Rothberg Takes Center Stage
By JOHN STIFLER
Daily Hampshire Gasette
Northampton MA
Thursday, April 5, 2001

…after a decade of supporting more musical undertakings than the number of names on the T-shirt, Rothberg has stepped to center stage with the release of his first solo CD. Titled “All the Whispering,” it’s a polished, clear-headed set of songs from a man who has managed to spread himself broadly across the map and develop depth at the same time.

You’ll find copies of it at the Iron Horse a week from tonight, when its creator performs on the stage of the club where for two years he was its seemingly tireless publicist.

“For the past three or four years I’ve been periodically saying, dammitall, I’m gonna put out this CD!” Rothberg said Sunday on the phone from the Berkshires. Like many another artist with common sense, however, Rothberg spent the past three or four years as he spent the six or eight before them: taking jobs that would pay the rent, at the cost of the time it would take to polish his own material, get into a studio with it, and turn it into marketable goods.

The good news is, he devoted those years to some of the most worthwhile music in the area. He was Dar Williams’ first producer after she moved here from Boston, giving shape to her pivotal CD “The Honesty Room”.

The same connection brought Rothberg his highest-visibility job as a performer. After Joan Baez recorded one of Williams’ songs, Williams joined Baez’s band for a 1998 tour of Europe, and when Baez needed another guitarist, guess who got to go along as well.

Other gigs, other projects: Rothberg was the utility infielder for a wonderful and thoroughly scruffy outfit called the Big Waaagh Scratch Band, a Berkshire acoustic group that played at Montessori School fundraisers, the Taste of Northampton, and various clubs, with Rothberg handling guitar, banjo, tambourine, washboard, bazooki, backup vocals and who knows what else.

He accompanied Cliff Eberhardt, Sloan Wainright and Victoria Williams. He produced recordings for Pete Nelson, Jaime Morton, Lynne Saner and Bernice Lewis. He played in the band Doctor Isosceles, and worked with that group as recording engineer and producer.

The even better news is that Adam Michael Rothberg’s new CD is very good.

Not that I’m surprised, but it sometimes happens that the people who work most reliably on other artists’ projects do so because, consciously or otherwise, they know they’re better in that role than they are as creators themselves. If such people eventually do get around to making their own art, it comes out as a me-too effort, because it’s not really where their talents lie.

But in fact most of Rothberg’s songs are superior to a lot of what comes this way. Yes, he’s one more guy with a guitar and some life experience, but he has turned out a distinctive first record by virtue of two simple things: He is a well-practiced instrumentalist, and he writes and sings with remarkable confidence.

Okay, he’s not perfect. The opening song is “State of Tennessee,” and it’s predictable, just the way that state’s blessed name has predictably rhymed with about 6,000 words in the English language during the past two centuries. (One reader complained recently that I use hyperbole. So throw tomatoes at me.) Get my guitar and catch that train - that sort of thing.

I want to see some songwriter rhyme with “Wyoming” or, better yet, “Prince Edward Island.”

After that, however, the CD rolls forward comfortably. Track two is “Dear Jane,” a story about an 84-year-old woman whose “daughter’s got a daddy that she’s never seen,” and who imagines that she gets daily letters from her grandson, who in fact never writes at all. There’s a heart-on-the-sleeve quality to the song, but it comes across as Rothberg’s authentic style.

In the liner notes he writes, “I like to open every day like it’s a humongo birthday present,” and that slightly corny attitude suits him and his material. It’s a reminder that you don’t have to be cool to be good. The banjo track is splendid, too.

Other tracks on the disc are similarly earnest stories. “Marie” is about marrying a fellow patron at the laundromat; when her mother gives them a washer and dryer for a wedding present, they sell it so they can be sure they aren’t changing anything about their relationship.

The next tune, “The Breakup,” arrives with the kind of melodic hook that could turn this one into a pop hit for an established group, if some record-company suit gets his hand on a copy of “All the Whispering.” Other songs pay straightforward tribute to the Beatles, Paul Simon, Cat Stevens.

I like “Sanguine Sophia,” in which Rothberg shows that he’s quite capable of original rhymes, thank you very much, and which is carried by an excellent melody and the soprano saxophone of Charlie Tokarz.

Tokarz is one of several fine supporters in the recording. Others include three drummers: Doug Plavin, Dave Lincoln and Robby Baier; also Bobby Sweet on mandolin and Russell Miller on guitar. But most of the instruments are Rothberg’s: acoustic and electric guitar, bass, piano (the first instrument he studied as a child), B-3 organ, banjo and percussion.

Rothberg’s other acoustic strength is his voice. Nothing fancy about it, but he sings with distinct enunciation and expression. Call me old-fashioned, but I like being able to get all the words.

“Recording with Dar, I think we learned to arrange the music around the lyrics,” said Rothberg, and that same awareness serves “All the Whispering” well.

Rothberg will be plugging the disc with gigs in Vermont, New York, Connecticut and elsewhere in Massachusetts. He also has touring plans with Sweet, Baier and Meg Hutchinson, who will take turns backing each other in shows built around one or another’s songs.

The Northampton gig on the 12th features several of the musicians on the disc, plus veteran guitarists Joe Boyle, Darren Todd and Jim Armenti - Armenti will actually be playing his clarinet - and singer JoAnne Redding.

The opening act is West Coast songwriter Amy Corea, making her debut here. “I hope her audience and mine mix well,” said Rothberg. To judge by the way Rothberg has spent so much time supporting fellow musicians, the audience should have no trouble enjoying everyone who takes the stage that night.

The T-shirt Rothberg really should have is the one - I think it’s pictured in the Wireless catalogue - imprinted with the words “Plays Well With Others.”