I was introduced to Tom Brosseau in San Francisco. I remember the aluminum chair he sat in and his accoustic guitar. His skin looked smooth and innocent, the opposite of Tom Waits or Johnny Cash; he had wispy blond hair and his voice was pretty and pitch-perfect. I wondered if he had gotten lost on the way to a coffee shop. Songs were mostly about lost love and rural America and were almost always in the same, easy tempo.
That changed. The tempo stayed easy but his face shifted from 20 to 40, from the sweet singer-songwriter to weathered and cadaverous. Mr. Brosseau's age is as unidentifiable as his voice is androgynous. I felt the dark stride of a Cormac McCarthy novel emerge, a lonely, simple meter that doesn't end so well. He performed his final song a cappella, and for that one he stood. He's a tall, thin man and towered over us with authority. I only remembered a few words from the song:
The night was like chalkboard
with a fingernail moon.
The phrase "when Tom Brosseau stands" took on a certain meaning between me and my friend Eric, who was with me that night at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. When we bought tickets to Austin for South by Southwest we made sure to check if Tom Brosseau would be playing, and he was: he had one show scheduled at the Hilton. That was all.
I arrived about a half hour early and took the front row of a garishly lit conference room. Most of the seats were empty. The audience seemed middle aged and half interested. Eric arrived late and sweaty, pushed through and sat to my right. I was happy to see him.
Mr. Brosseau sang and drank some whiskey. He sang another song, drank a bit more whiskey and said he had "the nerves." The audience responded to him like a cute kid who deserves a good long hug, which is understandable but I doubt it's a lasting impression. After the show I heard someone call him "kinda mysterious" and I gathered they noticed the shift.
During his thirty minute set a few people in the small audience asked him to play specific songs. "Brass ring!" There were others but I forget their names. I'm not good with names. I don't remember lyrics either, and I can't hum a tune from memory. But I knew what I wanted to hear so I tried to remember the name.
"I have time for one more." He hunched over his guitar a bit. "I'm not sure what to play."
Eric spoke up. "How to Grow a Woman from the Ground."
That was the one.
Later that night Eric told me he was quitting his job, leaving San Francisco. He was returning to Texas to be near family and old friends, he said.
I suddenly recalled that Mr. Brosseau had stood through his entire act.