Chuck Prophet: The Prophet speaks

Genre-defying Chuck Prophet delivers Miracles

By Mike Prevatt

San Francisco-based singer/songwriter Chuck Prophet probably couldn't care less that he has a website. His thoughts on the music experience on the Internet range from being cynical to nonplussed. But when he does use it, he makes it count. "There's a chat [room] on my website," he says. "I looked at it and someone had requested a song, so last night I played it just to blow his mind."

What's blowing Prophet's mind is that Heart, the '70s icon group fronted by the Wilson sisters, is playing one of his songs, "No Other Love," on its summer tour. It's the main reason he's playing select dates with the band--aside from getting to test out new material from his recently completed album, The Age of Miracles.

Prophet is one of the under-the-radar musicians who has sustained a relatively consistent career because of the reliable quality of his roots-oriented rock, his willingness to experiment with other pop genres without veering too far away from his blues foundation, and a loyal fan base that keeps him touring both the U.S. and Europe incessantly.

The Age of Miracles--his seventh solo album and 15th in his career--isn't a major departure from Prophet's previous albums, but it does feature some of his more complex work, which sometimes forced him to take a break, change gears or relocate when some lucidity was necessary.

"Songs have their own needs and desires, and sometimes it's not always clear," says Prophet. "You've got to listen hard and see what their needs are. Some of these songs are just more difficult than others. There are always twists and turns you can't predict. I think three-quarters of the way through, I just sort of stopped, took three weeks off and stared out the window."

As with many artists who record albums, Prophet had an initial vision for Miracles, but close to the end of the project, he found both his muse and his instruments going in another direction. Further recording sessions took place in Tucson, Los Angeles and Nashville.

"I just think, like, loading up my van in San Francisco and driving to Tucson with a bunch of guitars and amps and broken keyboards actually enabled me to kind of clear out my head and spend some time with my inner dialogue," he says. "That's kind of fun for me, rather than popping down to the studio."

One particular sonic experiment is "You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp)," which blends retro elements (Latin brass) with more modern, urban-flavored influences (bass from an 808 machine). This isn't the first time Prophet has incorporated hip hop into his music. One of his best songs, 2000's "Dyin' All Young," featured an MC sample in its chorus, updating the blues without novelty or pretense. The ever-attentive musician gets the adventurous nature of hip hop, partly because it pushes boundaries in ways traditional rock doesn't.

"I think most of the music I'm attracted to is usually...about the groove and the words," says Prophet. "I like the fact in hip hop, and DJ culture at large, there's a nutty you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter kind of spirit. I try to keep my eye out for those kinds of collisions. And singer-songwriter music as a whole is just such a ghetto. There's too many songs written with the same chords about people's coffee getting cold, y'know?"

The long history of popular music affirms Prophet's instincts to change things before they settle into something boring or derivative, and it has served his music well. "There's a reason why it blew everyone's mind when Jerry Wexler took Aretha Franklin to Muscle Shoals [Sound Studios]," says Prophet. "She made a bunch of records in New York, and he just thought it was getting stale, that the musicians there had the same licks. So he took her to Alabama to play with a bunch of redneck hipsters. People have got to be willing to shake up the martini a little, I would think. And I see people doing it all the time."