A Pocketful of Rain. But that's the music business, not music.

"Michael continues because the music is who he is," says his friend Greg Johnson, who runs the Blue Door club in Oklahoma City. "It's not about some brass ring down the line."

Fracasso is so naturally musical it seems impossible music people don't get him right away. He was ready to go the minute he hit Austin in 1990. Heinz Geissler, who runs TMG, remembers one Monday night open mic that Jimmy LaFave and Betty Elders used to run for Sixth Street's dearly departed Chicago House, which Geissler describes as "the B room" for singer-songwriters at that time.

"It was a typical Austin open mic," recounts Geissler. "Usually whoever showed up there wasn't all that good. But suddenly, there's that voice. Everybody was like, 'This guy is good!'"



Johnson, who was living in Austin at the time, remembers the buzz: "You should see this guy with this tiny guitar who sings like Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and Gene Pitney all rolled into one."

Geissler, then running Watermelon Records, tried to put together a deal for the cassette Fracasso already had made, Love and Trust. The album eventually came out on onetime San Marcos-based indie label Deja Disc, the songs and performances striking in their intensity and focus. The approach is folk-country. When I Lived in the Wild, his second album, he describes as folk-rock. World in a Drop of Water, his third LP and the first he made with Sexton, adds a pop edge and bigger beats.

He and Sexton also cut an unreleased album, Blue Heaven, which is quieter. Wild and World both came out on Bohemia Beat, an affiliation Fracasso shared with LaFave. The label had Rounder as its distributor, which was terrific, and no real staff, which was worse than unfortunate. But this is less a solution to the Michael Fracasso mystery than it is an element of it.

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When I Lived in the Wild
It took more than a decade for him to hook up with Geissler, and that's typical of the Fracasso time frame. Then again, before Fracasso moved to Austin, he'd seen the city once – from the window of a passing car. He met his wife, Paula, that May; they married the following August. So it isn't that he's slow – his music never drags the way so much neo-folkie stuff does – it's that his pace is as individual as everything else about him.

He didn't commit to a music career 'til he was halfway through a master's program in environmental science at Washington State University (thus When I Lived in the Wild). He moved to Manhattan in 1978 and spent the Eighties trying on musical approaches, not particularly fitting into any of the music scenes there. Once he figured out his nearest musical kin made their base in Texas, he packed up his Volkswagen and drove to Austin, where he didn't particularly know anyone and had nothing arranged with strangers, either. He obviously fell in with good company. This makes Fracasso sound like a loner, but he's really just private.

"He doesn't want to be famous," says his wife, Paula. "He wants the songs to be famous."

He came from a close family, his parents Italian immigrants who landed in Steubenville, Ohio, hometown of Dean Martin and Jimmy the Greek, where his father found work in the steel mills. His folks spoke Italian at home. Michael had two sisters, no brothers.

In high school, his musical talent showed up, but only intermittently. He mainly remembers one talent show, where he filled in at the behest of a nun. He got a standing ovation. He was writing songs all the time and performing at little coffeehouses in the area. If singer-songwriter was his identity, nobody knew it.

At the end of high school, he took a job in the steel mill to pay for college. He sang at Ohio State, but Columbus is a football town. Washington State is in Pullman, on terrain so "totally stark and beautiful it was like looking out over the ocean." He slipped away when he could to sing in Seattle. He was living out his parents expectations, not his own. When he was 26, he finally told his parents he was leaving school to be a musician.

"The day I told them I was leaving and going to New York City was the first day I felt they honored who I really was," he recalls.

He loved New York, where he put together his first band, in which he played his first electric guitar, then in a series of "concept bands." One was called Spaghetti Western. He played the usual run of places: Kenny's Castaways, where the band had to buy tickets and sell them to friends (or eat the loss); CBGB's; holes in the wall. But he saw himself mainly as a songwriter who performed, and the city's singer-songwriters struck him as hopeless.

"It wasn't really about the music too much," he says, referring to songwriters who view music as "just something to hang words on."

"I don't think anyone heard drums in their songs – or cared," he adds.

He cared desperately. One device he still uses at solo shows is stomping his feet. He's like the John Lee Hooker of the Cactus Cafe. He's tried just about every popular music style.

"I liked all of 'em," he shrugs. "But I didn't necessarily fit into one of them completely. When I moved to Austin, the same was true."

Now we're on the trail of the mystery of Fracasso's missing audience. The music world has become the land of niche marketing. Fracasso could make a ballad album, followed by a rock album, followed by a traditional folk album, followed by as good a singer-songwriter set as anyone's turned out since Guy Clark's Dublin Blues. If he did this, if he focused all of his skills in one genre into a discrete package, would that give him a bigger audience? Maybe not.

Maybe it would blur his sense of identity even more than building his albums out of a combination of styles. Or maybe one of them would be a hit and when he turned to his next interest, the greater audience would be bewildered and leave again.

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Ragamuffin Blues In a culture doled out niche by niche, all but the most monolithic artists are invisible, and the price is not only monolithic art, which is monotonous and overbearing, but artists exploring about 10% of the talent they have.

It wasn't always that way. There really was a time when figures as unlikely as Van Morrison, Randy Newman, and Warren Zevon became not just makers of occasional hits, but actual recording and touring stars. Now, the days when Morrison or the Byrds, the Beatles or Bruce Springsteen, could shape-shift from project to project have waned.

It's wrong to say Fracasso is unconcerned about this. Like anybody who has a broader vision, he's disturbed by what he sees. What he's not is deterred by it.

The Renaissance (l-r): Paula, Giovanni, Stella, and Michael
Photo By Traci Goudie


"It's not just a style of music," he states. "It's Michael Fracasso. I don't have to adhere to some sort of ground rules before I start, and I find that very satisfying.

"On the road this spring, I've been working with [guitarist] Terry Ware, and we've been doing versions of 'Summertime' and 'God Bless the Child.' It's a different realm, something I feel comfortable with. I think it has a lot to do with me finally getting used to myself as a singer."

This carries over directly to the writing.

"I know I have a song when I want to sing it the next day again," he reveals.

The niche, of course, is songwriter more than singer. One of the ways the music world hamstrings itself is valuing the composition, which, not incidentally, can be copyrighted, over the song, which can't. This takes its toll on every performer, even if the singer is also a writer.

Michael Fracasso now stands in the best position he's ever been in to see that change. Not for the shady realms of pop stardom; that would've been too ephemeral to satisfy him when he was younger. At 52, with two kids, what would make sense would be an audience that gave him respect and an income.

Steering him to that goal has become the welcome task of Paula, who's evolved into being her husband's de facto manager, though she shies away from the title because in the music world, the term "wife-manager" generates shudders. When his booking agent told Michael, "You need a project manager," Paula responded, "That's it. That's what I do."

Her background is as executive director of Austin-based nonprofit groups, which means she knows how to be organizer, taskmaster, and diplomat. She's now a partner with Watershed 5 Studios, which produces interactive media and DVDs. Michael gives her ample credit for A Pocketful of Rain.

"She gave me deadlines," he says. "Every week we had a meeting, so we made decisions as I recorded, and that gave me much less self-doubt. That made it easy and fun to do, and I didn't feel any pressure from anyone."

When the album was complete, Paula made the rounds of record labels and made the deal with Texas Music Group. She sees her husband's situation crystal clear.

"I think Michael's greatest strength as an artist and his greatest weakness as a marketable artist is that he doesn't want to be viewed as a product at all. He wants to be experienced as an artist," she explains.

"I think he can have it both ways. I think he can be the pure artist he is onstage, in his songs, and in his relationships. But he has to be willing to let someone package him for an audience that doesn't want to work very hard."

This isn't Michael Fracasso being a prima donna; emotional grandstanding is probably one of the few artistic roles out of his reach. And it isn't that he doesn't want his songs reaching more people. A Pocketful of Rain concludes by saying, "Don't want to be that lonesome tree that falls without any noise."

He clearly loves that his songs touch unfamiliar hearts. Although he jokes sometimes that he can't see anyone else relating to songs about him, the songs themselves belie that. Part of their craftsmanship involves concealing how hard they've been worked over in order to establish such bonds. In a sense, it's part of the very realistic expectations of a working-class kid who's come this far.

"In New York, I tried for 10 years to be on a record label," he says. "Then a small label signed me, and that made me very happy. I would've loved to be on a bigger label for sure, but I also feel lucky to be on a small label.

"My mom would always say, 'When are you gong to do something?' I'd say, 'Mom, this is what I do.' To achieve something I had to be a pop star, but that's not who I am."

Nor is he the guy in the new album's title track: "Nothin' but a dreamer with a pocketful of rain." He is, and remains, a man with a vision and the talents to accomplish it. And he plays it for laughs when he can: "I can't help that I was born/Some look on me with scorn," he concludes in "KC." "But missing out on Sunday dinner, that's what really hurt."

He sings it deadpan, and he sings it beautifully, with the shadowy ache of a Holly hiccup, and he makes "hurt" rhyme with "church" five lines previously. In "Devil's Deal," a seamless, economical blues, he turns from verse to chorus in the space of less than a breath, making poetry out of repetitions of "belly flop." "Ragamuffin Blues" comes on like a laconic outtake from Bob Dylan Sings the Real Folk Blues, with lyrics to match: "My reputation, there was nothing much at stake. I was down with lady luck, 'til she bit me like a snake."

There aren't many models for musicians on this scale. It's really something we expect from painters and sculptors, this single-minded pursuit of getting as close as possible to what one sees in the mind's eye and feels in the heart. Of our musicians we now ask endless compromise, that they pursue goals within our much more limited lines of sight. Then, when we run into someone who won't, we have the nerve to wonder what might be wrong with him.

The solution to the Michael Fracasso mystery, like the mystery of the purloined letter, lies in plain sight. It involves paying attention to the details. That is, there's really no mystery at all. Just a guy with great talent who's made the most of it without shouting the fact in our faces. Someone who thinks enough of his listeners to believe we can keep up with him at his best. What are you waiting for?
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by
Dave Marsh
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- Austin Chronicle