In the past quarter-century, this Mississippi-bred, Nashville-based singer/songwriter has built a deeply personal body of work that's won him a reputation for clear-eyed insight and plainspoken eloquence. In the process, he's evolved from the wide-eyed young troubadour of his early classics Alive On Arrival and Jackrabbit Slim to the mature, bittersweet outlook of his more recent work, which surveys darker territory with hard-won empathy and deeply-ingrained rock 'n' roll soul. Those qualities are prominent on Just Like There's Nothin' to It, the follow-up to Forbert's Grammy-nominated Jimmie Rodgers tribute album Any Old Time and his first new album of original material in four years.

As a restless 21-year-old, Steve Forbert quit his truck-driving job in his native Meridian, Mississippi and headed for Manhattan with little more than his acoustic guitar. There, he busked for spare change at Grand Central Station, performed at Folk City and opened for the likes of Talking Heads and John Cale at CBGB, building sufficient local notoriety to win a deal with the CBS-distributed Nemperor label. Released at the height of the new wave explosion, Forbert's 1978 debut Alive On Arrival mixed spare acoustic introspection with scrappy rock 'n' roll and became one of the year's most acclaimed albums.

Steve expanded his audience substantially with 1979's Jackrabbit Slim, whose winsomely romantic Romeo's Tune became a Top 20 single. Critics hailed him at the time as The new Bob Dylan because of a similar vocal timbre and thoughtful songwriting. The front cover of his second album encourages such comparisons with its simplicity: a black and white photo of Steve Forbert playing a well-worn Martin acoustic guitar with a capo on it, his shirt tinted green. The record was recorded in Nashville and produced by John Simon who had worked with The Band.

After two more LPs, Forbert ran afoul of record-company politics, resulting in a long and frustrating legal battle that kept him from releasing new music for the better part of six years. Live recordings from this period later surfaced in 1997 as Here's Your Pizza, which showcased the rambunctious onstage energy of Forbert and his longtime band the Rough Squirrels. Once he was finally free to release new music, Forbert's albums introduced a very different artist than the optimistic young folk-rocker of his early albums. The urgency of his new lyrics, and the rootsy, tightly-wound music that accompanied them, portrayed a grown-up struggling to hang onto his idealism in the face of adult disappointments. Forbert's trademark vocal rasp, once full of boyish innocence, now carried a pensive edge that was well-suited to the pointed insights of his new compositions. Steve continued to create compelling, emotionally complex music with 1995's Mission of the Crossroad Palms and 1996's Rocking Horse Head.

In 2002 came Any Old Time, a heartfelt collection of songs by fellow Meridian native Jimmie Rodgers that Forbert invested with the same resonance that he brings to his own compositions. This century also saw the release of archival collections consisting of previously unreleased material from the first five years of Forbert's recording career. 2004's Just Like There's Nothin' to It carries a soulful, organic vibe that belies its unconventional birth cycle, which began with an experimental studio collaboration, and produced another personally-charged gem in Steve Forbert's remarkable catalogue. His newest CD Strange Names and New Sensations will be released soon.

"At this point in my life," Steve contemplates, "I'm, to say the least, not writing for a teenage pop audience. I think you have to be a little older and have certain experiences under your belt for these songs to really make sense."

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