Music: Summertime Coups

When Jeff Roberson confronts the question of why his first solo release in nearly two decades, Summer’s Here, isn’t a Len’s Lounge album, he has a ready response.

“Buy the record and find out,” he says, laughing. “It’s not Bluegrass/Punk Rock music, I guess. And because the other two guys in Len’s Lounge aren’t on it.”

Roberson, a Kentucky native who grew up in New Jersey, has a long history in Cincinnati, beginning with his move here in the mid-1980s. While pursuing occasional work associated with his photography degree, Roberson put his campfire education to good use as a street-corner Folk busker. After relocating to Cincinnati, he was convinced to take his act indoors to various local clubs, which led to the formation of Bovine Militia and Roberson’s introduction to the local scene, particularly the Afghan Whigs, who came up at the same time.

When Bovine Militia dissolved, Roberson returned to solo status and recorded a cassette called Hard Folk in 1988. Hoping to catch a break at South by Southwest — then a relatively new event for unsigned acts — Roberson headed to Austin where he made no discernible headway, other than arousing the ire of iconic songwriter Guy Clark.

“Guy was on the songwriter’s panel with a woman who co-wrote a song for Hall and Oates, with one of those hopelessly infectious but ultimately obnoxious hooks,” says Roberson.

“Guy is a notorious bastard, very surly, and she’s going on about songwriting and he’s on the other end fuming, you can see that his head’s going to explode. He finally lit off on her, the thing ended and he stormed off. He’s coming down the aisle and I’m like, ‘Hey, Guy, my name’s Jeff, I’m a struggling songwriter and I wanted to give you my tape.’ Before I could give it to him, he said, ‘Fuck off, man,’ and walked out. I just caught him at a bad time.”

After a year’s stint in Massachusetts that proved unsuccessful (“They hated me up there … one club owner said, ‘You have some interesting songs but you play guitar too fast and you swear too much.’ “), Roberson moved back to Cincinnati. Upon his return, Roberson did a radio interview with Dan Reed, longtime local music figure and then-WNKU program director, who dubbed Roberson with a tag he claims proudly to this day.

“Dan said, ‘Man, you’re the most hated man in Folk music. People just hate you,’ ” Roberson says, laughing. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, baby.’ ”

In 1993, Roberson assembled a new rootsy Americana band at the urging of Whigs bassist John Curley, christening it Len’s Lounge in Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque honor of the Northside dive of the same name.

“Ultrasuede used to be above Hassell’s Pottery and Len’s was downstairs and we used to buy our cigarettes there. They hated us coming in,” Roberson says. “John suggested the name. It was our way of getting back at them.”

For a decade and a half, some version of Len’s Lounge (currently drummer Dan Baechle and bassist Jason Wilcoxin) has been entertaining local audiences and releasing occasional albums and tapes (including 2003’s String Band, perhaps their best to date). For a fair amount of that time, Roberson considered the idea of revisiting his solo roots, a nebulous plan he finally put into action two years ago, beginning with songs that had their genesis with Len’s Lounge.

“Len’s Lounge has played at least half of these songs,” says Roberson. “The way I approach guitar in Len’s Lounge is the way somebody approaches Bluegrass guitar: a lot of churning and hitting the bass notes and almost double timing the rhythm. That’s the way they started, but by the time I started working with Ed (Pettersen, noted producer/musician), he said, ‘If you want people to like this stuff, more than the four or five people that already do, you need to slow down your rhythm playing. Everything’s not a train coming down the track.’ ”

Roberson met Pettersen by way of mutual friend Gerry Livers, who loved Len’s Lounge and had booked them at venues in North Carolina. Roberson and Pettersen became friends through playing various tributes after Livers’ unfortunate death, and eventually the idea of working together was broached and then firmed up. When they began, Roberson was still thinking in terms of the band recording the album with Pettersen in Nashville, but, with the adjustments being made to the songs, it became apparent that they were moving away from the band’s identity.

“It didn’t feel like a Len’s Lounge record,” Roberson says. “It didn’t sound like anything I normally play. I just wanted it to be separate but equal. Or separate but more popular. Popular would be nice.”

The thing that really cemented the solo status of Summer’s Here was the opportunity to play with a band comprised of some of the industry’s most revered session musicians (including guitarists David Hungate and Reggie Young, Motown bassist Bob Babbitt and drummer Ed Greene). Renowned producer Pettersen and engineer Bob Ohlsson had assembled a crack band of sessioneers that they were using as a Stax/Motown/Muscle Shoals-styled house band and Roberson’s recordings fell within their schedule.

“When I came along, these guys had already done a bunch of sessions together,” Roberson says. “They listened once to the demo I sent down, conferred over the charts, went into one big room — after Bob Babbitt said, ‘This thing’s a fucking dirge. Are we gonna play it that slow?’ — and did it in two takes. It was the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen.”

Between Roberson’s amazing songcraft and the session masters’ intuitive feel for the material, Summer’s Here is a triumph of Folk passion, Country groove and Soul intensity — the polished Americana/Soul of “Forlorn and Forgotten,” the Memphis Soul-and-strings swing of “Love and Death,” a cover of Fred Neil’s “A Little Bit of Rain” and the Dylan-esque talking Folk/Blues opus “Heartland.”

The album was actually close to completion last year, but Pettersen and Ohlsson were tied up with other projects and couldn’t finish mastering and mixing until late last year. By then, Roberson had decided that the album’s tone necessitated delaying the release.

“You can’t put out a summer record in the winter,” Roberson says. “It feels like a summer record to me, it always did. It took me awhile to realize it, but every song is a summer reference of some kind, even the Fred Neil song. I’ve been sitting on a finished record for seven or eight months, and it’s been driving me fucking crazy.”©

This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2008.