Let us now ponder those who get lost in the shuffle, the
great undiscovered artists who somehow never break through to the commercial
surface. Many times they are just too good for their own good.
Most longtime pop fans have their own secret loves, whether
it be Steve Forbert or Be Bop Deluxe, Jules Shear or Rachel Sweet. And every
once in a while one of those faves perseveres and finally conquers, building a
cult they can live on. Witness the resurrection of John Prine in recent years.
Maybe there is a God.
But more often these artists simply fade into undeserved
obscurity.
Meet Tonio K. He defines undeserved obscurity.
And meet him you can, because the last album by this great
unknown artist of the '80s has finally been released after seven years in limbo.
ˇOlé!, produced by T-Bone Burnett way back in 1990, has just been
released by dinky Gadfly Records in Vermont. In fact, Gadfly is releasing the
entire Tonio K catalogue (there are four other albums, beginning with 1978's
stone brilliant Life In The Food Chain). Run out and buy them all.
I know, I know: What the heck is a Tonio K?
Obsessed with his own admittedly strong sense of humor,
driven by devils that refused to let him write simple love songs, and
unsparingly caustic while giddily romantic, Tonio K was and probably somewhere
still is one damn fine songwriter who's also a pretty good singer. He rocked
hard at times, didn't at others, and had a tendency to record with very good
players who seemed inspired by the fact that they were getting paid to perform
with a guy who was part goofball, part genius.
ˇOlé! is pretty typical for a Tonio K album. The
cover is a photograph of a bullfighter being absolutely overwhelmed by a bull,
and that pretty much says it all. In "Stop the Clock" our boy is
frustrated by time's passing, while in the strutting "Time Steps
Aside" he stares in awe at innocent beauty. In "Maybe There
Isn't" the introspective Tonio questions man's dismal history -- "Now
I don't need to change the world tonight/ But I'd sure like to know/ If it's too
late to ever get it right." This is a man with no answers, but plenty of
good questions.
ˇOlé! also includes honest-to-goodness nods to
protest songs ("That Could Have Been Me," "Hey Lady"), a
blatant attempt at commerciality ("I'll Remember You") that was way
too smart to succeed, and a tender love ballad called "What A Way To
Live" that starts out with the the typical Tonio lines "Well, I hear
you haven't learned a thing yet, Doll face/ I hear you still haven't learned to
shut your mouth."
Tonio K never did shut his mouth during his recording career.
The early albums are hurdy-gurdy electric frenzied affairs, in his midperiod he
reached for an audience, in his final efforts with Burnett he fell into a solid,
more spare groove. But at all times Tonio seemed to think that music mattered,
that pop could be more than a series of recycled trends set to a marketing
scheme.
Such delusions are common among great undiscovered artists.
In "Pardon Me For Living" the resigned K-man sings, "I don't know
what you want/ Don't know what you believe/ I don't know how to act anymore/ Or
how long I can keep juggling."
Well, his act may be over at this point ... but, boy, could
this guy juggle.
The Tonio K catalogue is now available at better record
stores everywhere or through Gadfly Records, P.O. Box 5231, Burlington, VT. By
the way, the president of Gadfly Records is a guy named Mitch Cantor, who is
from Detroit. Small world, huh?
Reprinted by permission from The Detroit News, October 6, 1997