| THE WAY WE ARE marks the appearance of one of the
truly extraordinary songwriting talents to arrive on the music scene in recent years, but
Fred Moolten's emergence as a songwriter has been preceded by years spent in other
realms. At one time a stage and television actor, he later went on to earn a medical
degree and devote himself to scientific research. His sense of drama never waned,
however, but reemerges in this album in striking musical terms. Because of the
emotional and personal nature of many of his songs, Moolten is often asked whether they
are autobiographical. "Most are not", he says, "although 'Cat
Lullaby' comes close." He adds, "What I try to do is call on fragments of
experience from my life and the lives of those close to me and combine lyrics and
music to transmute them into something coherent enough to become a song. In
"The Way We Are", what makes it work are the masterful arrangements by
Mike Lewis and Don Vappie and the vocal artistry of Bryan Harden, Michelle Amato, Juanita
Brooks, Vernon Phillips, Don Vappie, and Rachel Perry."
Moolten is something of an anomaly among contemporary songwriters in that he is not a performer. "I can barely scrape by on the piano", he says, but adds that "paradoxically, this limitation has its advantages. In particular, since I won't be singing my own songs, my imagination is free to write from both a male and female perspective. About half my songs are intended for female vocalists." Asked whether he feels qualified to write very personal lyrics from a female perspective, he responds "Yes, but in that sense I'm not very different from a novelist or playwright. In fact, I may be better qualified to write of intimate things from the perspective of a woman than of a man. I've only known one man intimately in my life - myself - but more than one woman. It's also an advantage to a lyricist to exploit the fact that emotionally, women tend to be more overtly expressive about personal matters than men." |
