A Hooter Hears a Muse

Rob Hyman finds the keys to Largo in 19th-century classical music.

"Largo is like Fargo -
you're not certain of
every plot point or its
conclusion, but it
leaves a deep
impression."

A Hooter infatuated with Antonin Dvorak? Onetime Hooters keyboardist Rob Hyman is sitting at La Colombe, talking about his "twisted" new record Largo, which was inspired by the 19th-century Czech composer who immigrated to America.

"The Bachs and Beethovens established European dominance, but Dvorak was looking for great American composers and their music," explains Hyman. Dvorak found it on Indian reservations, plantations and in immigrant communities. The indigenous blues and folk of these communities influenced Dvorak to write his Symphony No. 9, a.k.a. From The New World. Hyman borrowed a melodic refrain from that symphony to create the haunting Largo theme.

"It's not a rock opera," says Hyman about the album. "But it has conceptual threads about different immigrant experiences, past and present, running throughout. Images of Liberace fans, desert sands and Lebanese cab drivers pop up throughout the record and each song is cast like a theater piece.

The impressive Largo ensemble includes Joan Osborne, Taj Mahal, Marg Egan (from the Miles Davis band), as well as members of the Chieftains and The Band.

"These people did it for no money," notes Hyman, referring to Largo's tiny budget. "They did it because they loved the music and what it said."

While The Band's Levon Helm hoots and hollers through "Gimme A Stone," The Band's keyboard maestro Garth Hudson made the Largo theme ebullient and Ellingtonian. The Chieftains lent certain songs an authentic Irish quality. ("We had to struggle to figure how many we could afford," jokes Hyman. Members of the legendary ensemble ended up paying their own way.) A "pregnant-as-hell" Cyndi Lauper sings the piss out of the eight-minute blues jam "White Man's Melody." Lauper's screeching character Liza arrives in America as a Caruso fan only to wind up digging Jolson and getting orgasmic over Liberace.

Folk singer Nile, who worked with the Hooters on their first record, personifies the modern-day immigrant on "Medallion"—the story of a cab driver fighting to survive. "It's like that character's imagining his cab driving through a Middle Eastern market," explains Hyman.

But David Foreman, better known in New York's rhythm 'n' soul circuit as Little Isidore, is the icing on Largo's strange cake—he's a combination of Randy Newman and Leon Redbone who brings dadaist mayhem to tracks like "Disorient Express" and "Banjoman."

"You oughta meet him," whispers Hyman. "He's wacko. His approach to people and writing always takes an opposing tact—unobvious, the underbelly. He came in as a writer but his voice is so crucial and so fascinating I thought it important to have him singing his own strange phrasing."

Despite the Hooters' predilection for Celtic whistles and fiddles, Hyman came from Russian-Jewish stock, growing up in New Haven, CT, before moving here to major in biology at the University of Pennsylvania, where rock—not frogs—held sway.

"I got the Celtic stuff from hanging at parties and hearing Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, Traffic and Led Zeppelin," laughs Hyman. "When Sandy Denny sang with [Robert] Plant it was a beautiful voice on top of grungy guitars and mandolins. That was the blueprint for the Hooters. On Largo we just expanded that."

Largo began as a Hooters project, but Bazillian dropped out. Though Bazillian plays on the album, the Hyman-Bazillian songwriting partnership is currently on hold—Hyman is concentrating on Largo and Bazillian's busy with his zillion-selling songwriting which was bolstered by the hit he wrote for Joan Osborne, "One Of Us."

For Hyman the days of videos, hairspray and hits are over—for now.

"I don't think we'll ever break up," says Hyman. "It's just that our first album defined us to a lot of people… When we were in teen magazines I wanted to be in Musician." The band is still David Hasselhoff-large in Germany and Japan. But in the United States? Zip. They recorded their last effort, an MCA import-only live CD, in '95 before going on sabbatical.

"We're a moving target," laughs Hyman about the band. "If they can't find you, they can't catch you. In America we're perceived as an '80s act. In Europe they got it." Understanding Hyman isn't always easy. The guy knows how to write and produce hits (he's done so for Cyndi Lauper and Joan Osborne), so why not milk it?

The answer to that question can be found in the "teen mag" comment. Hyman's commitment to music is serious, steeped in studious tradition and propelled by the mojo of blues, jazz and American pop. This melting pot aesthetic was also an inspiration for Czech composer Antonin Dvorak.

Rick Chertoff, a onetime UPenn history major, is Hyman's partner on Largo. While they were in college, Chertoff stole Hyman from chem lab to listen to John Mayall records.

"We were blues freaks," recalls Hyman. The science of dissecting Albert King solos was the foundation for Wax, Chertoff and Hyman's first band. Wax opened for Mayall at the old Electric Factory weeks before it closed.

Chertoff, as producer and A&R man, has always been an influence on Hyman. At Arista he worked with Hyman's Steely Dan-ish band Baby Grand. At Columbia he produced all three Hooters discs. And it was Chertoff—who owns Blue Gorilla records—who brought the Largo idea to Hyman.

With this project Hyman has, in many ways, returned to his early roots. But he's expanded them.

Bringing Largo to the people is another story. Hyman says trying to market it is like trying to sell a Coen Brothers film: "Titanic is easy to get for marketing types: Love story. Boat sinks. Okay, I got that. But Largo is like Fargo -you're not certain of every plot point or its conclusion, but it leaves a deep impression."

PBS and VH1 are currently filming pieces about Largo which will air in the future. On May 6, Hyman, Bazillian, Taj Mahal, Lauper, Osborne and Foreman will perform Largo live at NYC's Bottom Line and will appear on The Late Show with David Letterman.

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