From inception, Josh Rouse chose a difficult path. Intrinsically, his gentle stylings eschew splash or edge. That’s not exactly a fire formula in today’s ADHD attention economy.
What’s more, history’s shown us that music this mild is, too often, easy to digest but hard to take seriously. To do it well requires either mastery or miracle. And softly though he sings, Rouse is a quiet master — one of the best, most natural singer-songwriters of his generation, in fact. In his hands and voice, it all clicks. The immaculate melodies, the tender aura — it all makes for a spell with a grip that you won’t see coming.
My relationship with Rouse’s music goes far back, to the dawn of his career, since I picked up that CD at the original Park Ave CDs. It was a promotional giveaway on the counter that I grabbed by chance while checking out. It was the single “Directions” from his 2000 album Home. With that one free CD, he went from total unknown to one of my favorite discoveries. From there, I got caught up on Josh Rouse’s catalog and became an avid follower. And from the consistently arresting music he’s put out in the quarter-century since, I’ve become convinced of his genius.
I’ve seen him live once before, but that was many years ago in 2007, and it barely counts. He played at an arena (the old Amway Arena) … as an opener … for fucking John Mayer — all circumstances unfavorable for seeing Rouse perform. More years went by. I eventually married the girl I took to that show and we started a family. I’ve since turned them on to him, and his songs play in our house all the time.
All this is to say that I’ve been waiting an agonizingly long time to see Josh Rouse properly. Now, finally, he’s come back, in a true listening room, as the headliner. For this particular fan, having him booked for two shows at Judson’s Live was a bucket-list proposition. Sometimes, god works in strange, slow-ass ways.
At this special, exceedingly rare Orlando engagement, Rouse did two back-to-back performances, each with almost entirely different set lists. At the later one that I attended, he opened with my absolute favorite song of his, “It’s the Night Time,” a song my whole family danced to at our wedding. Clearly, the stars had this one lined up for me. Long-delayed, yes, but fate nonetheless.
The performance was as intimate as it gets. It was just him — no band, no fanfare, no production. And it was magic, simple but deep. This is how you want to experience an artist who’s dedicated his whole career to patient perfection.
Rouse inhabited the space. The solo setting cast his urbane pop sophistication in an unvarnished light that only amplified its immediacy. Standing there bare and beautiful were his unerring melodic intuition and emotional integrity, each nuanced feeling coaxed by his signature raspy coo.
But it wasn’t just a performance; it was a communion with the audience. That a surprisingly large proportion of them attended both shows is proof of a fanbase that compensates for lack of size with an abundance of ardor, something that most real artists prefer anyway.
There were stories. One confirmed my long-held hunch that the call-and-response part of “Love Vibration” was inspired by the Welcome Back, Kotter theme song. Rouse also took requests in an affair whose informality allowed for unusual intimacy, the kind that tailored the set to that particular audience.
So there I was, finally sitting in a concentrated room with Josh Rouse, among other people who knew his songs as well as I did. At long last, this is how it’s supposed to be. In an eerily fitting turn, Park Ave CDs owner Sandy Bitman was also there. Of course he was. No, this wasn’t another show. It was destiny.
