Published: March 24, 2008 10:08 am         

Melted in music: Guitarist bridges generations

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Ernie Royer isn’t among the assortment of musicians who performed on Brent McPike’s album “Smooth Landing.”



But his sound permeates every song.



Royer could play almost any instrument by ear, and had entertained crowds at square dances around Terre Haute and Clay County as far back as the 1930s. Then in 1980, his 14-year-old grandson, Brent, took an interest in the music Royer could make with the 1955 cherry-red Fender Stratocaster sitting in his front room.



Royer broke in Brent on old standards like “Little Brown Jug” and “Tea for Two.” Once Brent’s cousins showed him how to play the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic “Freebird,” his grandfather knew the teen was ready for headier material. He introduced him to jazz and recordings by innovative gypsy-style guitarist Django Reinhardt. They’d play for hours in that front room, while Brent’s grandmother cooked supper. She’d clap from the kitchen after each song. Sometimes, Royer would take a break to work on a car in his garage, and then come back inside to rejoin Brent, who had never stopped playing that Fender Strat. An age divide of two generations melted in music.



“That was a beautiful time,” McPike recalled.



McPike used a similar bridge between the musicians to, at last, record his first album at age 41. He gathered a smorgasbord of players, ranging from college students such as percussionist Jason Hammond, trumpeter Peter Allison and bassist Eric Schatz to Indiana icons John Spicknall on piano and Carolyn Dutton on violin. Spicknall’s jazz career covers five decades, and Dutton recorded in the 1960s with rock legends The Band and Lovin’ Spoonful.



“That’s about a 45-year span, and you don’t even notice it,” McPike said, spinning a cup of coffee with his fingers. “When you’re playing with them, age means nothing. It’s the musical energy between you.”



The songs by this group, which is called “B.G. McPike and the Haute Club” on the CD’s jacket, have some age differences, too. McPike wrote one, “Darkness of the Night,” as long ago as 1991. In writing all 12 songs on “Smooth Landing,” McPike dug up old tunes, riffs and lyrics from as far back as his college days at Butler University.



“I’ve got Butler class notes and lyrics on one side of a page, and notes about czarist Russia on the other side,” he said, laughing. “It’s a hodgepodge. So I’ve got many unfinished songs.”



Unfinished, but not forgotten. His life added new chapters beyond those college notebook pages. McPike and his wife, Kristy, met at Butler in 1986, when she was a freshman and he was a sophomore. Both were music majors. He first spotted Kristy lugging an upright bass. (She played violin and viola, but future music teachers were required to learn other instruments, as well.)



“I saw this lovely, brown-eyed girl messing around with the elevator, and she said, ‘I think it’s broke.’ So I helped her out,” he recalled.



They married in 1990 and now have an 11-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son. Kristy is the orchestra director at Terre Haute South High School, and Brent is a guitar instructor and guitar ensemble director at Indiana State University. In the meantime, their experiences added to the ideas that would eventually become “Smooth Landing.”



“Being a teacher and a family guy, I’d get away from [writing and recording] for a few years,” said McPike, who grew up in Indianapolis and moved to Terre Haute, his mother’s hometown, in 2001.



Last spring, he and the songs reconnected as McPike invited his Haute Club friends to record in producer Don Arney’s southern Vigo County studio. Arney served “as kind of a content adviser,” McPike said, helping him narrow the list of potential album tracks. “Don’s real clear-headed and focused, and gave me some advice.”



They settled on a dozen numbers tinged with local names and McPike’s reflections on an aural journey that rides jazz through blues, bossa nova, gypsy and contemporary waters. McPike’s navigation makes the album special, Arney said.



“Brent covers a lot of musical ground and does it very well,” Arney said.



Despite the guest performers’ disparate ages and backgrounds, the blend works for McPike. “The thing that links it all together is, every one of those musicians, regardless of where the bulk of their work has been, they all have a love for jazz,” he said.



The songs pay tribute to that bond. The opening track, “Flyin’ Down 41,” tips a hat to the album’s drummer, John DiCenso, whose rock group — the Mike Rolle Band — is a favorite of McPike’s. Track 2, “Blues 4 Doc,” not only features Spicknall’s piano work but also is named in his honor. “Into Your Company” illuminates a guitar idea by one of McPike’s former students. “Groovin’ in the Haute” recognizes Schatz and fellow ISU musician Malik Lahlou. Guitarist Dan Sumner, who accompanies McPike’s playing on four tracks, is highlighted on the album’s closer, “The Blue Hole.”



Dutton’s deft violin spices up five tracks. The Nashville, Ind., performer is “an Indiana treasure,” McPike said. The two performed a few of the album’s songs live at an ISU recital before recording “Smooth Landing.”



“When we got ready to do the CD, Brent said, ‘I want you to play it just like you did at the recital,’” Dutton remembered. “And I said, ‘Well I don’t know what I played.’” Live performances, she added, happen in bursts of inspiration. Re-creating that in a studio is tricky.



“But it’s a different kind of inspiration,” she added.



Most of the tracks are instrumentals, but McPike can be found singing on a handful, including his mother’s favorite “Whatever Happened?” With or without lyrics, the songs were built by McPike’s inspirations. “If We Could Only Have One Day,” his dad’s favorite, came to McPike while he drove to drop off his son at kindergarten. Its concept is “to sit, to talk, to really share what’s on our minds in an uninhibited, loving way — to take the time to attempt to find, however risky, the words that describe how we feel. Call me cheesy or sappy, but I can’t deny my love for good Chicago-style pizza and real maple syrup,” McPike explained.



His songs and genre blending impressed Spicknall.



“He’s just not a classical snob by any means,” Spicknall said. “He enjoys and plays a lot of different styles.”



McPike’s flexibility, Spicknall mentioned, can be traced back to those jam sessions with his grandfather.



Ironically, McPike’s life could’ve followed a different course. In that same year McPike learned guitar, he also traveled with his older brother — an all-state outfielder at Indianapolis Ben Davis High School — to a Florida baseball camp conducted by retired Boston Red Sox second baseman Denny Doyle. Two weeks after they’d returned from the camp at Winter Haven, McPike’s cousins taught him to play “Freebird.”



“Once I found out I could do that, I never played baseball again,” he said, chuckling.



That led McPike to his grandfather’s house and that ’55 Stratocaster. “I came from a family of jocks, but my grandpa was the musician,” McPike said, grinning.



His children enjoy music, too. The McPikes’ daughter plays piano. Their son is interested in the drums, though Brent suspects his guitars, sitting around the house, may lure the boy eventually.



“Someday, he’s going to pick up my guitar and play the ‘SpongeBob’ melody,” he said. “I’m waiting for that day.”



Mark Bennett writes for The Tribune Star in Terre Haute, Ind. He can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com.