The Wall Street Journal-20080214-A Hardscrabble Life in Music

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A Hardscrabble Life in Music

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Weaverville, N.C. -- The tidy, upscale strip that serves as downtown still looks enough like old Weaverville that the 52-year-old singer- songwriter Malcolm Holcombe can point to his childhood barbershop. The house his grandfather once owned still stands around the corner. But the area in and around nearby Asheville is awash in new construction, and the Sunnyside Cafe here no longer features live music and now serves a quiche of the day. In his battered ball cap, tatty work shirt and frayed jeans, Mr. Holcombe seems a visitor from the past.

Mr. Holcombe's new album, "Gamblin' House" (Echo Mountain), his fifth that's still in print, largely tamps down his most arresting traits -- his whip-crack growl and almost violent attack on guitar -- and the songs aren't as poignant as his best ones of the past. But the CD's bittersweet, country-folk music with a raging man at its core reminds us there is no one on the contemporary scene like Mr. Holcombe, who somehow can convey raw fury and deep affection at the same time. His career, though, has had more stops than fruitful starts and still isn't equal to his talents.

"I don't know if you'd call what I have a 'career,'" he told me over lunch at the Sunnyside, his voice coarsened by nonstop smoking. "I'm just trying to maintain."

In publicity photos, Mr. Holcombe seems chiseled and iconic, but he's shorter than they suggest, with a hint of sadness around his pale blue eyes: He seems a gentle old soul with a hard shell. Years ago, a son died, and Mr. Holcombe has struggled with drugs and alcohol; a friend, "Gamblin' House" producer Ray Kennedy, figures he's been sober for about five years.

I first saw Mr. Holcombe perform in late 2005 at Joe's Pub in New York. Dressed as if he came directly from a hard day at a gas station, he took the stage without an introduction and with the house lights up. The audience tittered in confusion -- until he began to perform. He was a revelation, his singing frighteningly fierce, lyrics startling, his playing brutal and delicate. But he told pointless stories between songs, blunting the impact of the performance, though not enough to dissuade me from thinking it was a remarkable show. (You can find examples of Mr. Holcombe's recent solo concerts on YouTube.)

As we drove through the Blue Ridge Mountains and visited the Asheville studio where he recorded "Gamblin' House," I found his hospitality appealing, and his stories about his parents confirmed his fondness for the past. But his cryptic answers to questions often drifted to silence before they concluded; later, I learned he'd recycled some of his replies from earlier interviews. He's quite likely the most guarded musician I've ever spoken with.

Mr. Kennedy said he's known Mr. Holcombe for 15 years and still finds him a puzzle. "Malcolm has some demons that he wrestles with," he told me. "Or they're in his imagination. His mission is to find balance and serenity. He uses his art to try to salvage himself."

Mr. Holcombe got his start in 1976, playing folk music in an Asheville bar. He moved on to Florida's Gulf Coast and in 1990 took a chance on Nashville. In Music City he tried to fit in, but "I couldn't do it. I couldn't get it," he said. Drinking and drugging drove him off track, but while "flipping burgers and taking out the trash," as he put it, he pulled himself together enough to record a couple of albums and eke out a meager living. Today, he considers his hardscrabble life a form of research. "You can't write about ice cream if you've never tasted it," he said.

The breakthrough was "I Never Heard You Knockin'," the 2005 album he cut when he returned to Weaverville. Backed only by his guitar, Mr. Holcombe growls, yelps and reaches deep into his being. "My mind plays tricks in the silence/I mumble and stutter and wonder in the night," he sings in the title track, adding, "That big ol' front door had steel side to side/I never had a key." In "Mama Told Me So," his narrator contemplates his mother's inevitable passing. "Who's goin' love me when I'm old?" he asks as the song opens. "You're the only one who's ever loved me true and kind/I cover my ears to the pain of you leaving me behind."

"Your mind whips through the past," he said when I asked how he wrote those remarkable songs. "Thoughts of your early childhood are very comforting. You think about Christmas morning or that birthday party, your mom holding your hand. You were protected and safe. Those early memories settle the dust. You were loved and things were OK."

On "Gamblin' House," he hits the bull's-eye when his passion pushes past the prettified music. "Cynthia Margaret" is a lilting tribute to his wife, and "You Don't Come See Me Anymore" is a tender tune that brings an on-edge Roger Miller to mind, as does "Baby Likes a Love Song."

In the opening track, "My Ol' Radio," Mr. Holcombe sings: "That big dog gets hungry, he ain't never satisfied. . . . He's gonna eat himself to death and leave nothing for the rest." I thought it was a song about a pet, but Mr. Kennedy told me that it's Mr. Holcombe's take on national politics -- which the producer didn't know until his wife was hired to do illustrations for the CD package. It's a charming little number undermined by lyrics too vague to be enigmatic.

"Malcolm doesn't have a commercial bone in his body," said Mr. Kennedy, who called him a "streetwise hillbilly." "He's into the art of it. You can't tell him to change the way he is. Once he writes a song, he doesn't like to change a single word."

A singular character in an era that prizes conformity in country and pop, Mr. Holcombe may never find a wider audience. But to dismiss him as a backwoods eccentric is to miss the insight and pain that inform his best writing. His songs suggest he's spent countless hours rummaging through his thoughts. He communicates best when he's in the studio and on stage, where he just about explodes.

"I like playing music," Mr. Holcombe told me. We were sitting in a vest-pocket park across from the Sunnyside, talking about Django Reinhardt and Lester Flatt as the afternoon shadows grew long. I asked him if he had a day job to help with the bills.

"I work around the house," he said, "but as far as an income goes, yeah, it's music." Then he suddenly added: "The bottom can drop out any time. I can get a job mixing cement for 10 bucks an hour. That's good money."

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Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic.