Bruce Hornsby and the Range, "The Way It Is"

Ken kicks off summer under the carnival tent

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Jun 01, 2022

Ken’s Pitch:

I had just started school in the fall of 1986 and the Billboard charts were loaded with future hall of famers Lionel Richie, Madonna, Run-D.M.C., Janet Jackson and Bon Jovi. It was an embarrassment of riches for the rock and pop genres. I can’t imagine a time that would be more difficult for a new artist to break through. This was pre-internet and pre-streaming, so if you wanted exposure, you had to have the right sound, the right personalities, the right promoters, the right look, and your band had to bring their A-game to the studio.

And that’s where our little O. Henry-esque twist comes in. Bruce Hornsby was a slightly balding, 32 year old guy from historic Williamsburg, VA; a music nerd without the look, the personality, the ego, or the flash that seemed to dominate the charts. He is the most unlikely of musical heroes. He had no romantic or tragic origin story, he didn’t invent an on-stage persona designed to lure in throngs of fans, and the music he was bringing with him was almost more adult-contemporary than it was rock or pop. And yet people loved it!

In the studio, his work with his band The Range produced a bright, uplifting, clean sound that screamed positive energy and incredible technique and complexity. On stage, Hornsby was infectious. He seemed to absolutely love playing for fans, and his ever-present smile made every show an absolute joy.

Bruce was a huge fan of The Grateful Dead and had sat in with them at several shows starting in 1988. Whether he was playing accordion or dueling it out on piano with Brent Mydland, he elevated everyone around him to layer in complexities and take musical risks that almost always ended well. In fact, when Mydland died in the spring of 1990, Hornsby temporarily took the full-time reins of The Dead’s hot seat, and reinvigorated the entire band. And that speaks to Bruce’s musical power more than anything I could say about any of his albums. A legendary band - an American group that was already a cultural icon - got significantly better because they shared the stage with Bruce Hornsby.

The Way It Is is a debut album that sounds like a band that’s at the top of their game, not one that was just months before fighting to get a record deal. The opening moments of “On the Western Skyline” immediately tell you what this album is all about. It’s authentically mid-’80s and it’s confident, complex, and clean. “Every Little Kiss” became a big hit, but what amazes me about this track is that it’s a signature Bruce Hornsby sound, and it’s immediately identifiable by the piano sound; you know it’s Hornsby before any words have been sung or any other instruments have started playing. Hornsby had brought something completely new and exciting to a musical world that was based at the time largely on giving people more of what they already had.

There isn’t a skippable track on this album, which is highlighted by its all-stars “The Way It Is” and “Mandolin Rain”, but the real gems are hidden in the gorgeous “Down The Road Again”, “The Red Plains” and “The River Runs Low”.

It’s a sunny, warm Memorial Day here in eastern Massachusetts; I’ll probably spend this perfect day having a cocktail (maybe 2), heading to the beach for a bit, and grilling some burgers and dogs. Wherever the day takes me, I’ll be bringing Bruce Hornsby and the Range with me as the soundtrack. I can’t think of a better way to start summer.

CJ’s Response:

I don’t know if Ken had The Way It Is lined up for a long time or if he chose this week to pitch it on purpose. Either way, the album affected me deeply. Musically, it’s gorgeous. Bruce Hornsby is a singular talent and this collection of songs unspools like a warm summer evening. “Skyline”, “Every Little Kiss” and “Mandolin Rain” are beautifully composed and lovingly performed. While “The Wild Frontier” and “The River Runs Low”, songs that I was less familiar with, quickly ingratiated themselves to me.

But in the wake of the Uvalde school shootings, it was the title track that kept playing over and over in my head.

That’s just the way it is.

Some things will never change.

As we’ve stated on several occasions, this blog was meant to be apolitical. A haven from the online vitriol and ugliness that predominates everything we see and hear each day. We were just gonna argue about music, pure and simple. And I’ve been the one who has constantly violated that ground rule. So, I wasn’t going to write about it.

And then two things happened.

The first was that Steve Kerr and Gabe Kapler, two men I admire, used their respective platforms to express their shock and horror at yet another massacre while openly criticizing our government for failing to act. Again.

The second was that my wife and I were out for a walk this weekend when we passed one of the churches in our town. On its front lawn were nineteen small chairs arranged around two adult-sized chairs underneath a banner that read “End Gun Violence”.

We both cried.

And that’s when I decided to write about it. Because if we want to end gun violence then we have to end our country’s obsession with guns and its blind devotion to a 250-year-old document that has almost nothing to do with the realities of life in the 21st Century.

All weekend long, I heard gun advocates scream and yell about the 2nd Amendment as if it were handed down from (your preferred deity here). It wasn’t. It was, in fact, written by flawed men on a flimsy piece of parchment (not stone). Men who used muskets that took several minutes to load and re-load. Men who never could have dreamed of guns that fired a hundred rounds in less than a minute. Men who, in many cases, owned other human beings! So maybe we shouldn’t take everything they wrote as gospel.

We certainly don’t have the same kind of platform as two professional coaches, but that’s irrelevant. Maybe someone in this group will write to their Senator or share it with their friends. Maybe someone will think differently or vote differently. Maybe some momentum will build and the collective will of the people will actually spur our lawmakers into action. And maybe, just maybe, this time will be different.

I have hope. Bruce Hornsby gave it to me.

That’s just the way it is.

Some things will never change.

That’s just the way it is.

Ah, but don’t you believe them.

Pitch Successful (Assault weapons ban. Mandatory background checks. Common sense gun laws. Now.)

Mitch’s Response:

Before the term “Dad rock” existed, Bruce Hornsby was the unofficial King of dad rock, and he sat upon his throne from 1986-1990, until he decided to shock the musical world by playing musical chairs and hopping into the hot seat known as the Grateful Dead keyboard slot.

As a Hornsby & Dead fan I wasn’t surprised, as Bruuuuuuce’s greatest trick was always convincing people that he was a harmless mainstream artist while secretly filling listeners' ears with radical musical ideas and their heads with progressive ideals.

Throughout The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby and the Range present a progressive vision for traditional American society. Hornsby deftly conflates the search for economic freedom and security with the desire for romance and intimacy, and he both celebrates and challenges modern American cultural mores through the lens of the beloved Virginia coast of his childhood.

The classic title track is one of the most important civil rights songs of the modern era, a rousing call to arms against accepting the status quo, and a reaffirmation of the 1964 Civil Rights Acts, so it’s no surprise that Tupac sampled it for his posthumous hit, “Changes”.

Even a seemingly harmless sing-a-long tune like “Down the Road Tonight” contains multitudes, like when you eventually realize that Bruce is actually reminiscing about his favorite childhood brothel.

In addition to "The Way It Is," both "Every Little Kiss" and "Mandolin Rain” were hits and deservedly so. Hornsby and the Range arrived fully formed on The Way It Is, with a boatload of great songs, a modern sound, and a refreshing world vision.

Best of all, they provide a direct connection between soft rock legends Ambrosia and the Grateful Dead.

Pitch Successful (That’s how much I feel)

Ken’s pitch was successful and Bruce Hornsby and the Range’s The Way It Is has been added to the Newbury St. Collection.

Look out any window and head down the valley road across the river to the comments section and use those spider fingers to let us know if Bruce Hornsby and the Range should be the talk of the town or left stranded on easy street.

Exile on Newbury St.

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