Chuck Suchy

continued

said, "that I realized that the life I was immersed in was worthy of song."

From the start, he had a knack for writing songs with wide-open musical and textual spaces appropriate to the environment they describe-often five or six minutes long, and covering an entire cycle of some kind: a day in the field, a Saturday night at a community hall, a generational echo. The Minneapolis roots musician Peter Ostroushko discovered Suchy and recorded him effectively, in simple, straightforward arrangements that brought out the silences between the words and notes of Suchy's songs. (In person, it's just Chuck and his guitar.) Suchy has performed on A Prairie Home Companion, surely a fine showcase for his talents. Anybody who likes Garrison Keillor's weekly news from Lake Wobegon should enjoy Suchy's concert at the Ark on Tuesday, September 13. And more locally, the folks who pack the Ark for Jay Stielstra's periodic reappearances should check out Suchy, too-the music of these two real midwesterners shares a rhythmically square, totally-untouched-by-contemporary-pop quality that keeps the focus on the solid lyric craft.