Rebecca Pronsky
Singer-songwriter Rebecca Pronsky is a lifelong New Yorker, but it isn't her favorite place to perform.
"New York is an extremely overwhelming place," says Pronsky in a call from her Brooklyn home. "It's very competitive, and it's very hard to get noticed. I really like playing down South. I think that's my best audience. People in the South listen and respond in a different way. It sort of depends on the culture, and there's a real culture for music in Knoxville and a real culture for music in the U.K., especially Scotland. You find out what's going on and you go out and you see it. New York is rough. It's like, 'OK, you have 10 minutes, impress me!' "
She does add that once New Yorkers find something they like, they're appreciative. It's just getting their attention in the first place.
Pronsky has probably gotten more attention in other parts of the United States and Europe than her home base. Her sound is more Americana than any trendy pop.
"Somebody said after a show, 'You guys sound like a cross between Patsy Cline and the Smiths,' " says Pronsky, adding that the description sort of makes sense.
"I am a very straightforward songwriter, and I'm very structured. And Rich (musical partner Rich Bennett) plays this ambient, bouncy guitar and when they come together they do sound really unique. I guess the closest thing would be the Sundays."
Pronsky began writing songs when she was a teenager in the 1990s.
"I don't think I really started listening (to music) fully until I was in high school, and then I became an obsessive Joni Mitchell fan," she says. "And I followed her from her super-straightforward folk career to her really experimental stuff. I think that was a good introduction for me to what a singer-songwriter can be. You can have a very varied career, and there's a lot that could go under that title."
She says her own style is still developing. Her new album, "Viewfinder," is, she says, the closest she's gotten to capturing what she wants her music to be.
The most rewarding thing about being in music, she says, is touring and seeing places like Knoxville.
"I love Knoxville, but it's not a place I probably would've gone were I not a musician. I would just know, 'Oh, that's a place in Tennessee.' But I've been opened up to lot of places in the country that a lot of New Yorkers never get to see. They're all like, 'Oh, I've got to go to L.A.' I've spent the last decade sort of looking at the world in a different way, and it's way more interesting than just getting on a tourist bus."
Pronsky says playing at the Paradiso in Amsterdam and playing at a cafe in Wales are the sorts of things that stick with you. And, surprisingly, Knoxville gave her an introduction in England. Pronsky has performed on the "Blue Plate Special," the live noon-time show on Knoxville's WDVX, several times, and the show streams on the Internet.
"The guy who set up the show in Yorkshire (England) listens to the 'Blue Plate' every day," says Pronsky.
She says she sometimes runs into people in New York who don't quite understand her love of the South.
"You still run into the occasional jaded New York City person who says, 'You go to Tennessee? What do they do there?' 'Uhh, they listen to music like other people, and they're nice!' There's a real ignorance about the South in general up here. People don't really think about it at all and if you mention it they go to the last thing they heard about it, maybe when they were 5 years old!"
Pronsky laughs.
© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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