“I’ve not done a record in 14 years,” says Redwood Valley resident and man of multiple hats, Spencer Brewer.
“In 2008, the economy crashed, and by 2009 there was a paradigm shift in the music industry, which forced me out of the music business.”
But during that time, the consummate pianist, promoter, artist, piano tuner and marketer for the wine industry kept playing and performing, working on various compositions and ultimately, producing his 15th album, “Behind the Veil,” which will be performed for the public for the first time on Saturday, November 12th at the SPACE Performing Arts Theatre in Ukiah.
This album represents Brewer’s personal paradigm shift, which he describes as “going much deeper in the way I felt and composed music.”
“Over my lifetime, I have had the blessing to create and produce ideas across a wide spectrum of genres. In every event, windows of knowledge, understanding and letting go occurred. This collection of music is me getting out of my own way, listening quietly and allowing what was ‘behind the veil’ to come forth.”
Like so many kids, Brewer began playing piano and taking music lessons at the age of seven. But he had access to a person and a musical genre most children did not.
“My grandmother, Alma Loveless Gertrude ‘Doody’ Brewer was a flapper in the ‘20’s. She played boogie-woogie music and Southern popular songs. Learning blues and boogie-woogie gave me permission to create my own music and explore different musical styles.” Brewer quit formal music lessons at the age of 12, with a directive from his mother that he had to continue to practice one hour per day.
“That forced me to open the doors- to explore creativity through music.” Brewer began to make up simple melodies and master the complex style and rhythm of boogie-woogie. “Two different hands are going in two different directions. I used to play the same thing on the piano, over and over, every day, really loud. It drove my father crazy,” he smiles.
Brewer dropped out of college and moved to Austin to be a musician in Texas, playing everything from rock ’n roll in bars to working collaboratively with modern dance companies, creating music, accompanying other artists and building his own instruments.
“I was definitely living the hippie lifestyle. I had written a couple of musicals in New York. In 1981, we moved to Missouri, and I recorded my first record, which was a compilation of those musicals, blues, boogie and a solo song or two. Because of that one cassette, someone told me that I played this thing called ‘New Age Music,’ which was solo piano. I’d never heard of it before. I got rid of all the vocals in the musicals on the album which then became, ‘Where Angels Dance.’”
The release of that album and the founding of his company, Willow Rose Records marked the official start of Brewer’s professional musical career.
“I made a few more records and Narada Productions had the rights to my next seven. During that period, I made a lot of music and toured constantly. Eventually, I stopped touring. I built our recording studio in Redwood Valley, where we’ve recorded 200 records, a dozen film scores and countless radio commercials.” Brewer continued to compose, play concerts and produce musical events and festivals- including his 25-year production of the City of Ukiah’s Sundays in the Park.
“Behind the Veil” represents a collaboration between Brewer and musical powerhouse Michael Whalen, who he calls the “sherpa” of the project. Whalen, a prolific composer and producer is based out of New York. He and his team are taking Brewer’s music worldwide and additionally, are producing multiple music videos- a first for Brewer.
“Michael is a master executive in today’s streaming, post-production world. Two or three friends encouraged me to contact him. Our first conversation was a ‘Kumbaya moment.’ He listened to what I was doing and wanted to be a part of this project.”
“The music on this record is focused on the actual compositions themselves, instead of the arrangements around the compositions. Most of my previous albums had full instrumentations or orchestras around them, so the original song was there, but the piano was buried deep. This album features the raw composition itself and the piano,” Brewer explains.
The album features a musical powerhouse, including Jeremy Cohen, a multi-Grammy-Award winning violinist, who arranged the strings for the project. Paul McCandless plays Soprano sax. Quartet San Francisco performs the string arrangements. Chad Katlinger plays viola, Andres’ Vera plays cello and Nancy Rumbel plays English Horn and Oboe.
Brewer’s upcoming concert will feature local powerhouses, in addition to Jeremy Cohen on violin. Margie Rice is playing 2nd violin and Joel Cohen will be playing cello. “Paul Yarbrough is one of the founders of the Alexander String Quartet. He just recently moved to Redwood Valley, and he will be playing viola.” The concert will be videoed, and the full album will be released on Jan. 20, 2023 as a CD and on all the usual streaming platforms.
On Brewer’s website, the first video for the new album is available for viewing and listening. “Parasols in Paris” was recorded in the Saracina Winery’s wine cave. The videographer for the project was Kirk Fuller of Fuller Digital Media. The strings were arranged by Jeremy Cohen and the musicians include Margie Rice and Katherine Wang playing violin, Linda Marks playing viola and Joel Cohen playing cello. The piece begins with Brewer on piano, playing a deceptively simple waltz, with the video alternating between the musical quartet to street scenes on a rainy day in Paris. The melody begins languidly and slowly builds to an emotional crescendo, augmented by the beauty of slow-motion raindrops, the faces of Parisians walking in the rain and yes, the parasols. For those who have followed Brewer’s music since his early days, there is a maturity and warmth to his playing. It is not difficult to imagine a similar song being composed over 100 years ago, yet it has emanates the complexity and emotion of today’s world. The “front-facing” mixing of his piano on the 12-song album is the confirmation of Brewers’ tour de force capacities as a songwriter and pianist.
“This group of songs showed up and got developed over the last several years and were very special for me. They went deeper compositionally than I’d ever gone before. This is why I realized it was time to release them.”
Additionally, Bobby Cochran recorded the piano for the album and provided the artist photos, with Larry Wagner producing the cover photo of one of Brewer’s unique assemblage sculptures- fittingly, including a mandala-like arrangement of piano keys.
Brewer still manages to play piano regularly but managed to move beyond his mother’s admonition of daily sessions at the keyboard.
“I do not have a schedule. I play when I’m inspired,” he explains. He is also the last remaining piano tuner in Mendocino County.
“Eight techs moved away, quit or died, which left only me. The great part of my job is I get to play hundreds of freshly tuned pianos. I’m in the process of trying to teach Wendy DeWitt the trade. Tuning is more about listening. You do have to learn the hammer technique, the tensions and the relationships to intervals. You have to be able to hear those beats between the intervals. It took me months to be able to hear them and count them.”
On any given week, Brewer has dozens of pianos awaiting his tuning services. “I’ve got over 40 on a waiting list. I’d probably get to them if I wasn’t releasing a book, an album and booking concert tours,” he laughs.
Having seen and experienced the seismic changes in the music industry in the last quarter century, Brewer hasn’t a clue what comes next.
“That’s the honest to God truth. I have no idea where it’s all going. The industry has gone to a place I never expected it to go and is certainly not the industry I grew up with. It’s very hard to get heard and have success in the music business compared to when I was much younger. There is so much competition, so much content and so many people trying to be seen and heard.”
To that end, Brewer is cementing his musical legacy in another way. “For the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve been working with local artist Jesse Timm. He’s transcribed every piano piece onto sheet music. He is an absolute genius. There will be a full book of songs on Sheet Music Plus and Sheet Music Direct. I’ve never done this before. Not only can you buy the record- you can download the transcriptions and play them.”
Though he’s mostly retired from the wine business, one of the company’s hits- Star Trek Wine, is still a part of Brewer’s life.
“They still ask me to rep the wine at the Star Trek conventions, which I wouldn’t miss for anything in the world,” he smiles.
The concert begins at 7 p.m. SPACE Theatre is located at 508 W. Perkins St. in downtown Ukiah. Visit https://www.spencerbrewer.com\ for the latest on the upcoming record release and all his other work. Tickets for the November album release concert are also available through SPACE Performing Arts at (707) 462-9370 , at the Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah and through https://www.brownpapertickets.com
English (US)