Nath Dresser, performing songwriter

Nath’s a singer-songwriter, so it’s no surprise that much of the music he performs is his own. He often calls himself a folksinger, but there are a number of terms that could be used to describe his music: folk, country-folk, country, Americana, folk-pop, and folk-rock, to mention a few. It should be noted, however, that while a given term may fit some of Nath’s songs, no single term fits them all.

Nath plays songs he believes in, songs that typically tell a story from a specific point of view, and tell it convincingly. If a song doesn’t strike him as honest, he shies away from it. Dave Van Ronk once said, “I can tell a lie, but I can’t sing one.” For Nath, this is an important part of performing a song: he wants his presentation of the song to ring true, regardless of the song’s story or narrator.

Nath feels that the song’s the thing: what he does with his vocals and his guitar should help reinforce whatever the song has to say rather than detract from it. When he performs, he likes his vocals—and the lyrics—to be upfront, clear and understandable.

So it’s not surprising that when he writes, the lyrics almost always come first. Nath typically begins with a phrase or a line, and after he’s written a verse and/or a chorus, he picks up his Gibson and somehow finds the music for the song. Rarely does the music come first; “We Speak in Whispers” is one such song where Nath wrote the lyrics only after playing the chords and melody over and over again.

covers

Besides playing his own songs, Nath covers songs by other singer-songwriters. The following list should give you an idea of not only what you might expect from a Nath Dresser performance, but also some of the singer-songwriters whose work he admires:

Nath doesn’t cover every song or songwriter he likes. As Harry Callahan said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

When he does cover a song, Nath likes to interpret it in his own way. While his covers may sometimes be close to the songwriter’s original vision for the song, there are many instances where Nath adjusts the tempo or tone to complement how the song speaks to him.

© Elizabeth D. Clarke

influences

Nath’s earliest musical influences, as far as he remembers, were Hank Snow and Bill Clifton, though the first LP he could call his own was of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. He also had a thing for Connie Francis. In the mid ‘60s he listened a lot to Herman’s Hermits, and the Hermits’ “All the Things I Do” is still on Nath’s playlist. (There are no Connie Francis tunes in his repertoire, however, and he has the good sense to play Beethoven only on his hi-fi.)

By the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Nath was listening to Phil Ochs, Leonard Cohen, and Sibelius.

When he began playing guitar in 1974, Nath was just discovering a whole range of singer-songwriters. Tom Rush and the young Townes Van Zandt were both big influences on Nath’s vocal style, and seeing Townes play in the late 70s and early 80s made a lasting impression on Nath.

Still, if Nath were forced to choose the recordings of just one singer-songwriter to listen to from here on out, he’d probably choose those of John Prine, whose songs Nath loves for their lyrics and wonderful singability. Or maybe the complete works of Richard Thompson. . . .

music gear

Nath’s main guitar is a Gibson WM-00 acoustic, which he typically plays with a Merle Travis finger-picking style (what the Brits might call “claw-hammer”). He runs the signal from his Gibson’s K&K Trinity pickup system—and his baritone vocals, sung through an Audix VX-10 mic—through a Schertler Unico amp for a clean, clear, and natural acoustic sound. He uses no fancy effects or signal processors other than the Unico’s built-in spring reverb.

For more details on Nath’s gear, click here.