Bruce Hornsby - Long Tall Cool One - Borders Books & Music 1995
Channel: GNAV TV
Date: 2016-03-04

Bruce Hornsby performs at Borders Books & Music in 1995 for the Hot House Promotional Tour. Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer and keyboardist known for the spontaneity and creativity of his live performances. Hornsby draws frequently from classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Motown, gospel, rock, blues, and jam band musical traditions with his songwriting and the seamless improvisations contained within.

Hot House is a 1995 album by American musician Bruce Hornsby. It is Hornsby's second solo album and his fifth overall studio release (three previously with The Range). "Walk in the Sun" and "Cruise Control", from the album, were released as singles (with radio edits).

The album's cover art, featuring an imagined jam session between bluegrass legend Bill Monroe and jazz legend Charlie Parker, served as an apt metaphor for the rich fusion of musical styles Hornsby was developing and expanding.

The album found Hornsby expanding upon the foray into jazz sound from Harbor Lights, this time reintroducing elements of bluegrass from A Night On The Town and his earlier collaborations. Much like the socially conscious lyrics of his earlier work, the underlying messages behind the catchy tunes are often very dark, such as on "Country Doctor", "Hot House Ball" and "White Wheeled Limousine", where story-telling lyrics build around spousal murder, nuclear disaster, and wedding-day adultery, respectively.

The album featured many of Harbor Lights' guests, such as Pat Metheny and Jimmy Haslip. Béla Fleck also collaborates again on banjo. The album's closing track, "Cruise Control," is the last Hornsby song on which Jerry Garcia played guitar; at a concert he performed in Buffalo, New York, in August 2008 on the anniversary of Garcia's death, Hornsby said Garcia had wanted to play on "Country Doctor", but was given an easier tune to play because of his poor health.

"White Wheeled Limousine" had debuted five years earlier as an encore to Branford Marsalis's opening act for the Grateful Dead's New Year's Concert on December 31, 1990, when Marsalis and Rob Wasserman joined Hornsby in the performance. The Hot House version of "White Wheeled Limousine" pairs Pat Metheny's guitar with Fleck's banjo for a blisteringly intricate call-and-response alongside Hornsby's piano runs. 

Hot House also makes an homage to Hornsby's years with the Dead via his recasting of the chorus/bridge of the Dead's song "Estimated Prophet" as the newly lyricized Hornsby tune "Tango King." The album also boasts a more prominent role for Harbor Lights alum John D'earth on trumpet and introduces Bobby Read on woodwinds and J. V. Collier on bass. Read and Collier continue to perform with Hornsby.

Hornsby's recordings have been recognized on a number of occasions with industry awards, including the 1987 Grammy Award for Best New Artist with Bruce Hornsby and the Range, the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

In 1995, Hot House was released with its cover art, featuring an imagined jam session between bluegrass legend Bill Monroe and jazz legend Charlie Parker, serving as an apt metaphor for the rich fusion of musical styles Hornsby was currently developing and expanding. 

The album found Hornsby expanding upon the foray into jazz sound from Harbor Lights, this time reintroducing elements of bluegrass from A Night on the Town and his earlier collaborations.

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