This intimate concert performance on Thursday, Dec. 6 will feature an all acoustic set in The Xcite Center
The Times
Parx Casino welcomes Rick Springfield on Thursday, Dec. 6 with his “Stripped Down — An Intimate Performance of Music and Storytelling.” This intimate concert performance will feature an all acoustic set in The Xcite Center, 2999 Street Road, Bensalem. Tickets are $29-$69 each. Doors open at 7 p.m., with the show starting at 8 p.m. For more information and tickets, visit www.parxcasino.com/xcitecenter.
Over the past four decades, Springfield has worn many hats as an entertainer and performer. The creator of some of the finest power-pop of the ’80s, he’s a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and musician who has sold 25 million albums and scored 17 U.S. Top 40 hits, including “Jessie’s Girl,” “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” “An Affair of the Heart,” “I’ve Done Everything for You,” “Love Somebody,” and “Human Touch.”
Springfield is an accomplished actor and talented author who has not only enjoyed longevity, but remained vibrant and relevant at a time when many veteran artists would be resting on past laurels.
“I think it’s really important to stay connected to the vitality of your career. I have a certain pride that I’m not a total nostalgia act. I’ve never been the guy who hung the platinum albums on my walls because, to me, it was looking back. I’m very passionate about moving forward. I have to write new music. I have to record. I’m always working on the live shows. I have to always be working, otherwise I think I’d just turn to smoke and disappear,” Springfield said.
Springfield’s latest musical effort is The Snake King, his 19th studio album, which he will release worldwide in January through Frontiers Music. Written by Springfield himself, The Snake King finds him travelling down a dusty dirt road to explore the blues side of his rock ‘n roll and marks a definite departure from the power pop he has been known for. A blues-rock album is the record that Springfield has “always wanted to make.”
He explained, “All my first bands that I played in as a kid in Australia were blues bands, trying desperately to copy as best we could the amazing music we were hearing coming out of the Chicago blues scene and the older stuff from the deep South.”
All you have to do is check out the first couple cuts on the album, “In The Land Of The Blind” and “Little Demon” or maybe the title-track to get an understanding of the blues-laden journey Springfield wants to take you on. And of the many delights on this album, his underrated guitar playing really shines here, perhaps more so than on any album in his storied catalog.
“My guitar playing was always influenced by the same guys who influenced all the English players I grew up with, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, etc. Everyone was playing their version of what they heard from the Southern Blues and the Chicago scene,” he said.
The idea of a blues record came to Springfield while on the road performing a solo/songwriter show called ‘Stripped Down’ for the past 2 years. The show has included a couple of blues songs, played on his steel resonator guitar.
“The blues songs are so much fun to play and they got such a reaction from the audience that I started thinking about including some of that vibe in my next album,” he said.
Music has always been a healing force in the Australian-born Springfield’s life. The son of an Army officer, he and his family moved every two years.
“Which meant every time I made a friend, I knew I’d be leaving him,” he said. “It was super stressful for me. I’d go to a new school and go through the trauma of trying to fit in.”
Books and records became his savior. Then at age 11, he encountered his first guitar.
“This kid brought one to a Christmas fair at my school in England and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen,” Springfield recalled. “He let me hold it. I hit two strings and the two strings happened to be the first couple of notes of the theme song to my favorite cowboy show at the time, Cheyenne. I realized instantly I could play the guitar. Some guys fall in love with cars, some with football teams. I fell in love with guitars.”
It has been a long and fruitful affair, and one that has gifted him with a powerful connection to his legions of devoted fans, who pack his annual fan getaway events, as well as the nearly 100 shows a year he performs both with his band and solo in an intimate “storyteller” setting that he captured on the 2015 CD/DVD and concert film Stripped Down.
Though too self-deprecating to discuss his immense appeal, he will acknowledge that the fans connect with him through the music.
“I guess they think I’m honest,” he said. “They must like my approach, what I write about. I think they like that I have a sense of humor in it at times. Because the ‘cute’ thing isn’t going to last forever.”
