For 50 years, Fred Simmons has created music. His new album, “Is It Beautiful,” compiles a lifetime of his original work, from songs he wrote as a young man to his most recent compositions, reflecting on midlife and the world today.
“The album includes some of my more recent inspirations, and they are all a little different. They’re all pretty catchy tunes, and they all say what I want to say, so I can’t do any better than that,” Simmons said.
Simmons’ music is folk and classic American, with a strong New Orleans jazz influence. He said he created the new album by looking back at his career and choosing favorite songs from every era. The first few lines of the first song sum up Simmons’ philosophy of life:
“I’m not the same as you, and I don’t have to be
I’m not here to tell you what to do, I know that’s not for me,
The only thing for me is: is it beautiful?”
Simmons says that while he has always had this philosophy, the lyrics are partly inspired by the bitter political divide which exists in our country. Fred said he was surprised by how much he enjoyed going back to listen to his own work, and equally surprised that the songs, put together, began to tell a story.
“I went back and listened to all the original songs that I wrote, and picked out the ones I thought were the best, put them in order, and they tell a little story. It’s like the pieces of a puzzle suddenly come together. That was a surprise for me too. It was like putting a book together, chapter by chapter,” he said. “Any musician knows it’s hard to listen to yourself. The fact that I can still listen to these songs and enjoy them is pretty cool.”
Simmons has released many albums over his long career, often with his longtime band, Tattoo, including popular cover songs.
“I’ve been putting albums out all along, but usually they were good dance songs, popular songs that everybody knows, and I would always slip a few original songs onto those albums,” he said.
Simmons and his wife and musical partner, Leslie Vogel, have lived in Greenfield for 40 years. They raised their children here and are now helping raise a grandchild. Simmons and Vogel are well known throughout the region for the Folksoul Band, which includes half a dozen regular musicians, and they also perform alone as the Folk Soul Duo. Vogel is also an original member of Tattoo, going back to their student days.
Every summer, Simmons and Vogel host the Folk Soul Music Festival at their woodland property, bringing friends and fellow musicians from near and far. The highlight of every festival is a New Orleans-style jazz parade around the property, celebrating Simmons’ roots.
Two of the songs, “Down There” and “Fats is the King,” are inspired by New Orleans jazz.
“I have a song about Fats Domino; he was just a huge influence on the U.S. when I was young, and he’s been an influence throughout my life,” Simmons said.
Six of the songs on the album are by Tattoo, which Simmons and Vogel formed on the West Coast in 1978. Simmons said he wrote some of those in the 1970s, and Tattoo recorded them more recently, in the 90s.
“Tattoo is a very unusual band, because we’ve been together for 40 years, and we’re still together,” Simmons said.
The Folk Soul Band performed four songs on the album, and another song was performed by a different band that included Simmons’ and Vogel’s daughter, Rebecca.
“It’s 11 original songs which I think are really good, and which the bands did a great job performing,” Simmons said.
Some of the songs on the album date back to Simmons first days as a musician, busking in San Francisco in the 1970s. The band has legit hippie DNA, even opening for the Grateful Dead in Veneta, Oregon, in 1972.
“The song ‘Runaway Home’ – we made a record of that; we made a 45 in 1978 and sold them when we played outside on Fisherman’s Wharf. That was our first training ground and where I really learned to play. I was on trombone, so I was the loudest; there were nine of us out there,” Simmons said.
Another song, “Got to be a Place,” is about people who traveled across the ocean in the 1500s, during the Age of Exploration, looking for new worlds.
“I thought about what that would have been like. How would it feel to leave everything you know behind in this hope of finding something better? And things are still the same today. There are still so many people just trying to find a new life,” Simmons said.
On Nov. 7, Folk Soul Band will play at the Andres Institute of Art Live Music Series and Big Bear Lodge in Brookline. For tickets and information, go to andresinstitute.org/live-music-series-tickets/