Dan Israel
Turning
Label: Eclectone Records
We don’t throw this reference around lightly…Minneapolis songwriter Dan Israel is simply the best homage to Dylan’s home state singer-songwriter heritage we can offer – and he’s damned good, to boot.
Don’t get sucked into the politics behind such an assertion. Instead, listen to some tracks, read up on this guy and go see him live.
Dan Israel : “Counting on You” (mp3)
Dan Israel : “News to Me” (mp3)
And here’s our exclusive interview with Mr. Israel himself…
Ninth album – this is your 9th album, Dan. Do you realize how many hours you’ve “wasted” playing and writing music?
Countless. Truly countless. Not to mention the money I’ve “wasted” pursuing a dream that is roughly as attainable as winning the lottery. Sometimes I no longer know what drives me, other than the opportunity to answer emailed interview questions from kickass bloggers. 
Aww..so true. Were your parents encouraging of your talent back in the day?
Very much so. My parents (and both sets of grandparents) have always been very musical and have encouraged my love of music from day one. My maternal grandmother was a concert pianist and a rising star in Chicago in the ’40s when my grandfather had his doctoral dissertation rejected from the University of Chicago (he was later awarded his Ph.D in the ’80s in a stunning reversal that made national news) and had to move the family up to the Iron Range in northern Minnesota (where he was from) in order to earn a living in business, so my grandmother had to give up her dreams of glory in the music world. My father’s dad was a musician in the Catskill Mountains (an entertainment circuit called “the Borscht Belt” catering primarily to Jewish families staying at resorts that allowed Jews – many other resorts excluded Jews in those days) in New York, sharing bills with the likes of TV/comedy legends like Sid Caesar and Milton Berle. For real. So music’s in my genes and it’s in my blood.
Your new album, Turning, is quite diverse. Can you talk about the diversity and how your songwriting has evolved to include such a wide range of genres and instruments?
I don’t know if my songwriter, per se, has changed that much, but I definitely reached out on this album for a wider variety of sounds to surround my songwriting. Then again, I probably wouldn’t have written a song as “vaudevillian” as “Occasionally” in the old days, and it pretty much begged for the “ragtime-y” approach that we took in producing it on the album. I guess the fact that I’ve started to write songs on the piano (like that one) definitely influences how the end product sounds. I’ve also branched out a bit more into using open tunings on guitar – that definitely lends itself to a different approach, both songwriting and production-wise. Mostly, though, I think bringing in all these incredible guest musicians on fiddle, banjo, pedal steel, piano, etc. just enhanced the overall variety of the final product. Making it fun, I hope, to listen to.
Many other songwriters who have been around as long as you either 1) have wrecked their voices or 2) have run out of interesting and/or new material. How do you keep things healthy and fresh?
I haven’t done either of those yet? Just kidding. Well, first of all, thanks. I don’t exactly “baby” my voice – but then, I have a day job and am not singing all the time, so maybe I’ve kept some of my voice intact that way (though I do have to proofread out loud quite a bit at my job, which doesn’t help things).
With songwriting, I try to listen to stuff a lot – older stuff, mainly. That keeps me interested in music, in new twists in turns in chord progressions and ideas, etc. That, and I play stuff out of the Beatles songbook all the time and often just blatantly rip off chord progressions that I like.
We won’t tell…There’s no question your Minnesota fans greatly want you to achieve higher recognition and more of a national following. Think you’re making some traction this year?
Time will tell! I hope so. I’m very proud of this record, and really excited about all the great guest performers who were kind enough to lend their talents to the project. I just got word of a very positive review forthcoming in Performing Songwriter magazine, and hopefully we’ll land some another nice national ink too. It’s a slow build, but at least it’s building. Right? Right?
Right! Tell us about the big CD release show this week.
We’ve got a ton of guests coming down to help us – really, most of the people who played on the album. Marc Perlman from the Jayhawks playing mandolin and bass, Dave Boquist from Son Volt playing banjo and violin, local honey-voiced chanteuses like JoAnna James (who’s also playing violin), Molly Maher (on slide guitar), Andra Suchy, Jenny Russ, and Janey Winterbauer on vocals. Ace pedal steel dude John Schjolberg.
Trailer Trash’s Jon Duncan on keys. My stalwart band the Cultivators anchoring the rhythm section (Kris Bowring on bass and Dave Russ on drums). We’re playing the album straight through, start to finish, with one rousing cover (a secret!) as the encore. Not a show to be missed!
New songs in the works?
No new songs right now. A few left over that didn’t make this album. Eventually I’ll have to write some more. So I can have a 10th album. That’ll be cool!
Dan Israel’s CD Release Show for Turning is this Friday at the Varsity Theatre with STOOK! and the Jukes.
