ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 16, 1997 TAG: 9701160013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: OFF THE CLOCK
SOURCE: CHRIS HENSON
There's a sound he makes by sort of humming through his lips. You hear the slide of the low notes, the bright bell tone of the high notes. You'd swear it was a trombone.
When he whistles, there's a kind of yodel to it. It's spry and jiglike. It sounds like your dad when he's down in the basement tinkering. A melody freed from the soul by busy hands.
And his hands are busy ringing sturdy chords from a workhorse guitar, while his voice booms and croons. The songs are about people, about everybody, which is fortunate because that's who they're for.
"If you want to make a living singing, you've got to have something special," says singer and songwriter Bo Chagnon of Roanoke. "Something has to set you apart." For him, it's a thing called "Flavorful Music," which is about as close as you can get to describing what Bo does.
He's a trip to a musical ice cream store, and there's something for every taste. The melodic, up-tempo numbers he calls Vanilla. The love songs and ballads are pure Chocolate. They're all pretty much guilt free.
Bo's a hip guy, with his head-mounted microphone and his long ponytail. You notice his face right off. He uses it to animate the lyrics of the jazzy/folky/bluesy/new-traditional songs he does. His eyes meet every pair in the audience; his smile is firm as a handshake.
It's not every singer in the world who can get away with singing children's songs to adults, or vice versa. But there is an equilibrium Bo reaches with his contagious enthusiasm, that makes every song his own. He's comfortable singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" or "Scotch and Soda."
Bo's singing might remind you of Leon Redbone or Nat King Cole, ranging from a sort of bouncing bass to a smooth baritone. You can tell by the tone that this voice likes its songs.
This is what Bo Chagnon has always wanted to do, pretty much since he landed a slot in his high school glee club and double quartet his freshman year.
Then, there was freshman orientation at Cornell University. "The school had a vocal group called `The Sherwoods,' who performed and just blew everybody's socks off," he says.
So he auditioned. "There were actually two rounds of auditions," he says. "The first was you were in this room on the fourth or fifth floor. They had a piano, and they would hit a note and you'd sing it, and they'd find out your range.
"Next they taught us a song in four-part harmony, and we broke up into groups and sang it. After that, they said, 'OK, now it's your turn. Tell us a joke, or a story, or sing something.'" At his turn, Bo announced that he would sing "House of the Rising Sun." A young guitarist stood up, said he knew that song and asked if he could play along.
Bo made it into the Sherwoods, and "House of the Rising Sun" was later arranged as a solo feature for him. They retired the song when he graduated four years later.
It was probably his strong, sensitive voice that got him into the group. It didn't hurt that the young guitarist who accompanied him on his audition was Harry Chapin.
These days, his singing is his business, and he treats it like one. After songwriting conferences and workshops on creative risk-taking, Bo made the commitment to put the rest of his life on hold and follow the songs in his heart.
"I spent a year and a half getting ready," he says, "practicing, learning songs. I figured I'd be ready when I had enough of a repertoire to play a three-hour gig."
Now with several recordings under his belt, including a new sampler CD called "Tutti Frutti," he spends a lot of his time on the road, playing concerts for kindergartners, retirees and all points in between. He's got lots of styles to choose from, and a big ol' scoop to help serve them up.
Bo will do his thing at Boon Street Cafe in Boones Mill on Feb. 1. Then he'll be in Blacksburg at Top of the Stairs on Feb 4 and the Cellar on Feb. 6. He'll also perform at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Roanoke as part of its "Piccolo Spirito" music series Feb. 22.
He's got his tapes and CDs to peddle at his gigs, as well as bumper stickers and stuff. "If you want to make a living singing," says Bo, "you have to have a product line."
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