Michael Haynes puts music before fame

By Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 25, 2000)
– Michael Haynes's new album, “Hollywood,” kicks off with the title track, a softly sung, almost whispered song about the illusory nature of fame. “What a trip, they're gonna fly you out to California….and if you're lucky you might make it famous….But baby don't go Hollywood on me,” Haynes sings in lines drenched with gentle sarcasm. “Fifteen minutes, won't last, things change, so fast. You want to go to California, don't say I didn't warn you, you can't swim in a hypodermic sea.”

The song, like the 13 others on “Hollywood,” is an all-acoustic understated rocker, just guitar, stand-up bass, and hand percussion. It has a slight Sam Phillips, Sun Studios feel.

It's not a bitter song, which is in itself surprising, as it is seemingly sung from a place with which Haynes is familiar. In fact, the singer could be singing to himself.

After all, about 10 years ago, he seemed as likely as any Berkshire performer to be on the verge of breaking out big beyond the bounds of the county. He had a devoted, loyal following that flocked to shows at local clubs where, fronting the Michael Haynes Band, he drew comparisons to John Mellencamp, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. Talent scouts were sniffing around his heels, luring him first to Nashville and then to Boston, and dropping hints of promise that never came true.

And frankly, Haynes was a willing participant in chasing fame. Indeed, the CD jacket of “Hollywood” tells the story in two separate images of the Dalton native. One is a technicolor shot of the young, aspiring rocker gazing off into the distance, a future rich with possibility, while standing beneath a sign that says “Hollywood” with all the suggestive possibility that image implies. The other is a more recent black and white photo showing the singer-songwriter in a tightly-buttoned collarless shirt with a stark, grim look on his face, as if refusing to smile. What changed? What made Michael Haynes stop chasing fame? What happened?

“I was chasing it, and then it got to the point where that was all I was thinking about doing, and I kind of lost touch with the music,” said Haynes in a recent interview.

“I finally got a house in Chesterfield, and living in the mountains and not really thinking about that other thing. I still love music -- music's my life -- but it means more to me now. The music now means more than the trappings. I'm still making albums and writing songs, and if somebody knows somebody I still give them a CD, but I try not to think about. You can get lost in that and get your hopes up, and if it doesn't happen it's a letdown. I think I'm enjoying the music more now and not thinking about the fame side of it.”

That ability to sit back and enjoy the music infuses the 14 tracks on “Hollywood,” the release of which will be celebrated tonight with a CD release concert featuring the Michael Haynes Band at Club Helsinki in Great Barrington. Call 528-3394 for more info.

“I have spent my days 'til now lost in confusion, but I realize somehow it was all an illusion, but now you are here, and everything is clear,” sings Haynes on the album's second track, the Bob Seger-esque “Come Run With Me.” In between other folk-rock songs and ballads about the reality and illusion of life, love and family relationships are a few other songs that stand out for their pointed acute view of lost promise, commerce vs. art, and the realities of aging.

In “Van Gogh,” a catchy, mid-tempo folk-rocker, Haynes sings, “I feel a little like Van Gogh, but I think I'll keep both of my ears….A few more wrinkles on my face, a few more inches on my waist, but I'm still here.” The ironic “sha-la-la-las” and “hey-heys” that carry the song to its fadeout ending are as incisive as co-producer Tom Filiault's cutting guitar solo.

While Haynes means well, he occasionally falters, as when succumbing to the sentimental cliches of “The Indians Did” (“I want to live like the Indians did so long ago”) or “Changing Landscape” (“I can't believe it's the first of November and the autumn wind crept in, leaves now blanket the ground below, there's an uneasing still in the wind…in this changing landscape everything looks a lot different now”). While lines like these are heartfelt, Haynes resorts to an over earnest, almost forced conviction that draws too much attention to itself.

A more straightforward use of a familiar form, such as his reworking of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” with new lyrics about his grandmother, is much more successful in its simplicity, and it shows in his singing when Haynes doesn't need to try as hard to get across. Likewise, the straightforward verities of “Someday” (“Someday will come so don't worry, someday we won't have to hurry”) carry along the breezy tune, which sounds like a timeless folk song Arlo Guthrie might sing.

The album has a stark, intimate feel to it, and Haynes sings with a knowing maturity tinged with a hint of resignation. With arrangements built “Blood on the Tracks”-style around Haynes's acoustic guitar and Filiault's acoustic stand-up bass, the colors painted by Filiault's electric guitar solos or Tom “Big Daddy” Jackson's violin lines stand out in stark contrast. Michael Haynes may no longer be the Berkshires answer to John Mellencamp or Tom Petty, and he may no longer want to be. Instead, he is simply one of the finest singer-songwriters ever to call the Berkshires home.

“I'm still trying to get a record deal; it's not something I don't pursue at all,” said Haynes. “When all those things happen and you think you're so close, you can drive yourself crazy thinking about it.
“Now I just take everything with a grain of salt and just concentrate on making good music. I think over time it'll happen. If I keep putting it out there.
“I'm not giving up. I know that.”

In addition to tonight's Club Helsinki show, Haynes will be performing in upcoming weeks at Cesar's Café at 434 Fenn St. in Pittsfield on May 5 and 26, and in the folk-music series at the Guthrie Center in Housatonic on June 30.

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