In Country

David Mallett has made his songwriting career grow.

By: Susan Van Dongen

DAVID MALLETT

   The ’60s came to Sebec, Maine, around 1974, according to singer-songwriter David Mallett.
   "They were all over," Mr. Mallett says. "It was good in a way because we missed a lot of the (chaos), but I also feel like I didn’t contribute to what was the most important decade up until maybe now. The ’60s were such an important time in American history, but I was too young and too far away to get involved. But I heard a lot about it."
   Hailing from the small, lakeside town in the central part of the state, Mr. Mallett recalls such childhood delights as being home from school for a week, thanks to a heavy snowfall. He also remembers the Esso station downtown, where all ages of males gathered to invent and exchange local myths.
   Mr. Mallett will head south from the Vacation State to perform at Christ Congregation Church in Princeton Nov. 19, part of the concert series sponsored by the Princeton Folk Music Society.
   Describing himself as a spokesman for issues that hit close to home, many of his pieces span the genres of folk and country music — but real country, which he differentiates from so much of the pop country music being manufactured in Nashville.
   "It really has nothing to do with country or country music for that matter — not real country," he says, speaking from his family home. "(Rural) people aren’t dumb. But country music has nothing to do with rural living, which is what I truly do."
   Although his songs are rooted in a specific place, they have broad essential meaning. He writes about the people in his small rural town who shouldn’t have left but who did, or shouldn’t have stayed but did. Mr. Mallett knows the factory and farm work, the memories of small-town dances and summer love.
   He composes in his family’s old farmhouse, in a cozy room where a tintype of his great-great-grandfather hangs on the wall.
   "I like to keep reaching out to touch the past, to connect it with what’s going on now," Mr. Mallett says. "To me, music is one of the few things that is timeless. Human emotion is one continual chain."
   Despite the universal appeal, however, Mr. Mallett loves being a musical voice from the Great White North. The Bangor Daily News named him one of the most "memorable Mainers" of the 20th century, along with Andrew Wyeth and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
   "I’m proud of my regionalism," he says. "Maine has never had a lot of musical voices that came out of it, so I’m proud to be one of those. Maine is a different state. We’ve always been known as kind of independent and we’re stuck up there into Canada, which gives you a perspective on the rest of the country."
   All of which are reasons why Mr. Mallett gratefully returned to his roots after a decade in Nashville.
   "I went down to Nashville for the music business and stayed a little too long," he says. "We finally came back in the mid-’90s and started living in the country again — the real country. You need to go where you’re understood. In Maine, I have old family roots that go back a couple hundred years, and so does my wife. It’s my favorite place."
   In addition to issues such as wilderness preservation, animal rights and the struggle of the common man, Mr. Mallett writes about commercialism taking over the essence of the small town and development wreaking havoc on rural landscapes. His town and county in central Maine have been somewhat shielded from development, yet he says it’s rampant nearer the ocean. Mr. Mallett has certainly seen it on his travels elsewhere in the United States.
   "Development is almost too big an obstacle to address," he says. "For example, driving along a major highway interchange, you see the same hotels, the same restaurants and the same stores. And it really makes for a boring country, unless you get downtown in the small towns — that’s where you discover the real thing. I’m melancholy for the good old days when towns had a soul."
   On his latest album, Artist in Me (North Road Records, 2003) we get glimpses at this bygone way of life in songs like "Old Blue Ox" and "Like Me, Without You," which was inspired by the sighting of a one-antlered moose by the side of a country road. Mr. Mallett says he doesn’t plan an agenda or themes for his songs and never knows where his ideas will come from.
   "This album just came together, especially the song ‘Angel Standing By,’" he says. "That song came from a couple of visions of someone stepping in, like having a flat tire and having someone there who stops by to help with a spare or a cell phone."
   Although not overtly political, Artist in Me has at least one song that addresses the impact of war. The Maine native takes us back to the Civil War when Joshua Chamberlain recruited men to fill his 20th Maine regiment. These individuals saw some of the worst fighting of the war, including the battle of Gettysburg, and many never returned to the north.
   "They took the homeboys from the fields to feed the dogs of war/ the Ship Of State sailed off and the engines they did roar," Mr. Mallett writes. "We’ve never gotten over that mess we were in/ and the gun boys they are gearin’ up to do it all again."
   Discovered by (Noel) Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary, Mr. Mallett had been singing country and folk music with his brother Neil since the early ’60s. His first album, produced by Mr. Stookey, included "The Garden Song," probably Mr. Mallett’s most famous work.
   Folk fans — as well as many parents — might recognize the lines "Inch by inch, row by row/ gonna make this garden grow," when Mr. Mallett sings it. Seemingly everyone from Pete Seeger to the Muppets has sung the song, which brought Mr. Mallet into the spotlight in the mid- ’70s. He can thank the family vegetable garden for the song’s inspiration, where he was planting peas with his father.
   "It was as pure an artistic gift as anyone could hope for," he says. "My best songs are autobiographical and come from the unique perspective that I’ve placed myself in, which is living in Maine, living in a rural place."
   That was 12 albums and countless songs ago. Mr. Mallett is especially pleased with Artist in Me’s lean instrumentation and intimate vocals.
   "You learn on every one," he says. "With the most recent album, I kept it stripped down, but it also has a lot of power. When the arrangements are simple, the message is clearer, especially for the things I’m talking about."
David Mallett will perform at Christ Congregation Church, 50 Walnut Lane, Princeton, Nov. 19, 8:15 p.m. Tickets cost $15, $3 under age 12. The Princeton Folk Music Society also presents Sally Rogers Dec. 10. For information, call (609) 799-0944. On the Web: www.princetonfolk.org