Country in the City

Many of us grew up believing you had to be raised in regions like the Blue Ridge Mountains to really appreciate country music. It’s a genre that seems to have had a niche following entrenched in the southern states before gradually gaining mainstream popularity and a more widespread appeal.

If you’ve sort of been on the fence about country music’s appeal, listen to a few of Hal Ketchum’s songs and you might become a bona fide fan. He is a sensational songwriter who sings from the heart, and has released nine records since the late 1980s including the critically acclaimed Father Time last year. On Monday night, July 27, Ketchum will appear with his four-piece band, the Staggering Prophets, at the Ocean City Music Pier as part of the Stockton Goes to the Beach concert series. The group includes Ketchum on acoustic guitar and vocals, Nico Leophante on drums, Keith Carper on bass, and George Reary on slide and electric guitar.

Ketchum, 56, is originally from the upstate New York town of Greenwich. He moved to Austin, Texas, in his early 20s and later to Nashville, Tennessee, where he currently resides. He has had numerous top-10 hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs, among them “Small Town Saturday Night,” “Past the Point of Rescue,” “Stay Forever” and “Hearts Are Gonna Roll.” Ketchum recently spoke to AC Weekly by phone from his Nashville home.

You were born and raised in upstate New York but gained notoriety in country music. How did that unfold?

My grandfather was a classical violinist and my dad’s a fiddle player — we all played. I grew up in a generation where we all made our own entertainment. I’m from that generation where music was such an important part of our lives. It was tangible. We gathered, we sang and we played.

Some of your songs really come across as deeply rooted in personal experience, like “Miss My Mary,” “In Front of the Alamo,” “Daddy’s Oldsmobile” and “Dreams of Martina.” Is most of what you write based on people you’ve known or events that occurred in your life?

It’s all interpretation. It’s kind of like what you do — take the information, absorb it, and hopefully turn it into something good.

I read where you’re latest album, Father Time, is all your own original material and no covers, just like your first album, Threadbare Alibis, was in 1988.

That’s right — I kind of wanted to get back to that. I’m fortunate to have developed a strong following as a live performer, and wanted people to gain a better sense of who I am as a singer/songwriter through the album. My live shows are kind of like a family gathering — I sit and I play and people shout out for a song and I try to play it. I’m just trying to keep up with my own catalogue in that sense.

Speaking of family, I understand you started out as a drummer and used to perform with your brother in bands. Do you still have family members come to see you play?

When I play at the Iron Horse [Music Hall in Northampton, Mass., about 50 miles southeast of Greenwich], my brother [Frank] and sister [Jane] come to my shows.

I noticed online that you often play with an acoustic guitar that has a unique-looking body. What is it?

It was made by Rick Turner, a Santa Barbara [California] guitar maker. It’s a wonderful instrument. It’s as light as a broomstick and travels well. My good friend J.D. Challenger, a brilliant artist, just pained a medicine wheel in the middle of that guitar.

I know this will be your first appearance at the Music Pier, but have you performed in southern New Jersey before?

I have over the years, and I love it over there, I seriously do. People [from other areas] who have never been there have their own interpretations of what certain places are like, but if they just spent a little time there they’d understand it a little better. When I first moved to Texas I thought it would be all tumbleweeds and cactuses. But you find interesting things about every place you go once you get there.