A chat with Citizen Cope on 20 years on the road, upcoming Music Hall show

Citizen Cope, a.k.a. Clarence Greenwood, will make his way to The Music Hall on Tuesday, Jan. 25, in celebration of his 20th year on the road. He’ll be playing some of the tunes people have come to know and love, and will also dig into his gorgeously dark and contemplative new record, “The Pull of Niagara Falls,” which features Cope on acoustic guitar and piano, just singing his songs as they are. No production. Stripped down and bare. In a lot of ways, it feels like the most honest record of Greenwood’s decades-long career. And, from where he’s sitting, it also happened to be the hardest one to figure out how to make — hanging his hat on the strength of his stories rather than in the layers of sound that pull his songs and the listener’s attention in different directions.

Seacoastonline caught up with the songwriter to trace some of his roots, what led him to try his hand at music to begin with, meeting Richie Havens, appreciating the road a little differently following time away, and needing to explore the prowess of Bruce Springsteen (among other things).

Seacoastonline: You’re in the midst of a winter tour here celebrating your 20th year as a professional musician. Congratulations on two decades of residing in studios and atop bandstands around the globe. How’s the ride been?

Greenwood: Twenty years of putting records out, you know … So, yeah man, I’ve been super fortunate.

Seacoastonline: Why music? Why do you seek it? Why do you create it? What got you interested in walking down this path to begin with?

Greenwood: Well, I think it’s because I wasn’t particularly good at anything else. I started writing poetry, and I felt like there was something to it. It just kinda came to me and, I guess you pick things that you can feel, you know? I guess if I was good at something else, I would’ve been drawn to that, but I wasn’t. It just seemed like I was pretty good at writing, and soon after I started working on developing songs. I really got into making records and I was just excited about it all, you know? Passionate about it. The art and the craft of trying to make something that people could feel and relate to—there was just something in my heart that I felt like I kinda needed to share. I’m fortunate that some of my emotions were—and are—something people can identify with—from the victories to the struggles. Certain times an artist can express those types of things. And if you’re lucky enough for that type of thing to find you, to come through you, it eventually becomes like a responsibility. And I’m into it man; I can handle that responsibility.

Seacoastonline: Had you been playing guitar at that point, or did you take your poetry and then try to apply it to music?

Greenwood: Well, I played guitar in the sense that I hit it one string at a time. I learned it when I was around 13. A friend of mine had one, and we would just play around. In my late teens I got into drum machines and samplers and started developing an understanding of music production. But I realized, with those things in mind, I couldn’t really play a song yet. So, I took all those lessons and trained myself to really learn guitar—strum patterns, chords, etc. Once I had that, I was able to use those production elements and really start to hone in on building some songs.

Seacoastonline: Is it weird to set foot on stage to play to a room full of strangers staring right at you night in and night out? Or are they all friends at this point?

Greenwood: You know it’s always been a challenge. It’s always been something that like, you know, you have expectations for yourself and expectations from other people, or presumed expectations from people in the room… That’s a lot of pressure. I think it’s been part of my personal growth—to get in front of people and learn, you know, that the people there are on your side. It took a while. I felt like I had so much responsibility to kinda give people the best show ever, and sometimes when you do that, you lose sight of your purpose. So, it’s really just been a learning experience being in front of people. I had bad stage fright at first. Real bad. I got over that, and now I’m able to take in the energy and the love in the room and compound that with what I’m doing and have an experience that none of us could have expected. It’s real. My journey has been all about learning, and I feel like I still haven’t learned everything I’m meant to learn just yet.

Seacoastonline: It’s good to stay open, right? It’s good to continue to learn. I think if you stop learning, you’re kinda at the end…

Greenwood: Yeah, that’s where it’s beautiful. Over the years you think it’s about one thing, but it turns into being a journey of personal growth more so than trying to make a musical career.

Seacoastonline: Further, do you have any greater appreciation for getting to walk out onto a stage after the forced hiatus brought to us all because of a pandemic?

Greenwood: I have, but I’ve also gained an appreciation for not doing shows (chuckles). I think the idea that the only way an artist can make a living is to play live is kind of a dangerous mindset for the art. It’s something that a lot of us fell into because there weren’t other opportunities. But, at the same time, it’s like, it’s a group of people who want to financially take care of themselves and artistically achieve something beyond them. I think that when you look at the things that come with road life … the substances will get you, your ego will get you, the kind of the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll thing, you know—that stuff will swallow you up. It takes you away from being creative. I got in this to make records and create songs that will stand the test of time. I kind of got caught up in the live thing, and so, yeah, I think this was where artists could reflect and remember what their true purpose is. And to that, I’ve come back, and I feel like a lot of these shows are some of my best ever. I feel like I’m taking things to a different level. I’ve definitely gained more appreciation for it, but also, the time where I’m not doing it makes the next batch of shows that much stronger. I think there’s a method to that, and a balance to that. Which I’ve only just learned.

Seacoastonline: Let’s talk about your latest record, “The Pull of Niagara Falls.” What were the goals for this particular effort?

Greenwood: I did some of the stuff in the bathroom at my house. I did some of it—I rented a house during COVID; you know, and Air BnB — and recorded a couple of the songs there. And I did a couple in the studio. It was a mashup of a lot of different approaches.

Seacoastonline: It’s definitely quieter than the typical Citizen Cope record. Just you strumming an acoustic guitar or playing piano and singing. That said, it has so much power to it due to the lyrical content and the way you present those stories. Do you feel the same way? What’s the dynamic of going from a full band production to just you doing your thing?

Greenwood: I got into the production side of it, and then I just came back to the writing side of things. I kind of wanted to do a record that, in the end, was kind of like how I wrote the song. I have my production ideas. I want to make big records. And sometimes those records take on their own life. But in that, the power of the song itself might get lost, you know? So, yeah, I wanted to take it back down to the songwriting. Plain and simple.

Seacoastonline: Did you feel vulnerable at any point? You know, in the sense that it’s just you creating these pieces of music with no accompaniment to help you flesh things out?

Greenwood: Nah, man. I’ve been trying to do an acoustic record for a long time. And I was finally like, you know what, I just gotta sit down and sing it. See how it comes out. Not take the ear of a critical producer. There was also a little bit of letting go and letting things just not be perfect. And that’s not to say that any of my stuff is perfect; it’s just that I wanted to hit this with less of an expectation of what the record would be and more of what the song might deliver. That’s hard to do acoustically. I did a bunch of research. I read about the struggles Bruce Springsteen had making “Nebraska.” And a couple other acoustic records I thought would be worthy of a deeper dive. I wasn’t a huge “Nebraska” fan or anything. Obviously, I have huge respect for Bruce Springsteen, but, uh, he’s somebody I’ve learned that I gotta get more into. But anyhow, there’s some really cool articles where Bruce talks about just using his original take. He would record the tunes again and again and again, but they’d lose power along the way. That made me realize that like, OK, I’m not the only one that’s having a really hard time with this. That kind of made me take a different approach to do an acoustic album that let the song stand on its own, out of the gate.

Seacoastonline: How do you feel about what you’ve accomplished with it now that it’s done and out? You happy with it?

Greenwood: I definitely am. A friend of mine called up and was like, ‘Man, I think this record is just too depressing for these times.’ He was a big Cope fan, and I was just like, man, a lot of these times came from when I was in a really dark place. And honestly, I don’t even call it a dark place. They’re just a collection of stories that still stand true. Like the shotgun and its symbolism of fear in America. A bunch of these songs came from that record (“Shotguns”) that never came out. But the time was right. There’s a side of this that’s really cool. Some people won’t like it because it doesn’t have the beats and the tempo they’re accustomed to. It’s slow … But, I mean, the songs are great. There’s not a lot of people trying to write great songs anymore. There’s been a bit of a lack of great songwriting for about 25 years. There’s been a lot of great records, but the idea of the purpose of a great songwriter kind of faded, and I think I felt like I had a responsibility to that community. I’m trying to carry that with my music. With this music. This record.

Seacoastonline: One tune, in particular, jumps out at me. I mean, a lot of them do, but I like the swirling dialogue you created in “The Gambler’s Theme.” It’s got ties to sports (baseball—Yankees/Braves), while working in some dark historical lineage of our country here. How’d that one come to you?

Greenwood: I wrote it a long time ago. It was for the record I just mentioned called “Shotguns,” which never came out. It’s a cultural song about the country. Our country. There’s always been a lineage between baseball and our country. The Yankees had just beat the Braves when I was writing it, so many people think it’s just a baseball song, but it’s about the country. I get at it from different levels. It’s hard to explain my writing process because there’s a lot of stuff that just happens with it, but, yeah, it was like the coordination between baseball, our country—just the symbolism that exists between the Yankees and Braves … The new system coming in and the natives. And also, the theme of the underdog getting beat again. I think a lot of times, there’s value to the flawed character, the one that loses. Not everyone wins like at the end of a Hollywood movie. And their victories are actually greater than that because they weren’t celebrated in that way. Like Martin Luther King, man. His birthday was the other day. And it’s like, man, they made him a criminal. They killed him. Years later, they write about him in school as a hero but still don’t implement the policies he really felt were important, and that would make this country a better place. I think if we really unveil what he was about, it was about making the world a better place and making people come together. Same with music. There’s an element of that.

Seacoastonline: Can you talk a little bit about your own history with sporting events? I understand you were a ticket scalper at one point in your life. Is that as far as it went, or are you a fan of baseball and sports as well?

Greenwood: I was a huge fan. That’s what brought me to ticket scalping. I was sneaking into games and saw the guys out there selling tickets. So, the idea hit me that I could sneak into games and make some money (chuckles). I was a huge fan. I’ve become less of a fan because of the huge corporate element in today’s world, but I still follow the players. There’s a bunch of athletes that are Cope fans, and I appreciate them, man. I watch them. I support them. I’m less a fan of a team, but I really identify with athletes and coaches. There’s a lot of correlation between artists and athletes, actually.

Seacoastonline: You’ve accomplished a lot during your 20-year run here. You’ve collaborated with many notable folks, and you’ve also had some of your tunes covered by some heavy hitters as well. I want to place a spotlight on Richie Havens for a moment though … I’m a big Richie Havens fan. Such a sweet dude. You ever get a chance to spend any time with him? On a personal level, did it strike you in any way that he chose to cover your tune “Hurricane Waters” as a piece of his final studio album?

Greenwood: Man, I was playing a show in Athens, Georgia, at the Athens Theatre. Richie Havens happened to be playing in Athens that same night. He came to the show. I didn’t even know he did a version of Hurricane. But I was about to find out! Man, this guy had so much spirit and grace to him. He looked amazing. He was sharp. It was like, damn … I wish I could carry whatever this guy’s carrying. You know what I’m saying? He was like pure life. Embodying some sort of higher spirit while still existing in this materialistic world. It wasn’t like he was a monk. He was walking among us. I had no idea about his personal life, his struggles, or anything like that — I only knew about his history with opening Woodstock and all that. I was really honored that he covered that song. It was great to meet him. And it was such a surprise when he passed away because he seemed so healthy. He was somebody… He was one of those people that I needed to meet. One of those people that was supposed to come into my life for some reason. And there he was—he came to my show. I’m honored, man. I’m so blessed he covered that song. And then he passed away before I could really get to know him. I wanted to continue to be in the room learning from him. It’s hard to find those types of people in your life, man. So spiritual, so talented… The celebrity and the money never got to him.

Man, I rarely talk to anyone that has actually listened to my records. Most interviews are just folks asking me the same ol’ questions. I appreciate this, man.

Seacoastonline: Alright, you’re visiting us here in Portsmouth at The Music Hall on Jan. 25. What excites you about the gig? What can folks expect?

Greenwood: It’s been like a pin drop out here at all these shows. Even at bars. People are tuned in. It’s kind of taken on a real nice thing and I’m very appreciative of all of it. I haven’t figured it all out yet, so we’ll be surprised together.

For more information about the show, visit www.themusichall.org.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Citizen Cope to perform at The Music Hall in Portsmouth NH on Jan. 25