April 5, 2003

By Rod Walker
rwalker@mcherald.com

© Jesse Worley/The Herald Larry Brewer performs one of his hits at Buffalo Wild Wings in Ridgeland.

MADISON | Twenty years after his group won a Jackson Music Award for Pop Song of the Year, Larry Brewer of Madison is still going strong.

Brewer, who wrote the award-winning "Hello, Hello" for the Windows, is releasing his new self-produced solo project "World Going Crazy" on April 15.

"This album is my best one lyrically," said the 48-year-old Brewer, who will have a CD release party next Saturday at the Forum in Jackson along with his band The Rainmakers.

"As you get older, you mature," he said. "When you're younger, you like boy, girl stuff and you write a lot of love songs.

"This one is more about world issues and how I feel about the world. I think lyrically it is good."

Contrary to what may be implied from the title, the CD has little to do with the war in Iraq.

"I wrote this album around the time of (the) Columbine and Pearl (shootings)," Brewer said. "I watch a lot of CNN. I'm a news junkie.

"Some people may see the album and think it is about the war, but a lot of these songs were written three to four years ago. It absolutely can be applied to today too though."

Brewer, who describes his music as pop-rock, traces his musical interests to his parents. His mother was into rock and his father was into country.

"I would hear George Jones and Ray Price from my dad and then I'd hear Buddy Holly, Elvis and the Everly Brothers from my mom's records," said Brewer, who was born and reared in Chicago before moving to western Tennessee. "I started taking guitar lessons when I was nine, but then I stopped.

"Then the Beatles became big, and I got interested again."

Said Brewer: "The Beatles are my biggest inspiration. I studied those guys like people study history.

"I still can't believe they wrote such good songs. You'll be hearing those songs until the end of times."

Brewer's biggest success came when he played with the Windows in the 1980s, opening for acts such as Hall and Oates, Jefferson Starship and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

He credits a concert with the Beach Boys at the Mississippi Coliseum as being the concert that blossomed his band's success.

"We had an agency at the time, and they slipped us in as the opening act for the Beach Boys," Brewer said. "It just mushroomed after that.

"Everywhere we played after that was packed."

"World Going Crazy" was recorded at Terminal Studios in Ridgeland and was engineered and mixed by Randy Everett. The CD has 13 songs, including Brewer's two favorites: "The Moment" and "Maggy's Lament," his first instrumental.

Brewer says he never knows when he will be inspired to write a song. Sometimes he plugs in a pot of coffee and just doodles on his guitar, then later adds some lyrics to the music.

One song, "Hopeless," was inspired by a homeless woman who he passed each time he traveled to Mobile.

"I feel really fortunate doing what I do," Brewer said. "Being able to write songs and make my own records has been fantastic.

"Basically, I am a pop-rock writer. This album is more rock. Most of my other work was really produced. I wanted to make this one have more of a live, raw sound, and I feel like I did that."

Brewer's band, The Rainmakers, consists of bass player Eddie Ingram and drummer Lyle Donald.

Brewer's first solo project was titled "Traveling at the Speed of Life."

For more information about Brewer, visit Web site www..netdoor.com/~brewers/.