It’s the little details that often go unnoticed, but not with singer-songwriter Michael Fracasso. Over the span of his nine albums, Fracasso’s songs form a tapestry of melodic, easy-going folk and blues, framed by his smooth, high tenor vocals. The magic really lies in his lyrics, however. He homes in on everyday details, from lazy cats sleeping in the moonlight to the breakfast dishes left by a departed lover, and accentuates all the emotions surrounding them.
For all his attention to the small stuff, Fracasso’s life trajectory has been full of big, bold cross-country moves. He grew up in the mill town of Mingo Junction, Ohio, where an older sister’s record collection and the 1960s folk boom piqued his interest in music. In the late 1970s, Fracasso made his way to Pullman, Washington, to attend Washington State University, but didn’t end up staying long. Restlessness soon set in and Fracasso relocated to New York City. He hung out at the Cornelia Street Café with fellow singer-songwriters, like Steve Forbert and Suzanne Vega, scrambling for gigs and shopping around demo tapes. By the end of the 1980s, Fracasso realized something had to change. So, he packed up his VW Rabbit and headed to Austin, Texas, to become part of the local scene. A homemade demo tape opened the door for the release of his first album in 1993. In a 2002 interview I conducted with him Fracasso explained “I made a home demo and gave it to one of the radio stations. They really liked it, although the quality was really bad. I remember being in my car and listening to the radio and they played one of the tracks from the cassette. [The DJ] said “That was a Michael Fracasso song and we hope one day that he’ll go into a real studio and make a record so that we can play it all the time”. So I thought, “OK, I gotta go do that”. So, I basically used the material on that first home tape and put out an independent cassette, but good quality and recorded in a studio. Then the guy at Dejadisc heard it and wanted to put it out. We cut three more songs in the studio and that became the first album “Love and Trust”.
A second album, 1995’s “When I Lived in the Wild”, continued to display Fracasso’s songwriting eloquence. But a chance encounter with another Austin musician would lead to the next twist in Fracasso’s journey. When a drummer bailed out for an upcoming show, a friend suggested that Fracasso give Charlie Sexton a call, saying “Charlie knows all your music”. Sexton may be known as a guitar legend, but it turned out he’s more than proficient on many other instruments as well, including drums. Not only did he and Fracasso gig regularly afterwards, but Sexton also invited him to his studio to record a third album titled “World in a Drop of Water”.
As beguiling as Fracasso’s earlier work is, “World in a Drop of Water” digs deeper, takes more risks and is all the better for it. The album’s finest moment is the song ‘Marie‘. Like a great novel, the very first lines immediately grab your attention: “On the road to Los Angeles/He fell in love with a dancer/Who shed her clothes at the drop of a hat. . .” Fracasso sets off each line with a couple of dramatic but wistful guitar chords, preparing you for a love story of epic proportions. The stage is set with a gently plucked acoustic guitar backed by eerie notes from an organ and electric guitar, as the man who fell for the dancer reveals his story. By simply sketching a few vivid images, Fracasso hints there is something terribly wrong. The narrator first asks “Oh Marie, why’d you take the loose change from my pockets?” Evidently, Marie is stealing from him. Even worse, he then says “. . .the baby is crying for his milk / Oh Marie, tears fall down his fat cheeks soft as silk”. Now there is an innocent child involved. This is a heartbreaking revelation. Why isn’t he being fed? The answer lies in the last verse as the protagonist implores “Oh Marie, don’t return to the belly of the beast. . .” What Fracasso is presenting with sublime subtlety here is how Marie’s drug abuse affects everyone around her. This is devastating stuff and genuinely great songwriting.
When plans for the next album with Sexton stalled, Fracasso suggested they make a live recording together at the intimate Blue Door club in Oklahoma City instead. At the end of one night’s performance, the “Back to Oklahoma” CD was in the can. Not only is this disc an excellent overview of Fracasso’s work, it contains a previously unreleased gem titled simply ‘1950s’. Fracasso and Sexton gently begin strumming their guitars as Fracasso nearly whispers “Kiss me on the mouth / Kiss me on the lips / Like you know how / From your fingertips. . . ” and we’re off and running through a spiraling, generational kaleidoscope of births and deaths, marriages and breakups, joys and tragedies. With each harmonica break, the guitars and vocals gain more breathless energy, reflecting the building chaos and excitement of the unfurling life events and details. The arrangement is so simple, yet the result is stunning.
Every Michael Fracasso release is bursting with has clever wordplay and songcraft (including his last release, 2019’s “Big Top”, the aborted fourth album with Sexton) and are all well worth investigating. I do not know if any new music is on Fracasso’s future agenda. He keeps busy as a chef these days, offering exclusive performances that combine his two passions of cooking and playing his songs. This makes sense since he’s always been keenly aware of which ingredients, or subtle details, work best.
