SIMPLY SIX: Joe Croker

Joe Croker is a singer/songwriter from Nashville.

1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there such a defining moment for you?

This is a great question, and it's one that pushes my thoughts back to childhood. As a kid, I can recall taking on different guises when listening to tunes. One moment I would be Professor Harold Hill from Meredith Willson's "The Music Man"; the next I was a heart-strung Eric Clapton saddled with the "Bell Bottom Blues." Songs became a way of accessing feelings and possibilities, a bridge back and forth between adulthood and youth. The line dissolves.

2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of your favorites?

I met Antje Duvekot the other night at a club in Nashville. There were only sixteen people in the audience, but everyone was enraptured because Antje brings it. She has access to the deep muse. So I listen to singers like Antje and Kathleen Edwards, Walt Wilkins, La Lupe, and Celia Cruz. Though the latter two women have left us, they still haunt me. I remember seeing Freedy Johnston out at McCabe's in LA one time, and he told me to get the hell out of Wichita, where I was living at the time. So Nashville became the place for new tunes and old, and it all sort of centers for me there. Mark Knopfler comes back to town from time to time and I always listen to him and seek out his show. The same is true of countless others.

3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live?

For me, live performance is almost always the best. I like an audience, whether real or imaginary, so my best moments occur then. I knew that I was onto something when the tunes that came through my pen started to give me the same chill and shiver that Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen evoked in me over the years. These "shiver" moments happen quite frequently, sometimes when I'm rehearsing alone. I remember playing a song of mine called "Sally, Everything's Changed" with Arkansas songwriter Dave Fredrick, and we both knew that we had gone to that rare space. Almost none of this stuff is on record. Like theater, musical performance is often a very ephemeral art.

4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to? How much can music influence current events?

Sure. It's both, or can be. I tend to lean toward the heavier stuff, with a social edge, but it can also be pure celebration. Delight and instruct said the old Roman. Songs often do both.

5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected your career as a musician?

I like the openness of the non-system. New songwriters get their space. But there's a lot of anonymity, too. Valuable blogs like this one are a sound intermediary for bringing the anonymous artist to the public.

6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?

Something Italian -- elegant but sturdy. It may be time to cross The Alps.