Listen: Adam Pitts
It isn’t that often you have the opportunity to meet a musician so approachable that you can simply walk up to the stage upon the end of his set, and begin to engage in a full-fledged conversation about anything and everything.
But then again, this isn’t the only thing unique about Adam Pitts.
The North Carolina native has both talent and charisma, with a down-to-Earth, southern hospitality that adds warmth to his performances. A budding songwriter from Hickory, working off of tip jars with girlfriend in tow, Adam is a multi-instrumentalist you won’t likely find anywhere else.
His musical arrangements with both cover songs and original material at the live set included tools such as a kazoo, a harmonica, a keyboard, and a handy ability to go one-man band style during live shows by chiming in on piano by foot whilst keeping time with an acoustic slap and versatile vocals.
As I talked with him more, Adam represented everything what a “true artist” was to me - someone with the will to do anything that would simply get him heard. In a hot summer sun, he sat beneath a little tent the size of a walk-in closet in Moore Square Park, and played behind a small stack of self-titled EPs and a glass jar of just a few $5 bills between the acts I previously mentioned in the Downtown Live concert review (this concert was not a paid gig).
In all of this, however he managed to belt out covers of everyone from Billy Joel to Sir Mix-A-Lot (no, I’m not joking) while even simulating a DJ scratch on his acoustic guitar during his Vanilla Ice performance before throwing in a few of his own songs.
I recently visited his MySpace and found a short three-song assortment of tunes to groove with. One of these included a track I’m quite fond of called “Diane Daily”. Nothing fancy, just a little studio session - but with well-polished sound and direct lyrics that touched my middle-class, working parent heart, I was happy to hear it.
He’s a hippie by persona, but a folk rock indie star by fate - and I know he’ll get the right gig to shoot him that direction one day, so please take a listen.
Buy Adam’s debut, self-titled EP via iTunes.
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For the record, that song posted here reminds me of The Beatles a bit - especially towards the middle.