Spencer Day: He's on his way

Utah native to sing fusion of jazz, cabaret, contemporary

By L. PIERCE CARSON
Register Staff Writer

Following a decade of musicmaking that took him from retirement homes in the desert to tony clubs in the Big Apple, Spencer Day is on the verge of a major breakthrough.

Not yet a household name, Day, at 30, continues to amaze audiences wherever he appears with incisive songwriting and heartfelt performances.

A surprise opener for Rufus Wainwright at the Napa Valley Opera House last March had a sold-out crowd on its feet cheering.

That performance so impressed the folks at the Opera House that they invited Day to return to perform an entire evening of his own music.

That performance is scheduled this coming Saturday night at 8.

This time around, the intense young singer/songwriter is bringing along a trio of top-drawer musicians to flesh out the arrangements.

Not only is Day  solicited to perform at gigs around the world — he’s just back from a pair of music festivals in Asia — he has just landed a recording contract with a major label. He’s already recorded a dozen of his slice-of-life compositions and is wrapping up the sound mix at the moment, preparing for release of his first full-length compact disc come spring. (His independently produced initial CD, which contains the bittersweet ballad, “Last Train to New Jersey,” is still in release.)

A number of Day’s songs address pleasure tinged with pain, with regret. In order to see what motivates and inspires him, how life experience has taken him to this point, we sat down with Day in a tiny San Francisco wine bar for an extended conversation, and for a look back.

Escaping the ‘Jello belt’

Spencer Day grew up in a relatively large Mormon family on a farm in East Layton, Utah, about two hours north of Salt Lake City.

He admits his was not a happy childhood.

Sure, there were fun times watching Hollywood musicals on television with his mother, as well as listening to Broadway soundtracks.

He also enjoyed listening to his mother sing opera arias — an enjoyment not shared by his father.

“My mother taught and sang, but my father didn’t approve of it,” Day says. “He wanted her to be a good Mormon housewife.”

He recounts an embarrassing moment as an elementary schooler.

He had gone to a performance of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” as his mother was singing one of the roles. What he didn’t know was that she was cast as a thief and when others in the production began to castigate his mother, he could not separate story from reality and had to be removed from the theater. “I was crying and yelling ... I didn’t realize it was only a play.”

Day has four brothers and one sister. He says his oldest brother “was the star. I was the nerd.”

Recounting life in the country, he notes that corn was a major crop on the Day farm, as was alfalfa. “And we had a lot of chickens,” he recalls. “All the kids did a lot of housework. My allergies were horrible — I was a weak and sickly kid, and was the second oldest.

“When other kids were off playing baseball, I wanted to mix pigments, or read books about traveling. I was obsessed with travel and palm trees. We had a VCR and recorded movies off the TV ... so I wanted to watch ‘On The Town’ with Gene Kelly and watch Fred Astaire dance on the ceiling in ‘Royal Wedding’.” He breaks into one of the songs from the film as he shares a warm-and-fuzzy memory.

“I loved exotic places and songs ... my favorite song to this day is ‘Bali Hai.’ I guess palm trees represented all the faraway places I wanted to visit. The first time I saw one in person in Phoenix I went up to it and wrapped my arms around it.”

Day brings up another pleasant memory. “We went to Disneyland when I was seven … we were a happy family then,” he adds, his smile vanishing.

But Day doesn’t dwell on the bad times, other than to say that his father was abusive.

Because Spencer was severely depressed, his mother sent him at age nine to live with his grandparents in Arizona — a move he refers to during his live shows as “escaping the Jello belt.” Within a year, his mother and siblings followed. “My mother raised the kids on her own,” he adds.

Because his parents “had problems,” Day notes that his brothers and sister remain close. “The Day kids are connected at the hip,” he jokes.

Day graduated from high school in Arizona. Throughout the high school years, his focus was on music, with favorites like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Nutcracker Suite.” With music, he could escape to a place where his imagination ran free.

The promised land

In and out of the Mormon Church, Day said he didn’t feel comfortable in his skin until his best friend invited him to visit in California.

“She was now living in San Carlos so I came out from Arizona to see her. One day, we went to San Francisco. That was it ... I knew I had to be there. I rushed back home and packed all my things and moved as fast as I could to San Francisco. I was 19.

“California was a wonderland of things you couldn’t do (elsewhere). I went wild ... I was a raver, I did tons of drugs, I partied. I got into electronica.”

But his move also allowed him to expand his musical knowledge.

It was during his first San Francisco stay and a move later to Los Angeles that he discovered singers like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

“I went to a lot of clubs, I had fun, yet I felt like I was just passing through. I moved to Los Angeles, I think, just so I could have some kind of ‘Chinatown’ film noir experience. I wanted to be lost.”

Instead, Day made friends. And he began to sing. A roommate heard him singing in the shower one day and strongly suggested Spencer expand on his love of music. Convinced that Day could have a career in music, another friend bought him an electronic keyboard.

Day took his friends’ advice and enrolled in singing classes at LA. City College. Around this time he discovered the late Chet Baker, jazz trumpeter who also sang a number of songs on recordings.

“My voice was small at the time and I think I bonded with (Baker’s) voice because it was also small. It was Baker and Ella that made me love jazz,” he said.

Day worked at odd jobs in order to support himself and showed up at the Burning Man Festival every year. More importantly, taking his musical talent seriously, he began to write music. Nothing monumental, he says now, but it was a start.

He also began to perform in neighborhood piano bars. But it wasn’t easy. He suffered from stage fright and admits to “throwing up before I went on stage.”

Day credits the late Michael Greer, a creative Tinseltown comic, with helping him launch a professional career in music.

“He was my first real mentor  ... he encouraged, and he was critical when I did things all wrong. He even helped me get a few gigs, including a retirement home in Palm Springs.

“I auditioned for a piano bar gig (suggested by Greer) and I got it. Honestly, I knew five songs...and people would ask me to play ‘Teach Me Tonight’ or some other standard. I promised them I would learn it by next week. The customers requested songs they liked and I had to learn them.”

Back in Baghdad

Day had made lifetime friends while he was partying in San Francisco. So, after three years in Los Angeles, he returned to what beloved columnist Herb Caen called “Baghdad by the Bay.”

It was a house-sitting gig for half a year that was the main attraction, followed by an opportunity to expand his musical horizons.

In order to support his musical pursuits, Day waited tables and worked for a caterer.

He hooked up with a performance artist named Trixie and hastily put together a number of bizarre shows at the Crimson Club that appealed to late night audiences.

He continued to compose, often singing one of his own compositions with the standards — and Chet Baker classics — he included in gigs at the Lush Lounge and Martuni’s.

It was during this San Francisco stay that cellist Yair Evnine heard Day perform. The two teamed up, with Evnine’s cello adding depth to Day’s piano accompaniment. Soon, they invited another Bay Area club stalwart, bassist Daniel Fabricant, to compose a trio.

With the success of American Idol, another TV talent program, Star Search, resurfaced and Day was urged to audition.

He did, and, to his amazement, he was invited to perform on the program. That led to others checking out Day’s talents, including the booking agents at San Francisco’s renowned cabaret venue, the Plush Room.

A two-night booking at the Plush Room turned into a two-week gig and a number of us in the Bay Area got our first taste of Spencer Days’ songwriting and performance talents.

Suddenly, Day found he had bookings everywhere, including a standing engagement at the popular San Francisco restaurant, Mecca.

“But I never took any time to plan ahead,” he admits. “After all, this is somebody who wanted to be a travel agent.”

But travel did come into the picture after Day was invited to perform at the prestigious Cabaret Convention in New York’s Town Hall.

For about three years, Day shuttled between San Francisco and New York, honing his performance skills at Don’t Tell Mama and other clubs and meeting his current producer.

It was also the period when he recorded an independently produced CD of a few of his songs.

Day’s current crop of songs earmarked for the new CD run the gamut of confessional to slightly veiled political statement (a first for Day). Typical of his word pictures is the lyric for “Till You Come Home To Me” — which Day says is a “love gone wrong song” where he’s trying to avoid the topic at all cost:

“A sleepless night in the city,

No peace and quiet in the city,

It’s hotter than the water from a boiler in the basement of Hell

In this low-rent, walk-up, broken-down hotel.”

In describing the narrator’s frame of mind for this love lament, Day declares:

“The clock says I’m half-past losing my mind.”

Finally, he admits: “I want you back again.”

Saturday’s concert will feature songs from the new CD, a few past treasures and even newer material.

In the past, Day has written a song in the morning and performed it live that very night.

Maybe that’s part of his success. The spontaneity doesn’t allow him time to unduly polish the lyrical gems he’s mined.

Yet, at this stage in his life — with a new CD deal about to propel him into the national spotlight — Spencer Day remains as humble as the first night he set foot on the Plush Room stage.

“It’s taken me years to feel deserving of success,” he admits with bashful smile.

To hear the smooth, captivating voice of this gifted songwriter (appearing with cellist Yair Evnine, drummer Scott Amendola and bassist John Evans) at this special Evening with Spencer Day on Saturday night at 8, order tickets ($30, $25) by calling the Napa Valley Opera House at 226-7372, or logging online at www.nvoh.org

Spencer Day

Napa Valley Opera House

Saturday, Dec. 6. 8 p.m.

Tickets: $25, $30

Box Office: 226-7372, or www.nvoh.org.

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