Citizen Cope

With THE RAINWATER LP, Citizen Cope offers the clearest distillation yet of his distinct musical approach, a laidback gumbo of acoustic blues, singer/songwriter rock ‘n’ roll and deep soul grooves. Born Clarence Greenwood, but known to friends and fans as simply “Cope,” the Brooklyn-based artist has crafted an album redolent of such classic tunesmiths as Randy Newman and Stevie Wonder – both major touchstones for his emotively penned songs. As such, it’s virtually impossible to put a finger on Citizen Cope’s idiosyncratically inimitable sound.

“The only way to explain my music is to say you gotta listen to it,” Greenwood says. “I don’t think there is any easy description of it. Somebody once said something about ‘urban folk,’ which I wasn’t mad at.”

THE RAINWATER LP comes nearly four years after Citizen Cope’s acclaimed 2006 third album, EVERY WAKING MOMENT. Not that Greenwood wasn’t busy – the hard-touring troubadour spent much of that time on the road, introducing fans new and old to his already substantial body of work.

“It was longer than I’d expected between records,” he says, “but it was like a culmination of all the records getting into peoples’ psyche. I just kept on touring, doing songs from all three records, and then I started getting ideas for songs. I got inspired to make another album and put it out myself.”

Since making his official debut, Cope had released three fine albums on three different labels, an experience which proved frustrating, to say the very least. Having been through the industry mill, this time Greenwood was determined to take the bull by the horns and release the album himself.

“A lot of labels wanted to put it out,” he explains, “but I kept hearing things like ‘Retail’s gonna need you to do this’ or ‘The artwork has to be like this.’ I don’t want to be led into those confines anymore. I want to be able to do it my own way. Being able to operate efficiently, not having to move buildings to do anything, just seems so basic for any artistic endeavor.”
Like the music therein, THE RAINWATER LP – as well as Citizen Cope’s new RainWater Recordings, Inc. – takes its name from a number of deeply personal sources. “It’s pure,” Greenwood says. “It’s also the name of someone that was close to me when I was growing up, so it just made sense.”

Cope further points out that the “LP” in the album’s moniker is no accident. Including just 10 songs in the era of excessively long CDs was a very conscious artistic move, as well as a way of paying homage to the “jaw-dropping” 1970s works that continue to inspire him.
“I wanted the record to have an LP feel,” he says. “Vinyl can only have a certain amount of songs. It takes you on a journey and then when it’s done, you can go, ‘Cool. Let me check that again.’”

Memphis-born, DC-raised, and now Brooklyn-based, Greenwood’s musical journey began in the mid-1990s, when he first drew local acclaim for both his intimate songwriting and unique sonic fusion. His official debut album, CITIZEN COPE, was released in 2002, while THE CLARENCE GREENWOOD RECORDINGS followed two years later. The road to THE RAINWATER LP also included guest appearances on blockbuster albums by Santana and Dido, while Citizen Cope songs such as “Let The Drummer Kick” and “Bullet And A Target” have been featured in a wide array of films, television series, and advertisements. But Greenwood doesn’t like to compartmentalize his work, preferring to see each effort as but one aspect of his overall oeuvre.

“A record should have the potential to be around for a while,” he says. “I don’t look at my records as representing just one year or whatever. It’s part of the lifespan of an artist and all the records contribute to the whole.”

The latest stop on the Citizen Cope trail was recorded over the course of 2009 at both Brooklyn Recording in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn (obviously) and The Document Room in Malibu, with extensive periods of touring in between sessions. Like the last two records, Greenwood produced THE RAINWATER LP himself.

On songs such as “Keep Askin’” and “Jericho,” Citizen Cope and Co. create a hazy and elemental sound that melds such disparate inspirations as classic rock, jazz, hip-hop, and go-go, the interactive laidback funk sound pioneered by the great Chuck Brown in Greenwood’s home turf of Washington, DC. His lyrical tack is equally freewheeling, veering from the personal (“Healing Hands”) to the political (“The Newspaper”) without ever sacrificing poignancy or power.

“The songs are just representing me as a person,” Greenwood says. “Some people just want to write about love, other people just want to write about politics, but I think being conscious gives you an understanding of all kinds of things.”
A remarkably charismatic live performer, Citizen Cope has been a committed road warrior, introducing his music to the people by traveling America’s highways and byways, often performing in places where other major artists fear to tread.
“When you do the major cities, people come from all these other places and say, ‘Come to this town,’” Greenwood says. “So the next time you tour you think, ‘Okay, let’s try Tulsa, Oklahoma or Oxford, Mississippi or Fayetteville, Arkansas.’ It’s been amazing, every year it just gets bigger and bigger.”

Having taken his time readying THE RAINWATER LP, Greenwood is already plotting his next move, with plans including another Citizen Cope album or perhaps a side project with a like-minded artist whose identity remains a secret. As always, Citizen Cope follows his own individual inspiration, making music without concern for trends or fashion, believing the best way to assess his art is through the fans he meets along the way.
“Somebody once said I was the People’s Champion,” Greenwood says with no small pride. “I like that.”