Songwriter Gives Singers a Voice

By: Clem Richardson
From NY Daily News - Spotlight on Great People, May 26, 2006

I could hear the souls of musicians past and present grunting their agreement when Rebecca Pronsky told me why she loves working the music scene in her native New York City.

"You can be a musician and live somewhere else and be famous in your own right, but being in New York makes you hard and strong - and depressed."

The 25-year-old Park Slope native would know. She has been singing publicly in local clubs since she was a teenager, slipping into Manhattan nightclubs like the Bitter End on Monday nights to jam with her voice coach, Debra Barsha, at her weekly shows.

"It was totally illegal, but I loved it," Pronsky said. "It was so much fun to perform for the Greenwich Village crowd."

Now Pronsky is a singer-songwriter in her own right. Her second album, "The Early Hours," was released two years ago, and another will be released this year if things go according to plan.

But Pronsky has much more going on. Since September, she has been host, master of ceremonies and first out of the gate performer for the Songwriters Exchange, the monthly music series held at the Vox Pop, a small coffee shop and bookstore on Cortelyou Road in Kensington/Midwood, Brooklyn.

She has been known to pass the hat and "strongly" recommend a $5 donation that is given to the musicians at show's end.

The evening is a way to tap into the legions of local musicians, singers and songwriters who have working careers outside the city but are still struggling to be recognized here, as well as bring talented musicians from outside the city to a comfortable, small venue, she said.

That venue is important, she said, because trying to take a bite out of the Apple scares a lot of musicians to death.

"Basically, every musician I meet when I'm playing places like Boston and Philly, they're scared of the New York music scene. They don't want to play here," she said. "They're not afraid they'll get mugged; they're afraid no one will listen to them. This is a really hard music scene."

Anyone who has heard live music in just about any city venue would say amen to that. In some clubs, the audience seems to be interested in anything but listening to the performers. And that can be the least of the troubles.

"A lot of the music venues in Manhattan have such high rents they're desperate to pay that they don't care about the music anymore," Pronsky said. "They book you to play a half-hour set between a bluegrass band and some 15-year-old punk band. They pack in as much stuff as they can. They charge an $8 cover, and the musicians don't see any of that at the end of the night.

"It's not about the music," she said. "A lot of performers, especially from out of town, are not used to that kind of thing."

The Exchange, which meets on the first Saturday night of each month, is intended to provide an evening of "stylistically consistent" music, she said. That doesn't mean the same kind of music as much as music with something to say.

"I don't want to hear songs where everything is so literal, but I do enjoy a good song you can relate to," said Pronsky, who described her music as a jazz-folk fusion. "The Songwriters Exchange isn't limited to folk singers; it's just that most people who perform their music solo happen to be in that genre. Other people are welcome to play, but those are the sort we've been attracting."

Pronsky wanted the Exchange to be a place for local singer-songwriters to not only meet but also network and possibly inspire one another.

"This is a very isolated music scene," she said. "People generally play and then leave. They don't meet a lot of people. It's hard to make connections."

Club Passim in Boston, a nonprofit that is a legendary artist meeting place, was one of her inspirations.

'This is a genre of music in which you need to be making connections with people who do what you do," she said. "It would be weird to be competitive about writing songs. Ideas come forth not out of competition but out of community."

She said one fringe benefit of being the host is she ends up with a lot of free CDs from performers.

A 2002 graduate of Brown University, Pronsky still has to supplement her income with a day job as an editor of with an academic testing company.

Professionally, she has found that her New York City association carries a lot of weight outside the city.

"A lot of singer-songwriters live in Brooklyn, but our market is not here," she said. "I do really well in places like Boston and Philadelphia, and that's because there are about four clubs where you can hear this kind of music so people know where to show up.

"New York is crazy, a total crapshoot. You have to take every time you play as an anomaly. You play a show and 50 people turn out. Then you play and no one shows. It's not a place where you can predict anything."

But being from the city also has advantages. Pronsky said she has been finding it easier to sell her act to club owners across the country simply because she lives and works here.

"The great thing about being a musician here is the credibility you have in the rest of the country just from being here," she said. "It's your ticket. I'm booking appearances on the West Coast. I've never been there, but because I'm from New York, I'm credible."

Stephen Clair, 39, agrees. The Ditmas Park singer-songwriter and former Exchange headliner said he has toured all over the country but has found the largest following for his "Americana" music genre - "stories with a touch of humor" - in Texas and parts of the South.

"New York has never been my strongest market," Clair said. "There are so many talented people in this city you have to go where you can be a star."

Pronsky admits the Exchange is still finding its audience - or the other way around.
"Our biggest problem has been audience attendance," she said. "I have people knocking down my door asking to perform, but it's been hard getting people to come listen. Hopefully, the audience will continue to grow."

Exchanging (music) notes:
The next Songwriters Exchange show will be held June 3 at Vox Pop, 1022 Cortelyou Road, Brooklyn. Performers will include Rebecca Pronsky, Clare Burson, Erin Hill, Matt Keating and Dennis Cronin. For information, check the Web site: www.rebeccapronsky.com.