Music Just Isn’t What It Used to Be

Singer-songwriter Jerry Popiel hears music fans gripe: no one makes music like it used to be! He set out to change that with old-school music, real instruments, no artificial intelligence allowed.

As a traveling singer-songwriter, I often hear knowledgeable music fans moan: “They just don’t make music like they used to!” And one might opine that those fans are largely correct – while good music can come from any age, it can appear there was a high-water mark during the peak of the singer-songwriter era that has never been duplicated. Those were the days of Jim Croce, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, Simon & Garfunkel, Dan Fogelberg and many more. Days when great lyrics, melodies, song structures and stripped-down, essential performances ruled the airwaves, free from the deleterious effects of computers.

These days, I have the great privilege of performing songs from this era to “vintage” audiences at many types of venues throughout the Midwest. After doing this for more than a decade, it has become ever more apparent to me that, in a modern era of seemingly soulless computer-generated pop music, audiences who know better are starving for authentic content that is performed as purely as possible.

So the question is, can that approach be duplicated? Can we bring it back? Via rare instances such as modern folk success Ray LaMontagne, the evidence suggests yes. With that in mind, I attempted to do the same with a new folk-country-rock EP called “Edgewater.” Taking a decidedly old-school, “anti-artificial intelligence” approach, the album conjures up sounds of 1970s songwriters while exploring rust belt landscapes and Great Lakes shorelines.

Now, I don’t know if I qualify as intelligence, but I’m definitely not artificial. In an era where it’s possible to make any sound on earth by simply pressing some buttons on a computer, it’s more important than ever to be authentically human. If nothing else, Edgewater was made by a real human – me – playing real instruments in real time. As analog and organic as possible.

On Edgewater, “Swing Me” is an upbeat, acoustic guitar-driven ode to dreaming about life on the road, while firmly ensconced in daily Ohio life. Country-tinged “Crooked Creek” recalls revisiting waterways of one’s youth, but not quite being able to bring back those earlier years. Title track “Edgewater” is the centerpiece, pining for Lake Erie summer classics like mayflies, cottonwoods, driftwood, spitting watermelon seeds and old El Caminos sitting in the driveway. Upbeat “Laughing” opines “where did all the time go?” while thinking about an after-prom and that AM radio playing a song down low on a Lake Erie beach. “Collision Bend” tells a story of tugboat crews working the Cuyahoga River and its most famous curve. The EP closes with a nod to my days in the Coast Guard in “The Wreck of the El Faro,” a tribute to the true story 2015 sinking of the eponymous cargo ship during Hurricane Joaquin.

Did this project succeed in bringing back a flavor of the classic singer-songwriters? Only “vintage” music fans can say. Long live real music!

1970s Music: Styles of a Fertile Era

Jerry Popiel is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. As a solo artist, he is a regular performer for luxury Viking Cruise lines and has performed at Live Nation VIP clubs before James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Hootie and the Blowfish, Dierks Bentley and many more, and other locations including opening for Girl Named Tom, comedian Paul Reiser, Shawn Mullins, Leon Russell, the Strawbs and more. He composed the music and lyrics and performed all instruments on Edgewater including acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, bass guitar, drums, piano, organ, harmonica and vocals. He recorded, mixed and mastered the EP at his home studio in Cleveland, Ohio. His music is available on all streaming platforms.

“Edgewater” will be released on Nov. 1, 2024. Besides composing the music and lyrics, Popiel performed all instruments on the EP including acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, bass guitar, drums, piano, organ, harmonica and vocals. He recorded, mixed and mastered the EP at his home studio in Cleveland, Ohio.

Pre-release, FREE listening link at SoundCloud.com.