Tom Robert: No One Home

Growing up in Buffalo, New York, Tom Robert’s parents often had music playing in the background. Tom’s father had guitars, and his mother had Simon and Garfunkel or the Beatles’ albums playing, while she sang along. Tom got his parents to take him to  guitar lessons when he was 5, and he loved it when his Uncle Curt came to visit from Tucson and took out his guitar and played. In Tom’s early memories he would be sitting on someone’s guitar case while he listened to their music. Tom’s younger sister Jenna loved to sing, and still does.

After college Tom taught English as a Second Language, with a degree from the University of Buffalo. It brought him up close with lots of people of all ages in the Buffalo Public School system, and later in Taiwan and Japan.

When the pandemic changed lives across the globe, Tom was settled into the Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry, south of Rochester near Hemlock Lake. “This serene setting gave me the opportunity to reflect on my life, my spiritual journey, interdependence, and it allowed me to evaluate what was important to me and what I wanted to focus my time and energy on.”

This spring Tom made his annual trip to play music with his Uncle at the Tucson Folk Festival, where they hosted an open street jam and where Tom performed. Upon return, with his Masters in Social Work degree he began a new job at a community mental health clinic, where anyone in the community, little kids on up to the very elderly, can access services. He says the drive along the Niagara River and Lake Erie to work is peaceful.

Also this summer Tom is completing his first album, No One Home. He thinks the folk, country, blues, and rock music his parents played inspired some of his own creations. He notes that playing and creating music and meditating seem to coalesce into a similar state of being for him, where everything flows peacefully. He describes making the album as a long spiritual journey. Even the sadder songs he has written lead the audience to a cathartic, yet uplifting feeling he observes.

“Creating an album has been a lot of rewarding work; writing, editing, rehearsing, recording, mixing, mastering, promoting… I’ve been writing songs for many years and some songs on this album are nearly 20 years old. It’s been an important part of this process to reflect and journal on the album’s aesthetics, values, themes, styles… all the parts I want to combine into a coherent whole album. And slowly but surely it’s coming together.”

“Usually I begin with some notes and some chords and just keep playing that combination, experimenting, jamming as the few notes turn into the melody, which becomes the song over time. Then I write down the words, then sing the words to the music. Some of the songs just emerge organically and others seem to need more deliberate work and attention. Sometimes I rediscover and reinvent a song I hadn’t played in years.”

“The songs I wrote and assembled while living at the retreat center all mixed bluesy, rootsy, folksy music with lyrical themes of spiritual experience and hopefully growth; of transitioning into something new. Over time I have made adjustments, tweaking and editing the music and the lyrics, playing with the sequence of the songs on the album. Still, the core of the album has remained unchanged.”

“From February- July of this year, one weekend a month I’ve spent 5-8 hours in a friend’s home studio. Luckily, my friend is a multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer, and brings not only the technical ability to record an album, and provide bass guitar performances, but also a delicate and sensible ear and a healthy balance of organized fastidiousness with a laid-back easy-going demeanor.”

Tom also recruited old and new musical friends to contribute to the album; including Vanessa Snowden on fiddle, Kurt Almond on harp, Mike Farry on drums, and the late great David Ebersole on lap steel guitar.

“It has been great to reconnect with my old songs and my old friends, while making new music and meeting new musicians.”

About once a month Tom also comes to the Ithaca and the greater Finger Lakes area to play at farmers’ markets, festivals, fairs, breweries, senior residences, vineyards, and weddings. This last visit Tom camped alone in a peaceful park.

Tom says that while it has been lively with a new job, travel, performances, and recording his first album, he feels  pleased with the endeavors, albeit juggling. And it seems like the escapades that make up his week meld into the music he plays.

Stay in touch with Tom and stay tuned for No One Home this fall.

https://www.tomrobertmusic.com/