"I decided I had to get fearless," says Angie Aparo. "I realized that if you’re truly an artist, whether you’re Woody Guthrie or a medieval minstrel,
you’ve simply got to communicate. It’s in those moments that you’re really alive. Communicating, creating - that’s what I have to do." With characteristic intensity, the singer/songwriter/guitarist is talking about the soul-searching behind his remarkable Melisma/Arista debut, The merican. Aparo’s songs are urgent and inspiring, and capture the full breadth of human emotion. They are subtly arranged and melodically indelible, telling the story of the common man. A rich aural landscape of primal guitar and insistent rhythm, of strings and horns and evocative vocals, The American is music that will last. The album introduces a voice who’ll be around for a long time; a streetpoet for the 21st century.
"I am a song/I've been here all along," Angie sings on "Memphis City Rain." Inspired by Aparo’s fury at the manipulation of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday by self-serving politicians, the tune is one of the bum’s many highlights. Yet its lyrics, too, could sum up its creator. Southern-reared and Italian by heritage, Angie Aparo has spent a lifetime in music. He honed his skills in Nashville song circles and New York’s The Bitter End and The Mercury Lounge, refining his vision on the byways and ossroads of the land he’s traveled. Always, he has sung. "Singing has always been transcendent for me," he says. "And what I want to do is communicate thing of meaning, something that connects in a very real way."
From the soaring essence of "Spaceship" ("When you get tired of satellite flyers /And fame has let you down/Under the wire and over the moon/I’m nd") to the artful Latin syncopation of "It’s Alright," The American unveils a signature passion. A crash course in the art of the song, the album ranges from the pared-down gorgeousness of "Wonderland" to the waltzing beauty of "Cry". As the music lingers, we’re left not only with an artist’s self-portrait, but a rediscovery of ourselves. "I’ve thought for a long time, Aparo asserts, "that the skill of performing - especially in people I really admire - isn’t about ‘me.’ It’s about reminding you of what you have."
The journey toward The American began roughly two years ago when Angie began collaborating with producer Matt Serletic (matchbox20, Edwin McCain, Aerosmith,Collective Soul). In a genuine meeting of minds, the pair traded ideas and insights, working out how best to derive the full measure of meaning from Aparo’s music. "I’d been working with a groovebox for a long time,just compiling tape after tape of ideas," Angie says. "I write every day -- generally starting in the morning, when I just open up to a kind of stream of consciousness.
And about 90 percent of the creating happens when I’m driving in my car - I get ideas that I shape into finished songs later. I just follow the music. The music knows what it’s supposed to be." Eventually landing in studios in Atlanta (Angie’s home base),Nashville and Miami, Aparo and Serletic assembled an ace corps of players to augment Angie’s guitar, groovebox and spell-binding vocals. The method they arrived at was tically collaborative, a real synergy of forces. Feeding the players groovebox riffs and scratch vocals, Aparo began crafting, piece by piece, music of an intense immediacy. "Working that way,putting things together in the studio, made the songs fresh for me" says Angie "It was a method Matt and I first came up with on ‘Spaceship,’laying down about 40 tracks on the song in a single day." Singing about family and fatherhood, about romance and heartbreak, Aparo creates a cycle of songs that illustrates the many facets of the human condition.
And, as he prepares to take this remarkable music on the road, he’s thinking of another kind of sharing. "To me, performing is about much more than even the performer getting into the songs." he says. "That phenomenon happens, of course, and it’s amazing. But performing is an interchange; it’s mutual. From audience to performer, there’s a gift going on. It’s a collective experience, of people united - just by the simple fact that we’re all human."
Human, honest and real. That’s The American. That’s Angie Aparo.
