Highplainsman troubadour

Many years ago, folk musician Tom Brosseau put on a costume and adopted the persona of a yarn-spinning, old-time string-picker. Now, at 41 years old, he often ponders whether the stage character is separate from his true self; maybe there isn’t a distinction anymore.

“I dressed up a lot,” he said, “and then, somewhere along the way, I never took off the clothes, you know? I kind of feel like I’m that person I always wanted to be now, or maybe I just invented somebody else completely.”

Confusion is understandable from an outside perspective as well, because Brosseau totally looks like a Midwesterner who was plucked off the porch of a general store during the Great Depression and dropped into the 21st century. But his attire is not meant to be ironic. The character goes deeper than his neatly pressed collared shirts and Boss of the Plains cowboy hat, extending to his earnest way of speaking and curious terminology: For instance, his website refers to tour dates as “personal appearances”; and as for himself, well, he’s not simply a singer-songwriter, but the “Highplainsman Troubadour.”

Brosseau spoke to the CN&R by phone in anticipation of his personal appearance at Naked Lounge on Feb. 24, which, like all of his performances, will be roughly half music, half storytelling.

Originally from Grand Forks, N.D., Brosseau’s earliest musical inspiration came from his grandfather, a World War II veteran and bartender who lived nearby in Drayton.

“My grandfather had a fascination with old Hollywood and silver-screen cowboy music, like Gene Autry,” he recalled. “I usually liked whatever he liked, and thankfully his taste in music was very eclectic.” Brosseau, like many musicians who grew up in the 1980s, was also influenced by FM radio—especially singers such as Juice Newton, Olivia Newton-John and Huey Lewis.

“What I listened to on the radio is what really made me want to tour around and get up on stage in front of a microphone,” he said.

He moved to California in 2001, first to San Diego and then Los Angeles. Strangely, in that setting he began writing stories set amongst North Dakota’s lonely prairie landscapes, eventually releasing a trilogy of albums about his home state—Grass Punks (2014), Perfect Abandon (2015) and North Dakota Impressions (2016). Now he’s based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Over the years, Brosseau has found folk music to be the perfect medium for traditional storytelling because it operates on a basic yet poetic level.

“It’s very difficult to boil something down, but folk music is already there,” he said. “So many people, so many cultures are touched by it. Lately, I’ve not been writing as much of my own music, I’ve just been learning these folk songs that were built from other folk songs from other countries. Hopefully, someday, I’ll be able to create something like that.”

Folk is also very much a part of humanity’s ongoing musical tradition, Brosseau said. He views music as a continuum, endlessly building upon what came before and influencing what comes after, and is therefore skeptical of anybody who takes full credit for their art.

“We all take from so much of what has come before us,” he said. “A little creativity is added to that and you come up with a new idea, and hopefully that inspires somebody else.”

In such a way, Brosseau heard songs on the radio and was inspired to make up a character, play music and share his stories. As real as they may seem, he never writes himself into his songs—or he’s pretty sure he doesn’t.

“Because there’s a person in your songs, people tend to assume that the person is you,” he said. “But, you know, I don’t really think it is. I suppose that’s a problem if you don’t really know who you are, but I’ve never come to any conclusions.”