Rebecca Pronsky A Prodigy Chases the Dream By Richard Cuccaro I know I’ve said this before. There is an effect that occurs when a musically gifted person performs. It appears so effortless that it makes the rest of us crazy. Those of us who love music want to do it too. We try and fall flat on our faces, sometimes again and again before we give up. It took many years for me to accept that my gifts, such as they are, lie elsewhere. Not so with Rebecca Pronsky. The musical ability was always there and we can see it today. Start with a husky alto and a killer vibrato. Add mysterioso existential lyrics and twangy, atmospheric electric guitar. You’ve got Rebecca and her husband, guitarist Rich Bennett. A lot of folks embraced the musical style of Chris Isaak, who turned up the reverb and recycled the ’50s sound in 1984. Over the span of eight years together, the couple’s sound has evolved into something similar, with the added kick of Rebecca’s dreamy, enigmatic songwriting. A typical composition, “Come Down,” on the most recent album, Only Daughter, has an ethereal quality that induces a reverie where the listener can float away, held aloft on bell-like twangy guitar passages as Rebecca sings: The sky is too big for my dreams / So I drifted away it seems / And somewhere they float in the clouds / Away from me now. Occasionally, her lyrics get less abstract. The lead track on Only Daughter, “Rise Up,” urges the listener to shake off the restrictions that hold them down: What was it you used to be living for? / Rise up in the land of the free / Rise up whoever you may be / Rise up if you dare / We are everywhere. For this listener and avid audience member, it doesn’t hurt that they’re both at home with a retro ’50s appearance. As someone who watched the birth of rock ’n’ roll, specifically rockabilly, I get a thrill watching and listening to Rebecca and Rich working their indie-alt, Americana singer/songwriter magic. Beginnings Rebecca Pronsky was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her parents aren’t musically inclined, so she’s not sure where her musicality comes from. She began making music as a toddler. There’s no actual recall, but she was told that she started whistling songs at age 2. Bodega owners in her neighborhood of Park Slope called her “the whistling baby.” In school, she sang in choir. Her music teacher told her parents (paraphrasing here), “This little girl has a big voice. She should get training.” Thus began a nearly continuous stretch of vocal training that began when she was 8 years old and lasted through college and a bit beyond. She took lessons on a number of instruments, including flute. Rebecca didn’t begin playing guitar until her junior year in high school. For voice students, the guitar was not taken seriously as an accompanying instrument. She was urged to take piano lessons, but Rebecca never got comfortable with piano. She started listening to Joni Mitchell and other singer/songwriters. She owned two books of Beatles sheet music for each of their compilation CDs (1962-1966, the Red Album and 1967-1970, the Blue Album) and put in many hours transforming the complex chord structures into simpler versions she could sing along with. She also found an online website that transcribed Joni’s songs, complete with the various tunings that Joni used. For six years, from the end of high school through college, Rebecca swung back and forth changing her guitar from standard tuning for Beatles material to alternate tunings for Joni songs. She also attended The National Guitar Workshop (now defunct), a summer guitar camp in New Milford, Conn., for four years. She was a student for the first two summers — two weeks each time — and an employee for the second two years, taking classes as well. Classes included fingerstyle acoustic guitar and songwriting. Rebecca’s education was very progressive. Her high school, St. Ann’s in Brooklyn, was Montessori-like in allowing students to select and control their own curriculum. For Rebecca, it was almost too much freedom. However, there were perks. In her junior year, the elite members of the school choir, including Rebecca, traveled to Austria and Hungary to perform. It was a “huge” learning experience for her. The College Years When she went to Brown University in Providence, R.I., in 1998, the arts program functioned in a similar freewheeling manner. One of the ways this manifested itself was that her voice teacher, in addition to instruction and exercises, spent hours “hanging out” and listening to music, exposing Rebecca to the singing styles of people like Bonnie Raitt and Leon Russell, analyzing not only featured players, but albums of supporting players. Rebecca earned a degree in ethnomusicology. She studied the American songbook and focused on jazz to a great extent. She had done a lot of musical theater in high school, but found it mannered and boring by the time she moved on. Jazz became her new love and she performed quite a bit of it in college. Rebecca had continued to play guitar and write all the way through college and played her first gigs every two months at a coffee shop in Providence. It was very laid-back, with friends showing up to support her. Return to New York After graduation in 2002, Rebecca returned to New York City, already a seasoned performer. She felt a drive to continue performing and do even more of it. She mailed her demo CD to venues. Although she didn’t think the demo was very good, the now-defunct Lower East Side club. The Living Room liked what it heard, so her first New York gigs were there. She also played numerous shows at many other venues, some long-disappeared, like Bar B and Kavehaz. Rebecca just liked making music and didn’t know what she wanted yet, so she performed in all sorts of bands, including funk bands and a Bulgarian choir. Given her degree in ethnomusicology, the Bulgarian choir appealed to Rebecca for its idiosyncratic style, “totally weird, and very cool, with crazy time signatures.” Rebecca Pronsky, Meet Rich Bennett When Rebecca decided to play her own music, she wanted accompaniment. In 2003, she turned to Craig’s List and found an “awesome” bassist. He, in turn, said, “I have this roommate who’s a really good guitar player and he’d be great for you.” She laughingly extrapolated, “I met Rich through the bass player I found on Craig’s List, so technically, you could say I met Rich on Craig’s List.” She went to their apartment and all three played some of Rebecca’s songs. They found that they got along on a personal level and began gigging as a trio. Two weeks later, Rich and Rebecca started dating. Apparently, they were sensible about getting serious, so it wasn’t until the summer of 2012 that they got married. [Hallelujah!] When Rebecca explained Rich’s influences to me, it became clearer why I was so besotted with the soundscapes he creates. She cited genre-bending jazz guitarist Bill Frisell as a key influence. I’d heard the name, but had to go to eMusic and iTunes to find out what he sounded like. For me it was instant infatuation. One critic said about Frisell, “there was this odd whiff of country music in his improvising. His most imitated stuff — the volume-pedaled notes swelling up from silence, his whammy-bar bent tones and his slow drowsy vibrato — conjured pedal steel guitar.” This explains why some people think Rebecca and Rich are heavily influenced by country music. In fact, Rebecca, Brooklyn-raised, and Rich, from Staten Island, had never listened to country. It was only after people made comparisons that they did some investigating and found it appealing. Style and Method Rebecca described her early songs, pre- and post-college, to be more jazz/pop/folk and her singing a bit purer, but bland, lacking in style. As she and Rich continued playing together, their sound evolved. Her style solidified into something edgier and judicious in its use of her vocal power. At times she’ll remind me of Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. Other times, she’ll sound like a jazz chanteuse. Rebecca’s education seems to have allowed her to approach her songwriting and playing in a manner less inhibited than most of her contemporaries. She’ll get an idea for a song, a snippet of melody and follow it. If it doesn’t go anywhere, she won’t push it. She said: “I try to write without anything in mind and then I see what comes out … songs are a bit like dreams. You make them and then you interpret them, but where they came from is a bit of a mystery and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m better off just seeing what comes out of my brain when I have an instrument nearby, just singing melodies and words and seeing what happens. If nothing does, that’s fine. If something does and it’s crap, that’s fine too. You have to just be there and not judge what comes out. That’s the only way for the good stuff to eventually emerge. I also try not to get too attached to anything I come up with. Sometimes an idea is really great but it’s just not linking up with anything else and I need to let go of trying to control that as soon as I can. There’s nothing wrong with writing a great chorus or riff and just leaving it at that. Not everything has to be a song.” Amen! Likewise, she’ll take her guitar and put it in a strange tuning to move herself outside of her comfort zone. She actually enjoys not knowing where she’s going. A key factor in her partnership with Rich is that he will follow her and work out on guitar (or piano) what will work with her composition. Rich uses the guitar in total service to Rebecca’s songs. There are no gratuitous solos or noodlings. He’ll simply (well, not so simply) find a sound to illustrate the theme of her song. An example of Rich’s skill in accommodation occurred at the 2013 Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference. Considering portability, Rebecca brought her tenor guitar for its small size and Rich brought an acoustic guitar, leaving his electric at home. In their late-night Acoustic Live guerrilla set, Rich fingerpicked melody patterns in harmony with the songs Rebecca sang. As they left the room after their set, I overheard WFUV DJ John Platt compliment Rich on his choice of accompaniment. The Career In 2004 Rebecca released her first EP, The Early Hours. The overall spirit of Early Hours is decidedly far jazzier than anything else I’ve heard from her. That said, I found it irresistible and quickly downloaded it from iTunes. While the vocals are a bit more controlled and perhaps a little purer, it seems, to these ears, to lose nothing in terms of style, so this is apparently a jump further past her “post-college” phase. In 2007 she released her first full-length album, Departures & Arrivals with Nine Mile Records, and began touring seriously. Her voice seems more relaxed at this point. I listened to four tracks from Departures that Rebecca emailed to me. “Birds” leans toward rock and this is where I start making the comparison to Chrissie Hynde. Perhaps it’s the heavier drum and bass sound and increased reverb on lead guitar. “Million Days,” with its hiccuping tempo and steel guitar-like riffs, suggests country. “Digging Graves,” with its slow acoustic guitar strum, is folkier. “Big City Lights,” a slow ballad with twangy lead guitar, might also lead to getting categorized in the country genre. In 2008 and 2009 she and Rich solidified the band lineup and toured “a ton.” In 2010,they embarked upon their first United Kingdom and European tour. That same year, touring in the U.S., they opened for major acts including Shawn Colvin, Steve Forbert, Freedy Johnston and Carrie Rodriguez. In 2011 Rebecca bought a tenor guitar and started writing most of her songs on it. She released her second full-length album, Viewfinder, and made successful tours in the U.K. and United States. I’ve listened to all of Viewfinder and find that its bigger sound and spaciousness with guitar reverb could have added to the tendency to erroneously lump her in the country mold. The lead track in particular, “Hard Times,” reminds me of Nancy Sinatra’s country hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” However, there are other tracks which show a breadth of expression. “The Wheel” and “Special” are contemplative ballads. “Fragile World” shows a return to Rebecca’s jazz leanings. In 2012 Rebecca acquired a U.K. booking agent and toured with Blame Sally. She played Celtic Connections, a winter music festival in Glasgow, Scotland, which features artists from around the globe alongside the best Scottish talent. In the summer, she and Rich played in the Emerging Artists Showcase at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. In 2013, Rebecca released Only Daughter, and did three large tours in support of it. Moving Forward, Looking Back We first encountered Rebecca and Rich at the Urban H20 singer/songwriter series in Yonkers when they opened for Miles to Dayton. Discovering them made for quite an evening. We also saw them at John Platt’s On Your Radar series. I have fun joking with Rebecca and Rich about their retro look. Rich has the Elvis hairstyle I could never quite capture in my 1950s teenage years. “Hair envy!” I’ve said to her. She facetiously told me it might make a good subtitle for this feature. Rebecca’s cats-eye horn-rimmed glasses would look right at home in my high school yearbook and I fought off the temptation to scan and Photoshop it into existence. Rebecca plans to get back to touring in late spring, doing local and regional shows and a U.K. tour. We invite readers to visit her website to learn more about her. There’s a cool video of her song “Better That Way” (see still above) and you’ll also be able to find out when and where she’ll be appearing next. www.rebeccapronsky.com

A Prodigy Chases the Dream

By Richard Cuccaro

I know I’ve said this before. There is an effect that occurs when a musically gifted person performs. It appears so effortless that it makes the rest of us crazy. Those of us who love music want to do it too. We try and fall flat on our faces, sometimes again and again before we give up. It took many years for me to accept that my gifts, such as they are, lie elsewhere.

Not so with Rebecca Pronsky. The musical ability was always there and we can see it today. Start with a husky alto and a killer vibrato. Add mysterioso existential lyrics and twangy, atmospheric electric guitar. You’ve got Rebecca and her husband, guitarist Rich Bennett. A lot of folks embraced the musical style of Chris Isaak, who turned up the reverb and recycled the ’50s sound in 1984. Over the span of eight years together, the couple’s sound has evolved into something similar, with the added kick of Rebecca’s dreamy, enigmatic songwriting. A typical composition, “Come Down,” on the most recent album, Only Daughter, has an ethereal quality that induces a reverie where the listener can float away, held aloft on bell-like twangy guitar passages as Rebecca sings: The sky is too big for my dreams / So I drifted away it seems / And somewhere they float in the clouds / Away from me now. Occasionally, her lyrics get less abstract. The lead track on Only Daughter, “Rise Up,” urges the listener to shake off the restrictions that hold them down: What was it you used to be living for? / Rise up in the land of the free / Rise up whoever you may be / Rise up if you dare / We are everywhere.

For this listener and avid audience member, it doesn’t hurt that they’re both at home with a retro ’50s appearance. As someone who watched the birth of rock ’n’ roll, specifically rockabilly, I get a thrill watching and listening to Rebecca and Rich working their indie-alt, Americana singer/songwriter magic.

Beginnings

Rebecca Pronsky was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her parents aren’t musically inclined, so she’s not sure where her musicality comes from. She began making music as a toddler. There’s no actual recall, but she was told that she started whistling songs at age 2. Bodega owners in her neighborhood of Park Slope called her “the whistling baby.” In school, she sang in choir. Her music teacher told her parents (paraphrasing here), “This little girl has a big voice. She should get training.” Thus began a nearly continuous stretch of vocal training that began when she was 8 years old and lasted through college and a bit beyond. She took lessons on a number of instruments, including flute.

Rebecca didn’t begin playing guitar until her junior year in high school. For voice students, the guitar was not taken seriously as an accompanying instrument. She was urged to take piano lessons, but Rebecca never got comfortable with piano. She started listening to Joni Mitchell and other singer/songwriters. She owned two books of Beatles sheet music for each of their compilation CDs (1962-1966, the Red Album and 1967-1970, the Blue Album) and put in many hours transforming the complex chord structures into simpler versions she could sing along with. She also found an online website that transcribed Joni’s songs, complete with the various tunings that Joni used. For six years, from the end of high school through college, Rebecca swung back and forth changing her guitar from standard tuning for Beatles material to alternate tunings for Joni songs. She also attended The National Guitar Workshop (now defunct), a summer guitar camp in New Milford, Conn., for four years. She was a student for the first two summers — two weeks each time — and an employee for the second two years, taking classes as well. Classes included fingerstyle acoustic guitar and songwriting.

Rebecca’s education was very progressive. Her high school, St. Ann’s in Brooklyn, was Montessori-like in allowing students to select and control their own curriculum. For Rebecca, it was almost too much freedom. However, there were perks. In her junior year, the elite members of the school choir, including Rebecca, traveled to Austria and Hungary to perform. It was a “huge” learning experience for her.

The College Years

When she went to Brown University in Providence, R.I., in 1998, the arts program functioned in a similar freewheeling manner. One of the ways this manifested itself was that her voice teacher, in addition to instruction and exercises, spent hours “hanging out” and listening to music, exposing Rebecca to the singing styles of people like Bonnie Raitt and Leon Russell, analyzing not only featured players, but albums of supporting players. Rebecca earned a degree in ethnomusicology. She studied the American songbook and focused on jazz to a great extent. She had done a lot of musical theater in high school, but found it mannered and boring by the time she moved on. Jazz became her new love and she performed quite a bit of it in college.

Rebecca had continued to play guitar and write all the way through college and played her first gigs every two months at a coffee shop in Providence. It was very laid-back, with friends showing up to support her.

Return to New York

After graduation in 2002, Rebecca returned to New York City, already a seasoned performer. She felt a drive to continue performing and do even more of it. She mailed her demo CD to venues. Although she didn’t think the demo was very good, the now-defunct Lower East Side club. The Living Room liked what it heard, so her first New York gigs were there. She also played numerous shows at many other venues, some long-disappeared, like Bar B and Kavehaz.

Rebecca just liked making music and didn’t know what she wanted yet, so she performed in all sorts of bands, including funk bands and a Bulgarian choir. Given her degree in ethnomusicology, the Bulgarian choir appealed to Rebecca for its idiosyncratic style, “totally weird, and very cool, with crazy time signatures.”

Rebecca Pronsky, Meet Rich Bennett

When Rebecca decided to play her own music, she wanted accompaniment. In 2003, she turned to Craig’s List and found an “awesome” bassist. He, in turn, said, “I have this roommate who’s a really good guitar player and he’d be great for you.” She laughingly extrapolated, “I met Rich through the bass player I found on Craig’s List, so technically, you could say I met Rich on Craig’s List.” She went to their apartment and all three played some of Rebecca’s songs. They found that they got along on a personal level and began gigging as a trio. Two weeks later, Rich and Rebecca started dating.

Apparently, they were sensible about getting serious, so it wasn’t until the summer of 2012 that they got married. [Hallelujah!]

When Rebecca explained Rich’s influences to me, it became clearer why I was so besotted with the soundscapes he creates. She cited genre-bending jazz guitarist Bill Frisell as a key influence. I’d heard the name, but had to go to eMusic and iTunes to find out what he sounded like. For me it was instant infatuation. One critic said about Frisell, “there was this odd whiff of country music in his improvising. His most imitated stuff — the volume-pedaled notes swelling up from silence, his whammy-bar bent tones and his slow drowsy vibrato — conjured pedal steel guitar.” This explains why some people think Rebecca and Rich are heavily influenced by country music. In fact, Rebecca, Brooklyn-raised, and Rich, from Staten Island, had never listened to country. It was only after people made comparisons that they did some investigating and found it appealing.

Style and Method

Rebecca described her early songs, pre- and post-college, to be more jazz/pop/folk and her singing a bit purer, but bland, lacking in style.

As she and Rich continued playing together, their sound evolved. Her style solidified into something edgier and judicious in its use of her vocal power. At times she’ll remind me of Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. Other times, she’ll sound like a jazz chanteuse.

Rebecca’s education seems to have allowed her to approach her songwriting and playing in a manner less inhibited than most of her contemporaries. She’ll get an idea for a song, a snippet of melody and follow it. If it doesn’t go anywhere, she won’t push it. She said: “I try to write without anything in mind and then I see what comes out … songs are a bit like dreams. You make them and then you interpret them, but where they came from is a bit of a mystery and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m better off just seeing what comes out of my brain when I have an instrument nearby, just singing melodies and words and seeing what happens. If nothing does, that’s fine. If something does and it’s crap, that’s fine too. You have to just be there and not judge what comes out. That’s the only way for the good stuff to eventually emerge. I also try not to get too attached to anything I come up with. Sometimes an idea is really great but it’s just not linking up with anything else and I need to let go of trying to control that as soon as I can. There’s nothing wrong with writing a great chorus or riff and just leaving it at that. Not everything has to be a song.” Amen!

Likewise, she’ll take her guitar and put it in a strange tuning to move herself outside of her comfort zone. She actually enjoys not knowing where she’s going. A key factor in her partnership with Rich is that he will follow her and work out on guitar (or piano) what will work with her composition. Rich uses the guitar in total service to Rebecca’s songs. There are no gratuitous solos or noodlings. He’ll simply (well, not so simply) find a sound to illustrate the theme of her song. An example of Rich’s skill in accommodation occurred at the 2013 Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference. Considering portability, Rebecca brought her tenor guitar for its small size and Rich brought an acoustic guitar, leaving his electric at home. In their late-night Acoustic Live guerrilla set, Rich fingerpicked melody patterns in harmony with the songs Rebecca sang. As they left the room after their set, I overheard WFUV DJ John Platt compliment Rich on his choice of accompaniment.

The Career

In 2004 Rebecca released her first EP, The Early Hours. The overall spirit of Early Hours is decidedly far jazzier than anything else I’ve heard from her. That said, I found it irresistible and quickly downloaded it from iTunes. While the vocals are a bit more controlled and perhaps a little purer, it seems, to these ears, to lose nothing in terms of style, so this is apparently a jump further past her “post-college” phase.

In 2007 she released her first full-length album, Departures & Arrivals with Nine Mile Records, and began touring seriously. Her voice seems more relaxed at this point. I listened to four tracks from Departures that Rebecca emailed to me. “Birds” leans toward rock and this is where I start making the comparison to Chrissie Hynde. Perhaps it’s the heavier drum and bass sound and increased reverb on lead guitar. “Million Days,” with its hiccuping tempo and steel guitar-like riffs, suggests country. “Digging Graves,” with its slow acoustic guitar strum, is folkier. “Big City Lights,” a slow ballad with twangy lead guitar, might also lead to getting categorized in the country genre. In 2008 and 2009 she and Rich solidified the band lineup and toured “a ton.” In 2010,they embarked upon their first United Kingdom and European tour. That same year, touring in the U.S., they opened for major acts including Shawn Colvin, Steve Forbert, Freedy Johnston and Carrie Rodriguez.

In 2011 Rebecca bought a tenor guitar and started writing most of her songs on it. She released her second full-length album, Viewfinder, and made successful tours in the U.K. and United States. I’ve listened to all of Viewfinder and find that its bigger sound and spaciousness with guitar reverb could have added to the tendency to erroneously lump her in the country mold. The lead track in particular, “Hard Times,” reminds me of Nancy Sinatra’s country hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” However, there are other tracks which show a breadth of expression. “The Wheel” and “Special” are contemplative ballads. “Fragile World” shows a return to Rebecca’s jazz leanings.

In 2012 Rebecca acquired a U.K. booking agent and toured with Blame Sally. She played Celtic Connections, a winter music festival in Glasgow, Scotland, which features artists from around the globe alongside the best Scottish talent. In the summer, she and Rich played in the Emerging Artists Showcase at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. In 2013, Rebecca released Only Daughter, and did three large tours in support of it.

Moving Forward, Looking Back

We first encountered Rebecca and Rich at the Urban H20 singer/songwriter series in Yonkers when they opened for Miles to Dayton. Discovering them made for quite an evening. We also saw them at John Platt’s On Your Radar series. I have fun joking with Rebecca and Rich about their retro look. Rich has the Elvis hairstyle I could never quite capture in my 1950s teenage years. “Hair envy!” I’ve said to her. She facetiously told me it might make a good subtitle for this feature. Rebecca’s cats-eye horn-rimmed glasses would look right at home in my high school yearbook and I fought off the temptation to scan and Photoshop it into existence.

Rebecca plans to get back to touring in late spring, doing local and regional shows and a U.K. tour. We invite readers to visit her website to learn more about her. There’s a cool video of her song “Better That Way” (see still above) and you’ll also be able to find out when and where she’ll be appearing next.

www.rebeccapronsky.com