At Lexington show, Bruce Hornsby will revisit favorite early work (not that one)

As he heads back out on the road this fall, Bruce Hornsby — an artist who usually looks ahead to new sounds, songs and musical collaborations — is revisiting one of his previous albums.

The suggestion of shifting focus to earlier music perhaps plants ideas that the multi-Grammy winning, multi-genre song stylist is honoring his late ’80s recordings with The Range — specifically, music that introduced Hornsby to the pop mainstream with hits like “The Way It Is,” “Mandolin Rain” and “The Valley Road.”

Well, not exactly. The tour bringing Hornsby back to Lexington on Sept. 9 is actually celebrating the 25th anniversary of his sixth album, a double-record opus titled “Spirit Trail.”

Why “Spirit Trail” you ask? Hornsby will explain that in a moment. First, the overly obvious question. Why that album and not the records that established his career in the first place?

The answer is simple. Hornsby doesn’t like them.

Why he doesn’t like ‘The Way It Is’ any more

“I have a hard time with the singer on those earlier records, especially the first two (1986’s ‘The Way It is’ and 1988’s ‘Scenes from the Southside.’) They are the most popular, but I’m not a fan of the guy that’s singing those songs. Those records don’t age well for me for that reason.

“A lot of people who have been really involved in what I’ve done, who have taken the long, crazy, stylistic journey with me this whole time, they totally understand this. They need no explanation. It’s the soft core that go, ‘Well, why not the first record or the first and second records?’ The answer: They don’t hold up for me.”

What do his fans think?

Then what makes 1998’s “Spirit Trail,” Hornsby’s sixth album, special enough to warrant a reissue this fall and a subsequent 25th anniversary tour? For starters, the record represents a strong progression for Hornsby as a pianist and composer, broadening the hybrid of pop, folk and jazz settings explored on previous records, such 1993’s “Harbor Lights” and 1995’s “Hot House,” as well as a sense of narrative that echoes in sometimes dark, sometimes spiritual storylines rich with Southern imagery.

Another reason? His fans, termed “the armchair arbiters of taste” by Hornsby, liked the record. A lot.

“In a nutshell, I would say that ‘Spirit Trail,’ for my real hardcore fans, is their favorite record. To what I consider to be my true fans as opposed to people who just know me for five or six hit songs, this is the record for them. And I don’t disagree. I always felt there was something special about it. I had been sort of living in the world of the jazz language on ‘Harbor Lights’ and ‘Hot House.’ So I thought it was time to move to a new place.

“When I look back on ‘Spirit Trail,’ it holds up for me. I feel like that guy was really doing what I feel, what I still feel, good about. He was doing it well. The critical feedback was also very strong. Some people blanched in horror at the cover art, but that’s another story.”

The story behind that cover photo

Oh no you don’t, Bruce. The story of the album art for “Spirit Trail” is too good a tale to leave for another day. The cover photo is an aged Polaroid-style snapshot of Hornsby’s Uncle Charles, a seemingly cheery character about to light a cigarette strategically placed in his right ear. A born entertainer by the look of him.

“I don’t take a lot of this very seriously,” Hornsby said. “I’m deeply serious about the music, but most of the trappings of my career, of the music business, I’ve never taken too seriously. So we have Uncle Charles with his cigarette coming out of his ear, taken at a party in the late ’60s. We found that with some old pictures and it was such a scream to us. My managers at the time saw this cover and went, ‘Oh, we are so in,’ because they were very irreverent and bright and fun guys in their own way. When we sent it over to RCA (then Hornsby’s record label), their reaction was, ‘You’re kidding, right? You’re just fooling with us. This is a joke, right?’ My manager said, ‘Well, no, actually. We’re very serious about this cover.’ So that’s that and it has never ended.”

Working with Spike Lee, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon

Despite the nod to Uncle Charles and his current concert focus on the spirits of “Spirit Trail,” Hornsby is no nostalgia act. His three newest albums — 2019’s “Absolute Zero,” 2020’s “Non-Secure Connection” and 2022’s “‘Flicted” — represented new ways of constructing songs and new collaborators to build them with. All received some of the most favorable critical response of Hornsby’s career.

“It’s the confluence of two very disparate influences and occurrences happening in my life around the same time. You could just call it a two-name attack, a two-name reason — Spike Lee and Justin Vernon.

“I was scoring, from 2008 to 2020, films and doing other incidental music for Spike. I scored six films and produced music for three or four other projects over that 11- or 12-year period. To be specific, I amassed about 240 pieces of music, ranging from 45 seconds long to four-and-half minutes long — film cues I had written for him. Some of the cues were screaming to be expanded into songs with words. So I decided to start doing that. It was a new way of writing for me, hence the sort of cinematic quality that a lot of the songs on those records have.

“Then, at the same time, I had been working for a couple of years with Justin (chieftain of the popular Wisconsin progressive folk troupe Bon Iver.) We make this connection, so I went to Eau Claire to work with him, to write some songs with him, just to throw some things against the wall to see what would stick — the sum total of all that sort-of new information. What I created for Spike was one area. Then the other area came from the Eau Claire crowd, the Justin/Bon Iver world. It’s a deep, large world of music.

“That combination led to these records. Justin Vernon opened the door for me and I walked through, only to find a whole lot of people to start working with.”

The new collaborators included Rob Moose of the modern chamber ensemble yMusic (an entire album teaming Hornsby with yMusic is due out next year), Chicago songstress/poet Jamila Woods, James Mercer from The Shins, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend and Danielle Haim of Haim.

“So that’s really what happened when I stepped into this room. I found a lot more love from all these other people. I’m very fortunate. I’m this 68-year old guy who gets to work with these extremely talented, gifted, creative people who are young enough to be my children. So, lucky me.”

Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers

When: Sept. 9 at 8 p.m.

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short St.

Tickets: are $56.50-$82.00 through ticketmaster.com. Each ticket includes a copy of the “Spirit Trail: 25th Anniversary Edition” three-CD set.