Mary Cole Mello
Dave Keller was not an overnight success and he seems fine with that.
The award winning blues/soul musician is open about his long road to stardom. “I was not a prodigy. I think some people take longer for their talent to develop. Most of the musicians I know, they just stuck with it,” he said.
And now he’s about to release his eleventh album, and head out on a U.S. tour to promote it.
Elmore Magazine describes Keller as a “magnificent soul singer” and Living Blues magazine comments on his “songwriting genius.” But Keller smiles when telling the story of being fired from a band back in his twenties. The group thought he needed more guitar lessons. “You can learn anything if you’re willing to stay with it,” he says, “And are willing to take criticism.”
Keller has been living in Montpelier since 1993, and grew up in working-class Worcester, Mass., both a long distance from the Mississippi Delta from which he draws his musical inspiration.
Keller’s love for blues and soul, and his willingness to persevere moved him forward. He was also helped by a number of well-established musicians who reached out to support him, artists such as Mighty Sam McCain, and Johnny Rawls.
“I think they saw the respect I had for blues culture … for this music they had worked on their whole lives,” Keller says.
Over the past 30 years, Keller has received multiple awards, written and recorded well over 100 songs, performed at thousands of gigs, and released 10 albums. This month he’s releasing the eleventh, “La Brea.” Like much of Keller’s music, it was a very personal project and was prompted by a conversation he had with his friend Mark LeGrand, the Montpelier-based singer/songwriter who recently died of cancer.
“Two winters ago I was sitting down with Mark … He had just had his operation and was getting ready to do chemo … I went to his house to play music with him. He had so many original tunes, like country, soul, things like that, a number of tunes he hadn’t recorded. He inspired me to look over some songs that I hadn’t ever recorded. There were more than a hundred.”
“I made a master list and divided it into categories. Those that meant the most to me became this new album. I called it “LaBrea” because those songs were buried in my subconscious, like the bones of some prehistoric animals that got trapped in the tar and after years and years … finally rose to the surface.” Keller says writing songs is therapy for him, “It’s how I process things.”
This is a deeply personal album including some story songs like “Shiny Button” with its bitter notes, “The Promise,” an apology, and “The Onion,” which touches on the challenge of finding the right romantic partner. For Keller, the most meaningful of all pieces is “Like Your Touch.” “It’s about trying to forget and how impossible that is,” Keller says, noting it was recorded in one take as was “I Could Fall,” a song about the memory of pain.
“You can hear my voice crack in that one, “ he says.
It was a small miracle that “I Could Fall” exists at all. Keller recorded it on his iPhone and then accidentally tossed the phone into the wash.
Determined to save the song, he packed the phone in rice for four months.
When Keller talks about the future, he imagines more collaborations with artists, more travel, “And I (still) want to write songs that everybody loves to sing.”
In the meantime, he’ll probably just keep following the rules he created for himself as a young artist.“Be nice. Show up on time. Give it your all. Take time to hang out with your fans. It’s not about showing off. It’s about connection.”
