You’ve heard the gorgeous melodies and the heartfelt lyrics. But unless you’ve seen him in concert, chances are you haven’t heard Jim Brickman singing his own songs. Until now, that is.
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Brickman is releasing his 25th Anniversary Greatest Hits collection, but with a twist. Instead of including the familiar versions of massive hits like “Valentine” and “The Gift” that featured guest vocalists like Martina McBride and Michael W. Smith, Brickman is singing all of the songs himself. And he’s excited about the results.
“I never really considered myself a singer,” Brickman told American Songwriter recently. “But I think when you’re the writer of the song, you express it in a way that is from its origin and it’s probably as authentic as it can be, the way the song was originally intended. I sing quite a bit in concert. And so I would say that over these 25 years I’ve become more confident and more interested in performing them myself.”
Brickman says that one of the challenges for him on the project was to avoid copying what’s already been done with the songs. “I think that you can’t get the performance of some of these people, their voices, out of your head when you’re doing it,” he says. “Because even though it started as a creation, it becomes definitive based on who sings it and how popular it is. It becomes its own thing. There was trepidation not just to live up to their performance but more to what people are used to hearing. How do you craft it in a way where people aren’t comparing? The minute that I start to imitate the exact production from the original, then it’s basically like I’m singing karaoke of my own songs that were sung by other people. It’s inverted in some way.”
Anybody doubting that Brickman should pull it off should know better. This is, after all, an artist who has sold over 8 million albums and made a seamless leap from massive success as a solo instrumentalist on piano to writing songs with lyrics that became timeless hits in their own right. He says his past experience prepared him for that transition.
“For many years, I was a jingle writer,” he explains. “It was more like I started with words and music and then I went back to the simplicity of me being more of a pianist. Because I wasn’t a singer in the beginning, it never really occurred to me to write songs with lyrics. If you really think about it, when you start the career, most people don’t think, ‘I’m going to be an instrumentalist.’ I wanted to blaze a trail with solo piano and I didn’t want to sing my own songs originally because I didn’t want people to think of me as a singer-songwriter. That’s a different road that you take. And I wasn’t a good enough singer to be thought of in that way.”
“Because of the jingle-writing, I was used to casting singers in a vocal role. Every jingle I did I would produce sessions and produce vocals and match singers to songs. That part of it, the production, came naturally. And I’ve also always been a very high-concept writer. When I write, I don’t ever start at the beginning. I always start with the high concept of the song. Once I started to decide, OK, I’m going to have collaborations, the sensibility was very familiar like it is with jingles. It’s just that the content isn’t about products or things. It’s about people.”
Brickman feels that the reason that the songs on 25th Anniversary Greatest Hits broke through is because he devoted himself to writing about universal experiences like love and faith and family. (And the holidays: the album contains versions of many of his seasonal smashes.)
“I like to share a little bit more, rather than write about myself,” he says. “I tend to be more interested in writing about not as much about my own type of experiences as about sharing stories that people can relate to. A lot of songwriters write about themselves, their own experiences, that kind of thing. I find that I tend to write less about my own self and a little bit more about other people.”
“I write what comes naturally to me. I tend to write what comes to me in a moment or in a feeling. Usually, it’s something that I feel like is universal. And I feel like when I write certain songs that everybody can relate to, those kind of come naturally to me.”
Brickman believes that his success as a words-and-music songwriter comes from knowing how to choose collaborators and from going into the process with a purpose. “I always come in with the idea of what we’re going to write,” he says. “Because the worst thing for me is sitting in a room saying, ‘Well, what should we do?’ What helps me with that artistically is when I’m working on a project, I always have an idea of what the overall project is going to be, instead of just random songwriting. The more I am honed in about why we’re writing and what the outcome is supposed to be in my head, what the intent is, it’s easier to write. Instead of just starting at the beginning and see what happens.”
For those who love music from the heart that promotes warm feelings, this collection delivers the goods, and Brickman provides affecting interpretations of his most well-known songs. Now he’s eager to see how people react to this new side of his artistry.
“I am very curious to see people’s reaction,” he says. “I’m so close to it. It’s easier to step back from a song, even though I know I wrote it, when somebody else sings it and I’m producing it. When I’m singing it myself, it’s very internal, especially because it’s a challenge for me, which is why I did it. Because I think you always need a challenge, something that makes you feel like you want to stretch. I really feel that fear is a great motivator when there’s something you want to try and you don’t know if you’re going to succeed. But it’s more challenging when you put it out there in the world because then, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be there forever.’”
Fears aside, Jim Brickman doesn’t hesitate when an interviewer asks him if he’d like to try singing his originals again down the road: “Yes, definitely.” It’s that kind of daring and ambition that has helped make him so successful to this point. Based on the 25th Anniversary Great Hits album, his singing career is off to a flying start.
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