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Singer-songwriter David Roth performs original works Saturday night at the First Encounter Coffee House in Eastham. |
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Sing it loud, sing it clear
By Melora B. North
Banner Staff
He didn’t write his first song until Valentine’s Day in 1973 and since then singer-songwriter David Roth, who will be performing Saturday at the First Encounter Coffee House in Eastham, hasn’t put down the guitar or the pen. He got into the biz by a lucky fluke and is one of the fortunate ones who is actually making a living with his music.
“This is my joy, not my livelihood but my lovelyhood,” says Roth. “I sing to the world, the brain and the heart. I turn down almost as many jobs as I take; I’m fortunate I get to select,” he says with heartfelt sincerity.
After graduating in 1976 from the University of Illinois where he studied communications and broadcast journalism, Roth headed up to Alaska where he worked as a copywriter for a small advertising firm. It was while up there that his musical juices began to flow, despite the frozen tundra.
“I heard that Kitty, who was performing at the local saloon called Moby Dick’s, was leaving,” Roth says. “I borrowed her electric guitar and played two verses of a Dan Fogelberg song. They hired me to play from 4 to 6. By day it was a watering hole for the local naval base sailors; by night it was an exotic dance bar,” he says, laughing.
Originally from a show-biz family in Chicago, Roth grew up around such showmen as Joey Bishop, Jimmy Durante, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Danny Kaye, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole and other luminaries of the day. With his mother a big band singer, music was in his blood and all around him as he hung out at Chez Paree cabaret in Chicago where his father was the maitre d’. It would seem his future was laid out for him from the start, but he chose to take a circuitous route to get to where he is today.
“I’ve played guitar since I was a senior in high school. I sang at coffee houses in college,” says Roth. “I played Paul Simon, Dylan; they were a good training ground. The first song I wrote was in 1973. It was a song of friendship to a buddy. I composed it when I was in France,” where he was studying for a college semester. Other songs would follow.
“In 1980 I took a back pack trip and landed in New York City, where I lived for 10 years,” says Roth. It was there that he hooked up with the Greenwich Village Café and got active in the songwriting meetings. “A bunch of hard core singer-songwriters hung out there. I got hooked and started to drop in. There was an open mike.”
In 1987 he was discovered and finally able to quit what he refers to as his “last part-time job.” He had entered a songwriting contest in Texas and won. “My universe exploded,” says Roth. “There were 40 finalists and we were invited to attend. All the songwriters congregated at the Kerrville Fest. My mind was blown wide open.” And so was his future.
It was in the ’90s that Roth met his Eastham-bred wife, Tricia, a massage therapist and yoga instructor he refers to as a “rock star for fitness.” Living in Orleans since 2000, the pair spent a decade in Seattle where he continued to develop and hone his talents.
With 10 CDs under his belt, Roth has other accomplishments of which he is equally proud. He performed at the 40th anniversary of the United Nations and has sung the national anthem twice at Chicago Bulls games in Chicago. “It’s my hometown. I used to watch games at the stadium,” he says. “To sing before 18,000 people, well that was something.”
Roth wrote a song that Paul of the famed trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, chose to perform at a concert that friends of his were attending. “I admired him so much when I was young and when my friends heard him perform my song in concert then told me about it, it was thrilling.”
Equally impressive is the fact that Roth has sat in with blues doctor Drink Small. “There was a workshop and Drink Small needed a bass player so he could do his concert. I sat in,” says Roth. “Four hundred people cheered us on the whole time. To think I got to play beside this man, I could feel the energy, it was so exciting I can’t describe it. To play with him was an honor.”
Today Roth performs his original acoustic songs solo most of the time, though he says he will sometimes play with the locals. He performs cross-country at clubs, concert halls and conferences. And this will be, Roth thinks, his sixth time at the First Encounter Coffee House. He describes his music as “a wide variety of style and subject, easy listening protest music, heavy mental.”
For his upcoming concert Roth plans to sing originals from his new CD, “Practice Makes Progress,” as well as some older songs such as “Cape Cod,” a song about everything Cape, from the Christmas Tree Shops to the dunes, lobster to Route 6A and, of course, the Atlantic Ocean, which can be heard at intervals on the CD. He says the enhanced CD should be available for sale the night of the concert; this CD features a short video, some of the footage shot in Provincetown.
Of this upcoming concert Roth says, “I never know what to expect. There’s always a connection or an amazing person to meet. Every road takes me to a beautiful place. It’ll be fun to go back to the coffee house.”
David Roth plays at the First Encounter Coffee House, 220 Samoset Road in Eastham, Saturday at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $15.
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WOMR celebrates its 26th birthday with a bash
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Mar 20th, 2008