Tony Scherr: Twist in the Wind

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Christopher Arnott wrote in the New Haven Advocate: "He’s a veteran jazz bassist, a longtime member of both Bill Frisell’s band and Sex Mob who also used to be one of John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards. Now he’s got a second career as a guitar-based singer-songwriter. … Scherr’s brother Peter … is a noted composer and bassist. … [I]n New Haven in the 1970s … [the] brothers had a garage band 'under many names.' … [H]e credits his Connecticut upbringing, including hours spent listening to FM album rock on the once-revolutionary WPLR, for inspiring the direction his own music’s taken. … On Twist in the Wind, he does Cheap Trick’s 'I Want You to Want Me' in a soft, gentle acoustic style reminiscent of Joao Gilberto. He intones the lyrics with reverence: '"I’ll shine up the old brown shoes. Put on a brand-new shirt. I’ll get home early from work if you say that you love me." That’s a Brazilian love song if I ever heard one.' Scherr’s own songs call to mind the similarly scratchy vocals and scratched souls of artists like Freedy Johnston, Joe Henry and Randy Newman, but with plenty of lyrical surprises and uncompromising arrangements."