An Evening With STEVE FORBERT

Steve Forbert is a true American treasure, a fact underscored by his 21st album, Daylight Savings Time. Like all his albums of original songs, it’s suffused with what venerated rock journalist Robert Christgau discerned as his “omnivorously observant” songwriting, marked by Steve’s gift for finding the deeper meaning and magic within the spectrum of everyday moments, as well as his abundant melodic and poetic enchantment.

As Forbert approaches the milestone of his 70th birthday, Daylight Savings Time contemplates and celebrates the proverbial ‘extra hour of daylight’ that comes with the time change. “Yeah to chirping crickets and to daylight savings time!” he sings on the album’s first single “Sound Existence,” “The best ain’t yet to come, but you could still get by just fine.”

Steve arrived in New York City from his Meridian, Mississippi hometown in 1976. He slotted seamlessly into the “new folk” revival in such Manhattan clubs as Folk City, The Bitter End, and Kenny’s Castaways while taking the stage at CBGB, ground zero of the burgeoning new wave/punk movement. He also busked on the streets of Greenwich Village and in the elegant confines of Grand Central Station.

He quickly won a major label deal with Nemperor/CBS Records and released his heralded debut, Alive on Arrival, in 1978. His next album, Jackrabbit Slim, released in 1979, brought wider renown to Forbert with its #11 pop chart hit “Romeo’s Tune.” It provided the stature for his troubadour existence, which has kept him active ever since as “a striking performer, very much worth seeing and hearing,” according to the New York Times.