Bruce Balmer

Maybe it's the shifting points of view within a song. Or maybe the heart-stopping melody variations. Whatever it is, I am riveted to his singing and what happens when his fingers fly over the frets.More than likely, you haven't heard of Bruce Balmer. He's one of those below-the-radar gems, playing out-of-the-way bars, coffee shops, and Greenwich Village clubs that can easily escape your attention.
He sings in a muscular lower register. It works well with the poetry of his lyrics. His vocals may never catapult him
into that rarified stratosphere inhabited by the Ellis Pauls of the singer/songwriter field, but it cannot disguise the poetic
soul at the core of who he is. It certainly does not hide the solid musicianship he possesses.

The guitar of Bruce Balmer is a voice unto itself. While it reflects Bruce's passion, it also speaks a second language,
apart from the words that are being sung. The personality coming from his arch-top acoustic Gibson (with pickups)
is so strong that there's another presence on stage.

One particular song, for me, epitomizes his skill. "If You Find What You're Lookin' For," a blistering, rollicking ride,
on his solo album Upstream. I suspect that this is the one that had one poetry circle organizer speak in worshipful
tones in describing Bruce. It begins:

If you find what you're lookin' for,
Keep it to yourself.
If you find what you're lookin' for,
Keep it to yourself.

You're out on your own, now,
You want to see what you can do;
You've had the taste of life on a charm,
It's comin' out of your radio.

Punchin' the keys to a million memories
Of tales yet to be told;
But when it comes to the one you want,
Some things are better left unsold;
When it comes to the life you love,
Some things are better let grow old.

Layers of guitar work -- all Bruce -- a jazz-like guitar solo with a hint of funk is overlaid on top of an insistent strum,
urgently pressing home the idea of a lonely inner dedication to working toward a goal instead of simply blathering about
it to others.

To begin with…
The rich depth of his playing speaks of a life that held promises from the beginning. His story (everything in quotes below)
can be found on his web site, as he told it to the webmaster for his home page, Bill Pierce:

"Though I didn't know it at the time, I grew up in an early form of a counter culture family in the Catskill Mountains,
where there were nearly weekly get-togethers of musicians playing old popular tunes from the thirties, forties and earlier:
"Stardust Melody," "Up A Lazy River," "Summertime," "St. Louis Woman," and others. I had piano lessons off and on
from age five; boogie-woogie was popular with my dad, still is, so I learned a bit of that to play for him, still do; I particularly
like Pete Johnson; never was crazy about ragtime. Then in high school, I listened to my brothers surf and pop band practicing
in the living room at least once a week; I don't know how my parents put up with it. The only complaint of any consequence
was the oil stain left on the beige carpet by the bass drum pedal; mom didn't like that."
"Not long after that I was in my own bands. I got my first guitars in 1966, a big year for me in a lot of ways, first loves and all.
I learned a lot from the golden Beatles song books. Anyway my bands were doing top forty covers for the next years through
high school; I was shamelessly entranced by big hits; My father bought me my first Jimi Hendrix record because he liked
The Wind Cries Mary; I thought he was weird at first, but for some reason I felt I had to be able to do what he was doing,
even though I didn't have a clue to where he was coming from; I'm still working on that one. Then, I was competitive about it;
now it's a great love, and some part of almost everything I do on guitar."


Higher Inspiration:

Bruce received a B.A. from Marlboro College (Vermont) where he studied with the brilliant musician and teacher,
Blanche Moyse. He states:
"At Marlboro, Blanche Moyse, of course, was a huge influence: her love and illumination of J. S. Bach, her patience as a teacher,
clarification of what harmony was all about; but mostly she taught me to give myself a chance, have patience with my own process
of learning, how to practice any instrument or course of action."
"I used the stuff I learned from Bach when I was playing country and western 6 nights a week, 5 hours a night, for a living when
I was in Colorado in the early 80's. A lot was learned from doing George Jones, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins,
Ricky Skaggs, Earnest Tubb, Bob Wills, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and others from Laramie and Cheyenne,
Wyoming, to Greeley, Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and various barrooms in east Colorado."
His musical training was strong enough to allow him to stretch out into other areas, like jazz and composition for dance. He recalled:
"At this time I was also going to blues and jazz jams in Fort Collins, where I was living; I was also working with a couple of
choreographers writing a few jazz and one ballet dance pieces. My piano-playing at that time was very strong from having to
perform for recording in one or two takes the dance pieces I was composing; the ballet gets more and more difficult toward the
end because of all the practicing I had to do to learn the parts before just so I could hear the damn thing."
A "finish" carpenter, he has paid his bills through the years working at this craft. He has assisted in building two recording studios;
one in Woodstock and one in Manhattan, the latter for Philip Glass.
Bruce recognizes a stylistic kindred spirit in Mark Knopfler. He said, when he first heard Mark's work, that he saw the same type
of electric fingerpicking. He acknowledges, however that he cannot match Knopfler's polish. The robust nature of Bruce's playing
more than makes up for any missing polish.
Asked about influences, his answer is characteistically reflective:
"My biggest influences have been my mistakes; I can find something wrong with just about anything I play, but I'm trying to get
over that. I take them personally, and learn from all of them; After that, my mother who played piano, accordion and organ and
sang; my family of musicians and their tastes and opinions."

- AcousticLive magazine, September 4th, 2002