Senrick, Chuck: Dreamin' (Vinyl LP)

It’s a well-documented fact that a person’s reasons for pursuing a career in music are varied and manifold. For some, it’s the desire for a glamorous and stellar career, the longing for fame and glory. For others, it’s just a job like any other, and for some, it’s a calling, just something you got to do. With this idea in mind, it’s easy to draw a parallel between the modesty and humility in Chuck Senrick's life to that of Sixto “Sugarman” Rodriguez. But while Sugarman recently learnt of him enduring fame on the other side of the globe and the creation of a legend for a whole generation around his craft, Chuck Senrick was never famous; now or at any time or place during his still enduring career. For more than 45 years now he simply plays his Fender Rhodes or piano and entertains any audience which is present, incidentally at the location at which he is performing. In this day and age, an endangered species anywhere but in the US, Chuck Senrick serves as a bar pianist.

Just 200 copies of this record were pressed, which Senrick gave away to friends or sells to his audience at his gigs. Only many years later, in 1993 to be exact, during his stay in Florida, does Senrick again record further material. A few of his live gigs are put onto cassette tape and distributed them under the name “Island Live“ and “Cheap Thrills”. Somehow, through a series of unknown events and coincidences, 40-years later those original songs finally meet the catalyst for exposure to a bigger listenership. Not in Minnesota nor in Florida but a Japanese second-hand store of all places, Jazzanova member and NOAJ co-founder Stefan Leisering finds a copy of “Dreamin”. A magic moment for the passionate musician and DJ, one that stands out strong in his decades of record collecting. It's exactly this type of songwriting and these arrangements that hit him emotionally, ticking every box along the way. Back in Berlin, he plays the record to some friends, who are also deeply moved and impressed by Senrick's thoroughly honest music.
The author of these liner notes also remembers the first time he heard “Don't Be So Nice” very vividly. It was during a car trip through Berlin with friends and fellow record collectors, Danny McLewin (Psychemagik) and Alex Barck (Jazzanova), when Alex played the track on the stereo of his A-Class; I couldn't believe my ears for a moment. Once in a blue moon do you hear such a perfect pop song, minimalistic yet overflowing with charm owing to its sincerity. Knowing about its extreme scarcity, I didn't even attempt to try to find the record. All the more delighted I was when Notes On A Journey asked me to write the liner notes for this re-issue. Finally, I can hold this beautiful record in my hands and I can listen to this ageless, bonafide and touching music again and again and again. I hope you dear reader, gets a kick out of this the same way I did and that I and the whole Notes On A Journey crew still do.

1. Dreamin'
2. Wedding Trilogy
3. It Don't Matter No More
4. Downtown
5. Gray Days
6. Kids
7. Don't Be So Nice
8. Celebration Lover
9. It's Alright
10. Bright Face
11. The Duke Is Gone
12. Drop A Dime
13. Dreamin' (Reprise)