The Songs of Charlie Mosbrook
A musical collaborative

Tim Brennan on Awakened to the Rain

In 1991 I was laid of from my advertising job in Detroit and returned to my hometown of Cleveland. Most everyone I knew had left the Erie shores and I found myself without familiar friends or hangouts. Not ready to re-enter the world of the suited responsible businessman, I found friends and comfort in a little grass-carpet outdoor living room at the corner of Coventry and Euclid Heights. The Coventry Arafreaka and related open mics, random people, and coffee quickly became my unemployment refuge. Charlie was there every day I came by and was part of everything I liked about the area.

Soon after, I was fortunate to play bass for Charlie. The song Awakened to the Rain was a troublesome song for me. The introductory riff seemed to lope along out of time with the pacing of the rest of the song. Each time he returned to the riff, the song felt interrupted. I recall Charlie's frustration that I could not feel the riff the right way. It was years later when playing the riff again that I began to feel the beauty of it. How it avoided the natural downbeats. How it meandered through the measure. How it slid along, above and through the natural tempo of the rest of the song. And I got it. It became similar in my mind to my favorite riff in John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. It is one of those riffs to me that can only be played absolutely right by the originator. Still, I tried.

When I heard about this project and offered up my South Carolina band for it (yeah, I moved again), I let my singer Becca peruse Charlie's entire catalog. I was surprised and thrilled she came up with Awakened To The Rain. Charlie's song was so spacious and almost sad while Becca wanted it upbeat and beach-y. I guess that is the difference between Cleveland and South Carolina - Clevelanders look to rain as possibly another crummy day that can extend to a week. Yet on the southeast coast, it is looked at as a refreshing change that lasts an hour. Just like when Charlie showed me the song the first time, the pacing of the riff became a difficult point as we went through several versions with our drummer in the studio. Neither Becca nor I were happy with the results. We set it aside for months.

One day we started talking about recording some of her songs in the old Suzanne Vega Tom's Diner remix style. As an experiment, we tried Awakened To The Rain one last time with this in mind. It started to work for both of us. At the last hour, a guitarist by the name of Bryn Wilson joined the band and came by to lay down the lead guitar tracks. There is real beauty in the riff and melody of this song. I hope we gave it another chance to be heard, as all of Charlie's favorite songs deserve to be heard by more people.