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Printer-Friendly ModeDaniels performs at alumni event
October 30, 2006 —
"I'm here."
Those were the words uttered by actor and musician Jeff Daniels as he made his way through the darkness of the Malcolm Field Theatre to the front of the stage for the SVSU Alumni Celebration Saturday night.
When the lights came on, there he sat, guitar in hand, clad in a flannel shirt and jeans with a fedora cocked on his head.
"Though we could be at Game Six," he joked, in reference to the World Series. To those who didn't know, Daniels is an avid Tigers fan.
And it was those same Tigers that made many Michiganders privy to the fact that Daniels knows his way around the guitar and not just the movie set. Thanks to his song "Tiger Fan Blues Revisited," Daniels is gaining a reputation as a bona fide musician, a reputation that he would further as he entertained throughout the night.
The show kicked off with Daniels singing about "Saginaw on a Saturday night," getting the crowd into the performance by referencing Saginaw and SVSU. This was followed by "If William Shatner Can, I Can Too," a humorous number from his debut CD Live and Unplugged.
Another song from the CD, "Blue Valiant," was met with applause by the crowd at the mention of the blue Plymouth car that gives the song its name.
Daniels also debuted new material such as "Have a Good Life, Then Die," a song he introduced with a story about nearly hitting a man with his car while driving around Toronto.
Only when Daniels mentioned Escanaba in da Moonlight before playing "Ballad of the Buckless Yooper" - a song that he wrote about Escanaba, the deer hunting play-turned-movie which he also wrote - did it sink in that the man on stage picking his guitar was indeed an actor.
On comparing singing to acting, Daniels says, "You have a guitar in your hand for one and for the other you don't." To him, acting and performing songs both have the same goal. "You're trying to connect to an audience, but you're just using different ways to tell a story. The whole trick to storytelling is to grab the audience and don't let go, and it's a wonderful challenge."
That challenge began more than 30 years ago when Daniels first picked up a guitar. Even though most of the songs he sings on stage are probably new to his audience, some of the songs were written 10 or 20 years ago.
"I didn't keep a diary," Daniels says on why he started writing songs. "The guitar was always in the room with me; it was a musical diary." He also claims that he "had no intentions of playing these songs for anybody."
This may not hold true anymore, as a second CD of Daniels originals is just around the corner. Songs from the new album will be available for download from his Web site, jeffdaniels.com, within a few weeks, he says. His sophomore effort will include many of the new songs that he performed here at SVSU, including "Tiger Fan Blues Revisited," which he sang with a newly rewritten final verse about the Tigers losing the World Series.
Having wrapped up three movies this year, Daniels is taking some time to focus on his music. He has been making weekend stops around the Midwest and recently returned from several stops in Pennsylvania. Then he came to Saginaw. And while he was here, he made sure to ask, "Do we have any Dumb and Dumber fans out there?"
The question, met with applause from the crowd, was mostly tongue-in-cheek as it was followed by, "I know what that says about me, and I apologize for what that says about you."
What the audience's response says about this man with the guitar is that he is still known as Jeff Daniels, the actor. And he seems perfectly fine with that. After all, acting has gotten him to where he is today - and it probably had a small part in bringing him to Saginaw, too.
To purchase the first Jeff Daniels CD, visit jeffdaniels.com. All profits from the CD sales go to benefit the Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, MI.
