‘I have so many records,” says San Francisco-based singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet, talking about his collection. “And I don’t know if I could tell you what it is that makes me return to some.”
His latest release, Wake the Dead, is the sort of record that listeners will want to engage with again and again.
Over the course of his more than four decades as a recording artist—10 albums with Green on Red, 17 solo albums and a long list of guest credits and collaborations—Chuck Prophet has explored a wide variety of musical styles. His music has moved through rock, alt-country, punk, garage, psychedelia and more. And he’s no dilettante: Prophet’s excursions into those various genres and sub-genres are expressions of his deep, authentic and wide-encompassing musical values.
“I’ve been making records a long time,” he explains, emphasizing that all of his releases share an important characteristic. “The one thing that they all have in common is that somewhere along the line I got excited about something,” he says.
Luckily for Prophet and followers of his work, that excitement happens often. And it happened against the backdrop of a difficult period. First, he and most everyone else was sidelined by the pandemic. Moreover, Prophet faced a diagnosis of stage four lymphoma, followed by treatment and recovery. In normal times, he’d be busy: on tour, preparing for a tour or “wrestling a record to the ground,” he explains. “But I had a lot of downtime, and it afforded me the time to do a lot of listening.”
What he listened to was cumbia (folk and dance music of the Latin American tradition) and chicha, a Peruvian hybrid music style that incorporates huyano (Andean folk), psych- and surf-rock. “It’s very guitar-centric dance music,” Prophet says, “and it can get you out of your head.” He fell in love with the styles, and began writing songs informed by his new musical discoveries. “And then,” he says, “I started fantasizing about making a record.”
For that project, Prophet connected with Salinas-based cumbia group ¿Qiensave? That group—four members of whom are siblings—had already made two albums, an EP and a remix collection before working with him on what would become Wake the Dead. “The way I make records is to ‘circle my prey,’” Prophet says with a chuckle, admitting that he “kind of imposes” himself on the musicians with whom he works.
But in the case of ¿Qiensave? he found that they taught him a great deal. “Subtle things,” he says, “like, ‘Why don’t you make that a major chord?’ I’m pretty grateful to them.” Prophet also enthuses about the band of brothers’ “blood harmonies; there’s nothing [else] like it. When we utilized that on the record, it gave a lot of flavor.”
There’s also a clear—if not wholly intentional—topical feel to the music. “Sally Was a Cop” is a song Prophet co-wrote more than a decade ago with Alejandro Escovedo, first heard on the latter’s 2012 album Big Station. But—especially with its new cumbia-inflected arrangement—it feels like a subtle comment on current-day masked government thugs.
Yet Prophet says that when he co-wrote the tune circa 2010, he was inspired by an observation by an acclaimed author. “Cormac McCarthy was on Oprah or something,” he says, “and someone asked him how he was able to write with such graphic violence.” Prophet says that McCarthy replied that he needed only to look around at what was happening, and then imagine what it might be like in 20 or 30 years. The lyrics of “Sally Was a Cop” mention “marching of the street, people hiding in their cupboards,” so apparently that dystopian vision has arrived in America a few years ahead of schedule.
Calling himself “a brat,” Prophet laughs and says that he “never had much of a relationship with mortality; I pretty much figured it was for other people.” But his encounter with lymphoma changed things. “I’m a little more aware that I have a limited amount of time on this planet,” he admits. “And I just don’t have time for everything.”
Yet with admirable consistency, Chuck Prophet finds time to write and record new music. “I’ve always done it out of necessity,” he says, noting that a new record usually means another tour, which keeps the musicians gainfully employed. “For a lot of people, the road is a real grind,” he observes, emphasizing that even after all these years—and at age 62—he enjoys touring. “When I get in the van, that’s like a vacation.”
Against that backdrop, writing and recording is much more than a means to an end; for Prophet, it’s a rewarding endeavor unto itself. “If I’m lucky enough to get a bunch of songs I’m excited about, and if I’m lucky enough to get people in a room to record them,” he says, “I’m in.”
And Chuck Prophet is clearly excited both by the opportunity to tour with his current band, and by his new crop of songs on Wake the Dead. “Anybody can write a song,” Prophet observes. “That’s the craft part. But the thing that makes us return to a record? That’s the magic.”
Chuck Prophet and His Cumbia Shoes take the stage at 8pm on Dec. 28 at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $25 adv/$30 door. 479-1854. moesalley.com
