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Guy Forsyth

Presented by Dosey Doe Coffee House at Dosey Doe Coffee House

September 16, 2010

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Dosey Doe Coffee House presents Guy Forsyth.   Thursday, September 16 at 8:30pm. JIM HURST Opens: 7:45.

Music - and by extension, the people who make and listen to it - is an art form endlessly divided into categories: from blues to jazz, rap to reggae and pop to rock to punk to metal, ad nauseam. The same goes for individual songs, divided not only by genre but further by "type": happy songs, sad songs, protest songs, patriotic songs, drinking songs, gospel songs, work songs, party songs and of course & love songs.

Some folks like their music divided this way; it helps them organize their record collection, know what artists to follow and which radio stations to listen to and even what to put on their mix tapes and CDs.

But Guy Forsyth, an artist who's had a go at most - if not yet quite all - of the aforementioned genres, likes to simplify things. "When you break it down, there's really only three types of music," he rations on a sunny afternoon in his adopted hometown of Austin, Texas. "There's the stuff you like, the stuff you don't like and the stuff you haven't heard."

As for songs, well, he simplifies that matter, too. For as far as Forsyth's concerned, they're all love songs.

"I don't think music is about elements of style so much as it's about the energy behind it and the intent and the care that goes into it," he explains. "On the records that I've done, there's numerous things that you can identify as 'styles' of music, but hopefully the thing that holds it all together is the heart behind it. The goal is try to communicate something, and in this case, all the songs are based on love - even if it's a way of trying to point a finger at something and trying to say, 'Hey, what's going on over here? Are you seeing the same thing I'm seeing?'

"One of the questions that people ask me a lot is, 'Oh, you're a musician? What kind of music do you play?'" says Forsyth. "And there was a time when I had a really easy answer for that: 'I play blues.' Or with the Asylum Street Spankers, it was 'We play acoustic music.' Or I'd say, 'I'm a songwriter.'

But all those labels really don't communicate anything specific at all, so they're really not useful. I wish I knew what to call it, but it's not a simple question, because there's all these elements of blues and jazz and reggae and funk and folk in it. I guess all of it sounds like American music - but it's American music simply because this is where I am and this is what I listen to."