Local artist talks about the long road to Lawrenceville

Lawrence resident Bob Norman celebrates the release of his latest album, "Love, Lust & Lilacs," at a special house concert Sunday.

   When is Lawrence closer to Connecticut than it is to New York City? When you’re talking to folk singer-songwriter Bob Norman.
By: Steve Bates
   The Lawrenceville resident will celebrate the release of his new album, "Love, Lust & Lilacs," at 7 p.m. Sunday at a house concert in Princeton sponsored by Robin’s Nest House Concerts and the Princeton Folk Music Society.
   The album is Mr. Norman’s third release. However, this album presented a milestone for him. This is Mr. Norman’s first collection of recorded material written outside the confines of New York City in a suburban community.
   Mr. Norman has been playing music in one form or another since he was about 3 years old. He started out with the violin and followed up with the piano and clarinet. However, a summer camp counselor was the first person to teach Mr. Norman a few chords on the guitar at the age of 14.
   "And I’m still trying to learn how to play the damn thing," he said.
   He shouldn’t have too much trouble. Mr. Norman has music is in his genes.
   His father, Victor Norman, fled Nazi persecution after Hitler’s invasion of Scandinavia during World War II. The elder Mr. Norman immigrated to the United States and settled in Connecticut, where he began to lay the groundwork for the creation of his own symphony. But it wasn’t an easy road, said the younger Mr. Norman.
   "Actually, one of the things I’ve learned from Dad was that you couldn’t make a living in the arts, and you couldn’t let that stop you," said Mr. Norman who worked for a magazine for years to support his musical pursuits.
   The elder Mr. Norman juggled a full-time job at the Electric Boat Co. in Groton, Conn., and also the creation of a music school and the Eastern Connecticut Symphony. Mr. Norman chose to close the music school so he could devote more time to the creation of the symphony.
   It was financially difficult to create a symphony in a section of New England that did not have a thriving arts program. Mr. Norman chose often to defer his conductor’s salary in the interest of the symphony’s viability.
   The experience demonstrated to the young Mr. Norman that it would be very difficult to have a music career without a steady job to pay the bills.
   While attending college at Columbia University in New York City, Mr. Norman played in rock and blues bands. In 1965, one of his bands actually cut a single for MGM records. Though nothing became of the single, the group did get to play with piano player Garth Hudson on the record. Mr. Hudson would later become a member of Bob Dylan’s electric band, which was considered one of the greatest backup bands in popular music. That group later became known as The Band.
   Mr. Norman’s bands also opened for Chuck Berry and the Loving Spoonful. But the encounter that did the most to cement his musical direction, was seeing Dylan perform in a cafe on McDougal Street in New York’s Greenwich Village.
   "I think without any question, one of my biggest influences was Dylan. I heard him play three songs and I never thought anyone could write songs like that," said Mr. Norman.
   Mr. Norman said the mid- to late-1960s was a time when folk reached it’s height in popularity and rock music was finally becoming interesting with the appearance of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
   "They were writing better songs," he said.
   However, the spell that Dylan cast was much more enchanting than that of Mick Jagger or John Lennon, said Mr. Norman, because he was able to consistently combine great music with great poetry. Dylan taught Mr. Norman that "there was so much you could do with a song that I never knew. Contemporary songwriters have a debt to Dylan for what he did."
   Mr. Norman said the job of a folk musician is not limited to just singing and playing songs.
   "The job can look easy, but is actually quite complicated," said Mr. Norman. "You don’t just sing and play guitar. You have to be a storyteller, a comedian, have a social conscious and sing and play too."
   However, there is a degree of intimacy with the audience and with the material that musicians in other genres just can’t obtain, he said.
   "It’s one of the things that drew me to folk music," Mr. Norman said of the intimacy of his music. The approach to singing classical music is very far from conversational. One of the things that drew me in was the storytelling and the conversational tone."
   More important than the tone, the folk format made it possible, and even laudable, to write songs with substance.
   "They were telling stories, I mean real stories," said Mr. Norman. "These were not high school dating stories."
   Instead of getting completely fired up after his encounter with Dylan, dropping out of college and hitting the musical touring circuit, Mr. Norman accepted a job at Sing Out!, a folk music magazine.
   He worked there for 20 years, serving as managing editor of the publication for seven years, while building a folk music career in the New York area through live performances and two albums.
   The magazine job was great, he said. Mr. Norman spent his summers attending folk festivals and the rest of the year listening to new folk music.
   "I got totally immersed in music," he said.
   However, the experience at Sing Out! was a double-edged sword. Mr. Norman found himself becoming so devoted to a publication about the art form he loved that he had very little time left to play, write and perform.
   In fact, during his time as managing editor, Mr. Norman gave up his music for about seven years.
   Mr. Norman tends to write about his environment. His first two offerings were focused on his life in New York City. His new album, "Love, Lust & Lilacs," is a collection of songs partially written in the city and partially written in New Jersey, Mr. Norman’s home since 1994.
   The move to Shirley Lane, his marriage, his relationship with his father, now 95 and living with him, his son, a recent bout with prostate cancer and a 53rd birthday all help to make the new album a little more introspective and personal.
   Despite the title, the song "The Long Road to Lawrenceville," anchors the album. It conjures ghosts of Colonial soldiers marching down the King’s Highway off to do battle with the Hessians. It also uses Lawrenceville as kind of a tree for Mr. Norman to lean against along the road of life. The town is a place where the songwriter has decided to evaluate his life.
   "On the long road to Lawrenceville, there were rivers that had to be crossed/There were bridges that had to be burned, there were battles that had to be lost."
   "I don’t think I ever write a song thinking, ‘OK, I’m going to take stock of my life,’" he said. "But looking back, you can see a lot of things. I’ve just completed 30 years in the folk music circuit and I think every artist says ‘Well, I’ve been at this for a while… is this bringing me pleasure anymore?’"
   The business end of being your own writer, performer, manager, booking agent, record promoter and record label can be tedious, said Mr. Norman. But the artist made a decision a few years ago to continue his folk music career even though he was faced with the knowledge that chances were good that he wasn’t a household name.
   "If you continue to do this, you damn better enjoy it," said Mr. Norman who seems to have reaffirmed his commitment to his music through the new album, nurturing his son’s musical pursuits and his newfound studies in classical guitar.
   The move from New York to suburban New Jersey has brought Mr. Norman a little closer to where he started out in suburban Connecticut. For Mr. Norman, it was a good change.
   "I was very reluctant to leave New York, but it’s been good here," he said. "In New York, I tended not to write so much about New York, but the neighborhoods. That also feels right here in a small community like Lawrence.
   For more information about Bob Norman, visit www.bobnorman.com.