Below, you can read our interview with artist Richard Knight Jr. Check out our full music review of his album Love is Possible here.
Q: Great to be speaking with you, Richard! You tell us you’ve been performing in the Chicago area since the ’80s. How has the music scene there evolved over the course of your career?
A: I was heavily involved in the live music scene in Chicago throughout the mid-80s to about the year 2000 and then morphed into performing in the world of improv at various comedy theaters. Being a world-class city, Chicago has always had pretty much any kind of live music you wanted to hear available. The city has a long history of blues and folk clubs. Rock, disco, and new wave clubs were also big when I started out. The Windy City was the birthplace of hip-hop in the 80s, Lollapalooza debuted here in the 1990s, and again, pretty much every kind of music has proliferated here. What’s not changed, unfortunately, is that musicians have a hard time making a living from their gigs.
Q: You mention a star-studded lineup of influences, notably Laura Nyro, Stephen Sondheim, Todd Rundgren, Stevie Wonder, and Joni Mitchell. On your most recent release, “Love is Possible”, from whom have you drawn the most inspiration?
A: Always Laura Nyro. She was the songwriter’s songwriter as far as I’m concerned and is my greatest influence overall. The artist who broke all the boundaries without breaking a sweat. She was a piano-based singer/songwriter whose records sound as fresh today as they did decades ago when they were released. “On” was directly influenced by Laura’s songs and her soul-tinged vocals inspired my singing as well.
I’m not conscious of direct influences while I’m writing but when I listen back now I can definitely tell that the lead track was inspired by Carole King (the recording, too – Steely Dan and Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” were also on our minds when we worked).
Sondheim has always been a great influence and was directly on several of these songs. He wrote for specific characters in his musicals and I often write lyrics imagining myself as a character. “When You Say You Love Me,” the torch song ballad that opens the album, for example, is sung from the viewpoint of a stalker; a person who really, really takes love seriously and isn’t about to let the object of their affection get away. It’s the kind of song that the stalker character from the movie Fatal Attraction would probably relate to. :)
“I’ve Been a Haunting For You” on this album was written from the perspective of a lovelorn person who is hoping against hope that the lover will return and then slowly goes mad when they don’t and finally gets swallowed up by the millions of passersby who don’t notice them each day.
Q: You’ve noted time as a solo performer as well as time spent as a member of different bands. Do you have a preference between performing alone or with others?
A: I’ve done my share of solo gigs musically but I’ve always been much more comfortable onstage playing with a band – especially when it’s my own songs. I’m not a natural singer and I need the “protection” of my musical tribe to give me the courage to sing in front of audiences. Only Mark is there when I record my vocals. In the early days, he had to turn out all the studio lights. I’m really insecure about my singing. That’s why I fronted several bands in which I purposely played a character. Then I was fearless.
Q: How long did “Love is Possible” take to record? What was the process like?
A: We started in 2017 and finished in 2021. Mark (MacLean) – the album’s producer and the initial arranger – and I have been working together for decades on a really wide variety of musical projects but by 2017, we’d both moved on to other creative pursuits. Then I had the idea of recording “Imagine Me and Marcus,” in the style of the 10cc rock ballad classic “I’m Not In Love.” Well, Mark might just be 10cc’s biggest fan and he loved the idea. So…that’s how it started.
The process was very different from our previous collaborations because of technology. We didn’t have to go into a studio. Everything was done at Mark’s house. I brought my keyboard over to record basic piano-vocal tracks and almost everything was done digitally after that – in his home office. My vocals were done in the spare bedroom. Mark was in an acapella group for years and he brought the group in and they recorded a zillion harmony tracks for the backing vocals on “Marcus.” Steve Dollinger who has played guitar on my songs for eons and Geoff Lowe, who played that incredible bass solo were recorded at different times at Mark’s house. Glenn Morimoto came over one night and did that trumpet fanfare on “Marcus” and that jazzy solo line on “When You Say You Love Me” in literally 30 minutes.
We were both really thrilled and wanted to keep going and I always have lots of songs I want to record so it just chugged along. Either Mark or I would have initial arrangement ideas and then he’d go off and make them happen and then that would spark new ideas: “Hey, what about adding a penny whistle on the last chorus?” or “Let’s make Steve’s guitar solo play backwards.” That’s one of the best parts about working with Mark – he’ll try anything.
At one point I brought in Curtis Allen Hager, who I refer to as a musical jack of all trades. He’s an amazing talent who blends unbelievable technical expertise with incredible musicality. Like Mark, any kind of arrangement idea I throw at him, Curtis is up for it. Curtis and I worked together for ten years before we met in person. He was living in Korea when most of the songs he worked on for the album were recorded. With technology, there are no limits anymore which is thrilling.
The record was really finished in 2021 but sat on the shelf while I worked on finishing an all-orchestral project with Curtis that I wanted to release first (that album is called “Edge of the Gloaming” and is also available through my Bandcamp site).
Q: You’ve told us that “Love is Possible” is a collection of songs that you felt were unfinished, some from the early days of your career. Are there any among those older tracks you are most excited about having resurrected after all this time?
A: For years I had a series of 9 to 5 office jobs and the only thing that made me happy was coming home and writing songs. I used up a lot of tape. About ten years ago I started seriously archiving my music and that’s when I began finding a lot of unfinished songs or songs that with a few revisions would be great in the studio. It was thrilling to finally finish the ballad “Three Times Makes It True.” I’d written the song’s prologue and chorus in…get ready…1977. But no matter how many times I went back to it over the years, I couldn’t get a verse and bridge that worked. Until 2019 when the muse finally struck. You just suddenly know – “Yes! This is what I’ve been waiting for – at last!” “All the Way to the Other Side” is another song that was in sketch form and got finished which delighted me. It’s a real oddity; I love that it’s so quirky. I’m happy that so many of the songs on the album that never fit on previous projects finally got recorded. “Love Is Possible,” “Daddy Was a Thin Man” and “I’m Night” would be examples of songs that languished in the trunk for a long time.
Q: What was your first instrument? Do you still have/play it?
A: Piano. I played synthesizers throughout the 80s and 90s but really, piano. I’m fortunate that my parents bought me a Yamaha upright when I was in high school in the 1970s and I still have it and play it every day. It’s in fantastic shape, too. The piano, really, is my best friend – wouldn’t every musician say that about their instrument? Music never lets you down, does it?
Q: Perhaps in some unspecified amount of time, your musical career explodes in the best of ways. What does that look like for you?
A: When I was young I really yearned for a big-time music career and have been very close to recording contracts or distribution deals on many occasions. But I have had my hopes dashed literally every time for a variety of reasons. What saved me emotionally is what saves me now: I’m someone who creates in a lot of different mediums so if something doesn’t take off musically, I pivot to one of my other creative outlets to find renewal – one of my writing projects – a screenplay or a book – or I work on another film or live performance or something else. I’m lucky because I can do a lot of things creatively and can jump into something else when the blues threaten to drive me mad! (Though I know what I can’t do, too – which I think is really important.)
Now – just to have my music appreciated beyond the small audience of my friends and family would be glorious. And I love it when other singers record my songs. Having one of my songs become a standard and recorded by other artists – that would be the ultimate for me. I’ve worked in a creative vacuum for a long time so outside recognition is like the last thought. Thank God I learned early from the example of Georgia O’Keeffe (my favorite painter) when she remarked, “I paint for myself.” Period. Anything beyond that is fantastic. That’s my basic feeling about my music; about everything I create. I’m a success from the moment I’m satisfied with the song I’ve written. Oh? You like it? You want to hear it again? You want to read it? To see it? Wow – how cool is that?
Q: You get to collaborate with anyone of your choosing. Who is it?
A: Mark Ronson. I would want a producer who would bring such an amazing skill set to the table. He’d bring fresh ears; new ideas to my music. That’s a really tantalizing thing to contemplate. I think “Back to Black,” the collaboration he did with Amy Winehouse is genius.
Q: Your favorite album of all time? (Yup, you gotta choose one.)
A: One?! ONE?!! Okay ‘’Days of Future Passed” by the Moody Blues which I fell for at a really pivotal time in my musical growth.
Q: Your favorite song of all time? (Again, only one!)
A: “Lush Life” by Billy Strayhorn. Written at 19! Genius. I have a playlist of all these different recordings of the song. Sarah Vaughan, Nat King Cole, Rickie Lee Jones, Frank Sinatra’s aborted attempt, Ella Fitzgerald, Lady Gaga, and on and on. The best version? Queen Latifah’s recorded for the movie Living Out Loud (it’s a really good movie, too).
Q: What would you like fans to know about you that they’re most likely unaware of?
A: I don’t always eat one blueberry Pop Tart for breakfast. Sometimes I have brown sugar cinnamon with my adult chocolate milk (aka Starbucks Mocha Frapp).
Q: Any shout-outs you wanna make?
A: All my musical collaborators over the many years on and off stage; all the supportive fans – mostly friends and family now. Always grateful for the endless support. I have to single out Marla Hohmeier, my oldest friend, who heard the music that became “Marla’s Song” and made me realize that songwriting was a thing I was meant to do.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: Can someone PLEASE get that Laura Nyro documentary finished or a biopic made?! Haven’t we waited long enough?
(Want to be interviewed by The Ark of Music? Click HERE.)