ED SEIFERT
From left, Ed Seifert, Scott Anthony, Dennis Diken and Chris Flynn during a “Great Big World” recording session.
New Jersey singer-songwriter-guitarist Ed Seifert writes many songs each year, posting them on social media for his friends, family and fans to savor. “I’ve posted a new home demo recording every month for the last six and a half years on Facebook,” he says. “About half the time they’re new songs; the rest come out of my notebooks. I think by now I might have over 150 songs.”
On his “Great Big World,” a catchy and uplifting anthem released today (you can listen to it below), he gathers a community of vocalists and musicians to animate his lyrics:
It’s a great big world and I’m gonna live in it
It’s a great big sea and I’m gonna swim in it
It’s great big sky and I’m gonna fly in it
Great big sea, great big sky, great big world.
He shares a hopeful message, singing: “What a great big moon mining my memories/Smiling on through the trees/I got a great big dream of seeing a world at peace/Great big moon, great big dream.”
Seifert is joined on the song by many artists who have had a big impact on the New York and New Jersey music scene, including guitarists Glenn Mercer (of The Feelies), James Mastro (of The Bongos) and Chris Flynn; drummer Dennis Diken (of The Smithereens); bassist Scott Anthony; percussionist Dave Weckerman (of The Feelies); and violinists Carol Sharar (of The Sharar Sisters) and Deni Bonet.
Singers include Syd Straw; Deena Shoshkes and Jon Fried (both of The Cucumbers); Matthew Davis; George Usher; Connie, Kathy and Carol Sharar (all of The Sharar Sisters); and Rebecca Turner. (Seifert, Shoshkes, Fried and Davis are all members of the folk-rock group The Campfire Flies.)
CONNIE SHARAR
Ed Seifert with Syd Straw.
Straw — whose strong, stirring voice adds a lot of depth to the song — was ” the impetus for this whole project,” Seifert says.
Seifert has lived in New Milford his entire life and has been playing guitar since he was about 16. “I feel like the tortoise in the old fable,” he says, explaining that “so many of my friends were playing out in their 20s and 30s, and I did a little then, but it took me longer to get anywhere near the comfort level I’m at now. I’ve played in a duo called The Ambivalent Brothers, with Yung Wu (also featuring Weckerman and Mercer), with Speed the Plough and with The Campfire Flies.”
“As the years have gone by, his writing and performing have grown steadily stronger,” says George Usher. “I consider him one of the most eclectic and sure-footed songwriters on this or any scene. This recording brings together a variety of performers, who are all giving their best for him, the song and the project. But even though it features numerous singers and players, the overall impact of the song and recording is so joyous and positive, it absolutely represents and reflects Ed’s own personality and presence.”
Seifert agrees that this song is more optimistic than most of his songs. “It’s happy — and I’ve got about four of those,” he says.
Indeed, he is currently working on a song that reflects his signature sarcasm and melancholy. It’s about a woman that “loves the man I was/But she don’t love the man I am.”
Inspired over the years by the “big names” — including John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Elvis Costello — Seifert now looks closer to home for motivation.
ED SEIFERT
From left, Carol, Connie and Kathy Sharar.
“Now I’m more likely inspired by people I know who keep doing great and varied work even a little later in life, like the folks with me on this recording,” he says. “None of them are getting rich off the music, but they obviously do it for the love, and they do it well.
He says of George Usher’s songwriting, for instance, “I think I hear him in my subconscious when I’m trying to add a hook to make a song catchy. I think my craft of songwriting is better because of him.”
Here is more from my conversation with Seifert:
Q: What inspired “Great Big World”?
A: Well, I can tell you the phrase. The first dB’s record had a Peter Holsapple song called ‘The Fight’ where he sang about a “great big fight.” And it struck me that “great big” was a phrase I used a lot more as a child than as an adult. So that was the lyrical starting point. I wrote this in 2015, and I was a lot less prolific back then. But I wanted to write a new song because I was booked to do a show with George (Usher).
Q: How did you record it with so many vocal contributions?
A: Oh, it was easy for me. I’m not the producer. Scott Anthony was kind enough to open up his studio (Storybook Sound in Maplewood) to everyone, and nearly everyone who sang came to Storybook Sound to sing.
Q: How do you feel to have so many artists joining you on this song?
A: Like I feel so often — lucky. Incredibly lucky. But not surprised. All of these people have been kind and generous with me before. It just speaks to their character. Syd was the impetus for this whole project. She heard the song last July, and though we barely knew each other, she suggested we record it.
I’ve loved her voice for years, all the way back to a Hank Williams tribute show a long time ago called The Hank Show. Then I remember her singing Percy Sledge’s ‘It Tears Me Up’ at Exterminator Chili in Greenwich Village. I still call out for it whenever I see her play. And to nobody’s surprise, she just knocks this out of the park.
Chris Flynn is a great longtime friend who really went above and beyond with all the guitar parts he laid down for this. I can gush about every single person on this song. And the crazy thing is there are so many more great people who’ve been so good to me over the years who weren’t on this project, like Bernie Stapleton, Loretta and Gary Hagen, Pete Pizzuti, Brenda Sauter and Rich Barnes, Toni and John Baumgartner, Sean Seymour, John Sonntag, and my oldest friends, Al Stavropulos and Ray Pellecchia. All part of my musical community. We could do another song with a different 18 performers. You can probably hear Scott locking the deadbolt now.
Q: What does music do for you?
A: That’s hard to put into words. It’s different things, but it’s also funny how hearing a searing guitar song when you’re at a Feelies show can hit you on such a visceral level, yet so can a really sad song like Rick Danko’s vocal on (The Band’s) “It Makes No Difference.” And sometimes it makes no sense. I know why Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams” tears me up, but so does Paul Simon’s “The Boy in The Bubble,” and that’s more of a mystery.
CONNIE SHARAR
Deena Shoshkes and Jon Fried.
Q: Tell me about your New Jersey music community. How do they support and inspire you?
A: There are several communities doing great things. There’s the Maplewood-area contingent, galvanized when Deena and Jon and Rebecca and Scott started their Saturday Afternoon Song Swap and Chris Dickson began his Rent Party program.
There’s the Skylands Songwriters Group, who also do great things. We’re doing a show for them July 14 at Horseshoe Lake in Roxbury. And there’s an amazing group of friends in Warwick, New York — guys who really support local artists, like Jim Elwell and Barry Adelman, as well as Rave Tesar, a crazy great pianist. I have a song coming out next month that features him and Connie and Kathy Sharar. It’s a good thing I write the songs, or else I wouldn’t be needed.
And the Folk Project crowd in Morristown is a busy bunch.
The thing they all have in common is they keep on doing it when they know it’s not likely to be a money-making venture.
Q: What does this joyful song mean to you?
A: As I get older, and in the place that I am, I think that my responsibility is to make myself happy because that allows me to try to do things for others, to make them happy … how lucky is someone who has the time and the resources to do something for someone else a couple of times a week, or even daily? That’s me. And I think this song speaks to that, in some way.
Q: Does music play any role for you during these troubled times?
A: Well, they’re all troubled times, to a point. But not like this, for sure. I think the role is the same any time. It makes you empathetic. When you’re listening to a song with a good lyric, you can relate to someone else’s troubles. And when you’re playing music with others, you’re trying to think where they’re going so you can accompany that. Unless I’m playing harmonica. Then it’s just, “let ‘er rip!”
Ed Seifert and his band Oh, the Humanity! will perform with The Loretta Hagen Trio at The Turning Point in Piermont, New York, June 1 at 4 p.m.; visit piermont.club.
Ed Seifert & Friends will perform at The Horseshoe Lake Gazebo in Roxbury, July 14 at 6:30 p.m.; visit roxburylibrary.org.
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