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After 55 years of collaboration, Lenny Kaye managed to surprise Patti Smith once again – when he played her his new album “Goin’ Local”, which will be released on July 29th. “I’ve never heard you sound like that before,” she said to him.
The album marks Kaye’s long overdue official debut as a solo artist – at the age of 79. He can look back on an exceptionally diverse career: In addition to his decades-long work as Smith’s guitarist and close collaborator, he has written numerous books, produced artists from Suzanne Vega to Soul Asylum and compiled the legendary garage rock box set “Nuggets”. “I was always writing songs,” says Kaye. “Sometimes they’re very personal. Sometimes I write them just for me. The timing? As Orson Welles said, there’s no wine before its time. I really can only focus on one side of my personality at a time. And of course – with writing the books, working with Patti and all the other things I do – I was always at the bottom of the priority list.”
Smith probably won’t be the only one surprised by the album. It combines downtown rock with gentle, playful story songs that approach an almost Buddy Holly-esque melodic sweetness. There is also a wonderful song together with Smith: the poppy, medium-paced “Solstice”. “Some of it is very emotional and tender in a way that people might not associate with me,” Kaye says. “I’m known for garage rock, quotes on and off, which I always celebrate and uphold. But that was the music I made as a teenager. I’ve long since outgrown that in many ways.”
Influences and role models
Kaye Townes cites Van Zandt, Eric Andersen, Kevin Kinney of Drivin’ N Cryin’ and Alejandro Escovedo as reference points for the album’s softer material. His work in the eighties as a producer for another singer-songwriter was also formative. “Working with Suzanne Vega,” he says, “taught me the beauty of acoustic guitar, the simple intimacy of fingerpicking, and how to let a song breathe.”
The solo debut label deserves a little asterisk, however: In 1984, while Smith had turned his back on music, Kaye released the harder “I’ve Got A Right” under the band name Lenny Kaye Connection. “It was more of a band,” Kaye says. “Since it’s been 40 years now, this is probably my solo debut for this millennium… I really feel like a new artist… Whatever I’ve done before, especially in the band world, belongs to a different era. I feel like I’m moving into the future – and that’s a great gift.”
Six of the album tracks were created in aborted sessions in the 2010s with Patti Smith Group bassist Tony Shanahan. Two years ago, Kaye began finishing what he had started and adding new material in a studio near his home in Pennsylvania. “Some songs are 15, 20 years old,” says Kaye. “Sometimes I meet a younger version of myself. The title song, ‘Goin’ Local,’ comes from a time when I was a bit more of a wild animal on the Lower East Side than I am today.”
Collectors, memories, transience
One of the album’s most moving tracks is the collector’s elegy “The Things You Leave Behind.” “I go into my basement and see mountains of great stuff,” he says. “It’s really difficult. There’s this piece of memorabilia, here some sheet music that I found at some point. Then I go upstairs and there’s the guitar room with great guitars and amplifiers. And of course all the books… This song was triggered by two, three, four people who suddenly leave this world – and then what happens to all this stuff? That’s what my daughter keeps asking me: ‘Dad, finally get that stuff out of the house.'”
The album’s closing track, “Yes I Will,” features lyrics by Kaye’s late uncle Larry Kusic – a successful Hollywood songwriter whose credits include “Speak Softly Love,” the English-language love theme from “The Godfather,” and “A Time for Us,” the love theme from the 1968 Romeo and Juliet film. It is not their first collaboration. In 1966, Kusic asked the then 19-year-old Kaye to sing a folk protest song he had just written with Richie Adams: “Crazy Like a Fox.” It was Kaye’s first recording, released under the name Link Cromwell. Returning to this collaboration “really touches me deeply,” says Kaye.
In the spring, Kaye will play a few solo acoustic concerts with Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, as well as a solo festival appearance. “I really like this type of presentation because it allows you to delve very deeply into your own songs,” he says. “I’m standing up there with my guitar, my songs and my sense of humor.”
Lenny Kaye tour dates
- April 25 – Avalon – Easton, MD
- April 26 – Rams Head – Annapolis, MD
- April 27 – The Birchmere – Alexandria, VA
- April 29 – City Winery – New York, NY
- April 30 – The Ardmore – Ardmore, PA
- May 2 – Levon Helm Studios – Woodstock, NY
- May 5 – Iron Horse – Northampton, MA
- May 6 – Bull Run – Shirley, MA
- May 8th – 3S Artspace – Portsmouth, NH
- May 9th – Opera House – Bellows Falls, VT
- June 26 – Dex Fest – Carrboro, NC
- June 27 – Dex Fest – Carrboro, NC
