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Warren Bernhardt and Marc Black.
“We were playing tunes, just Marc and I,” says pianist Warren Bernhardt, from his deck on a lake in Wisconsin, “and I said, y’know we sound really good, we should do an album just us.”
Marc Black, the singer/songwriter who may just have played more gigs in Woodstock than anyone, ever, agreed. “Just as a document because we have all this life behind us,” he says, from back here in New York. “So I said OK. We decided to do it at Scott Petito’s [studio, in Catskill] because he has a really nice piano and is pretty flexible in his understanding of music. We basically just set up next to each other, went in for two days, did about five or six songs a day and that was it.”
The result is an extremely heartfelt and lovely CD called Champions of Love, and the two will celebrate its release with a show at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, August 31 at the Maverick Concert Hall. “We got this idea, Champions of Love, because we could feel that’s what the music was about, championing love,” says Black. “It feels like a completion. This is just about living the lives that we have lived in Woodstock. I’ve chosen a path, a little off the beaten path, for all of us. It’s a little slowed down now, to give yourself time to breathe.”
The sweet combination of just guitar and piano graces some familiar tunes.
“Some of the songs are ones I wrote 40 years ago, when I first met Warren. It just felt like they were in our blood,” says Black. They’ve included “Reason to Believe” and “Misty Roses,” two Tim Hardin songs on the recording.
“One of the reasons I originally came to Woodstock is I was a huge Tim Hardin fan,” says Black. “First time I saw him was in a duet with Warren. Then, I wound up living in Tim’s house. I was really influenced by him. I wound up playing with most of the players that played with him, his best band included Donald MacDonald, Mike Mainieri, and Warren, who came to Joyous Lake one night when I was playing, and every song it seemed like he was getting closer to the band and at the last song he asked if he could sit in and he sat down and never got up.”
Bernhardt confirmed the history. “Marc kind of inherited his band. It just continued on from there, the White Water Depot, we produced some albums, played on a lot of the gigs. He’s one of the most creative people I’ve met. It just pours out of him, you can’t stop it.”
One song that will stop the hearts of long time Woodstockers is Marc’s “I Believe in You,” that he wrote for Betty MacDonald, who played her violin alongside Marc for decades before passing on in 2010.
Black continues to wander the world, singing his songs. The Maverick show will have Marc playing solo for a time in the opening set, and then Warren will play some jazz, maybe a classical piece or two.
The second half will be the songs that comprise the recording.
“The two of us inspire each other,” says Black. “It’s very true. Our music is so different and there are a couple of times in there when we were listening back and we said, gee, what genre is this? It’s not jazz it’s not folk. And Warren said, it’s just what we do. Living in Woodstock, molded by that environment. There’s a real tenderness and a feeling of love for the whole project.”
It’s not a typical album for Bernhardt, who has spent much time lately learning Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, “…the last thing he wrote for piano. It’s a long running project, I’ve been working on it for over a year, 97 pages of beauty. Leo Treitler is learning the other piano, the orchestra reduction. We have to find a place to play it, with two pianos. Otherwise, I’m kinda semi-retired, there are not a lot of big tours happening. I’ll be turning 75 in November. I’m doing some stuff with Paul Winter, we played at the Kennedy White House and he just released the tapes. The band broke up in ‘63. So we’re playing at Kennedy Library in Boston on the 50th anniversary.”
And he says he’s extremely proud of Champions of Love.
“It’s a whole different thing for me,” says Bernhardt, who has toured with Steely Dan, and Simon and Garfunkle, among many huge acts. “It’s not jazz, classical, or high energy pop. It’s all acoustic, all first takes, no edits, I love that kind of recording. It’s just the way we sound. It’s honest.”
Black sums it up.
“Jim Reed (a writer for Woodstock Times in the 1980s) said that what’s different about Woodstock is that underlying all the stuff that goes on there is a belief in enlightenment…”
Marc Black and Warren Bernhardt will perform at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, August 31 at the Maverick Concert Hall, 120 Maverick Road in Woodstock. Tickets range from $5 to $40 and are available at www.maverickconcerts.org or by calling 679-8217.