It was the Middle Ages when minstrels first sang for royalty, while the troubadours explored the intricacies of courtship and love both in music and lyrics and the balladeers did just that – sang ballads. For we moderns, those three have woven a tapestry called singer-songwriter, not a genre, but a style of performer.
The modern singer-songwriter not only does all their medieval predecessors did, they also pen their own lyrics and write their own melodies. Award-winning U.K.-born, Oxford University-bred and now U.S.-based singer-songwriter Rupert Wates is accomplished at both.
“I was lucky – I could always draw, paint and write words,” Wates says. “But when I first heard The Kinks’ Ray Davies and Bob Dylan, it changed me. There was something about that unbridled freedom, that pure creativity they first exposed there that just set me on fire.”
Now nine albums down the road and with a rigorous touring calendar, Wates shows no sign of slowing down.
“The music business has changed dramatically,” he says, confirming the sentiments of so many of today’s working musicians. “Now that people can just download your music for free, the only way you can make a living doing this is to hit the road and stay there.” As a result, he currently plays some 120 road dates per year, spending summers in the Rockies.
His is a lithe, lilting, almost effortless tenor voice flying atop lyrics of significance and depth. And unlike so many of his self-absorbed modern singer-songwriter comrades, he doesn’t just strum the guitar as an after thought, he plays it well, with structure, purpose, definition and often jazz-like abandon.
“I’m kinda over writing about people and their personal relationships,” Wates says. “A songwriter today has a duty to respond to the world around us. It’s a higher calling now. What’s going on in America right now is such a rich field of material. We need to bring people together. The huddled masses and all of that. I hope I can help do that now.”
RUPERT WATES 6:30pm Saturday, Aug. 25. Caffe Trieste, 409 Alvarado St. Monterey. No cover. 241-6064, caffetriestemonterey.com
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