Pianist Rollings includes Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett in his ‘Mosaic’
from Andrew Dansby for Houston Chronicle (Aug 2020)
When Matt Rollings describes his first encounter with folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott the story sounds like a campfire ghost tale.
Rollings and his wife had some time to kill before dinner along the coast in Marshall, Calif., so they walked up to a boathouse they assumed was empty. But they noticed the lights were on and the stove was lit and there was a piano inside. Rollings’ wife hit a middle C.
“This old guy sitting at a table there perks up and says, ‘Are you going to play me something?’,” Rollings says.
A virtuosic pianist, composer and producer who has played with Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Alison Krauss, Billy Joel, Mark Knopfler and hundreds of others, Rollings stepped up and played a little ragtime piece.
“He lit up like a Christmas tree,” Rollings says. “So we started talking…”
Both men offered hints as to their occupation: Elliott mentioned having written a song recorded by Johnny Cash; Rollings mentioned he had played in some bands.
“So it turns out I’m talking to Ramblin’ Jack Elliott,” he says. “And I didn’t know it. It was this strange, magical moment, being in this bubble with him. We were there an hour or so . . . missed our dinner reservation. It was like traveling to Avalon. I just left with the feeling I was supposed to make music with this guy. I went back to our Air BNB and Googled him. I half expected to read that he’d died two years earlier. That I’d been visited by an apparition.”
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Matt Rollings' "Mosaic" is available through streaming services and at mattrollings.com.
At first Rollings thought about asking to produce an album for Elliott. Having spent nearly 40 years as a member of Lyle Lovett’s Large Band and as a first-call session pianist in Nashville, Rollings slid effortlessly into work as a producer. He earned a Grammy Award for his work on Willie Nelson’s 2018 Frank Sinatra tribute, “My Way.”
“I was so sure I wanted to produce an album for Jack,” he says. “And my wife knows me. She knows I get a bit obsessed by the chase. But out of the blue, she asked why not make a record myself and have him sing on it. And it was a revelation.”
So instead of trying to deal with a longer process of making an Elliott album, he instead got Elliott to appear on several songs that form the spine of “Mosaic,” Rollings’ new album, his first in 30 years.
Assembling a mosaic
Rollings calls from California, where he is on vacation with his family. “The first vacation I’ve taken since before my son was born. I’m always on the road with somebody every summer.” He’s spent years on the road ever since he and other members of J. David Sloan’s Arizona band The Rogues transformed into Lyle Lovett’s Large Band. Rollings was just 18 at the time.
Touring with Alison Krauss’ band put pieces into place for “Mosaic.” During and after soundchecks Rollings and drummer Jay Bellerose further developed “a radar for what the other was playing and this unique language started to appear,” Rollings says. “I wanted to try to find a way to preserve the feeling we got playing together.”
As he assembled a list of songs for “Mosaic,” Rollings and Bellerose would record the basic piano and drum tracks, allowing them a little room for improvisation, while also giving the album a continuity as several singers and vocal ensembles would pass through to sing songs he’d selected, which are all songs he either wrote, played on or felt “were just part of my musical DNA.”
The War and Treaty add their voices to his take on Paul Simon’s “Take Me to the Mardi Gras,” while Krauss and Vince Gill sing “Stay,” a gorgeous song Rollings co-wrote with Alisan Porter, a winner of “The Voice,” whose album he produced.
Some songs date back further: The War and Treaty and the Blind Boys of Alabama sing “Wade in the Water.” Lovett appears on a pair of songs, joined by Elliott and Willie Nelson for “That Lucky Old Sun.” Rollings’ chance encounter with Elliott led to another song, as the folk legend sings a Lovett original, “If I Had a Boat.”
“I’ve been doing this almost 40 years,” Rollings says, “and there are so many incredible, iconic artists I’m lucky to call my friends, with Lyle at the top of the list. It just snowballed from there.”
Finding a great song
Rollings and Bellerose and singer-songwriter Charlie Greene reinvent the Police’s “Spirits in a Material World,” finding a dark mood far removed from the song’s new-wave roots. Rollings was trying to find a song for Greene to sing when that song played on the radio while he was driving.
He started arranging the song in his head. When he and his wife arrived at a friend’s house, he isolated himself for a little while to finish structuring the arrangement.
“I was taught early on, a great song has to be great whether played by a 90-piece orchestra or a guy with a guitar,” he says. “They both have to work. It’s a good rule to follow. And Sting wrote a really great song.”
Greene and Rollings draw the song’s unnerving dystopian lyrics back to the surface, finding a 21st century resonance in String’s phrases about “troubled evolution” and the subjugation of the meek.
“Mosaic” drifts through moods both somber and resilient. Both of those elements can be heard in “Accentuate the Positive,” where Lovett’s voice and Rollings’ piano engage in a little playful parrying.
Despite the varied song sources and voices, “Mosaic” — true to its title — feels like a singular piece from start to finish.
“The one rule was that we didn’t want to make something commercial, we wanted to make something beautiful,” he says. “From the micro to the macro, we applied that one rule. If scheduling somebody became difficult, we moved on. We never wanted to push it too hard. It was like meeting Ramblin’ Jack, it all needed to feel natural. Somebody asked me why after 30 years I decided to make another record. And I feel like I didn’t. I feel like the record found its own way.”
