On Saturday March 9th and Sunday March 10th, renowned concert pianist Jim Brickman will be performing at the newly renovated Bushnell in Hartford, Connecticut. The show, called Love Songs & Lullabies, will be filmed for an upcoming PBS special. Jim, who loves to play in Connecticut, was just recently here for a holiday show at the Shubert Theater in New Haven on December 15th.

Jim has been labeled as “America’s Romantic Piano Sensation.” He may indeed be that, however, there is a flair to his playing not unlike Liberace. He is also an extremely prolific songwriter. He released his first album called “No Words” back in 1994. His newest record called “Simple Things” is already the eleventh recording of his career. This phone interview took place on the afternoon of Tuesday January 29th.

BH – Jim, you seem to come to Connecticut quite a bit.

JB – “Well, early on in my career the support was just overwhelming for the music and people just really embraced it. And because my career is sort of a grassroots type of career, it was important for me to come back to places where I had a lot of support. So that is why, primarily in the Hartford area and then it sort of spread from there.”

BH – How did the PSB special come down and why was the Bushnell picked?

JB – “Well the first PBS special I did was last year called ‘My Romance’ was one of their highest rated pledge drive programs of the year. And because of that they decided to invest in doing another one with me. It was thrilling obviously to know that so many people enjoyed the special. So when we look for places that are a site to make a recording that is live, you look at a number of things. Primarily the Bushnell is one of my favorite places to play. It’s such a beautiful place and it’s so conducive to what I do. But it’s also a place where I have a lot of real support, not only from lite 100.5 FM, but from retail and a very large fan base. It’s one of the top five markets for me in the country. You’re always looking for an enthusiastic crowd. You’re looking for a crowd that, in the filming, is going to really be in to what is going on, and try to fulfill the expectations of what people want to see on TV.”

BH- Jim what was the inspiration for your newest CD “Simple Things?”

JB – “For me it was largely the fact that, in my career, what I started off with was solo piano music. And it was something that I’ve always felt the need to keep really organic and simple. But in the years since the debut of my first record, it sort of started to get away from that because I started having all these hits on the radio. And because of that people started wanting to hear my songs, as a songwriter. That then developed into people saying ‘he’s a pianist but he’s also a hit songwriter.’ Whenever you have hits on the radio and things like that people want to have more of the same. So there was an effort to try to get me to do more collaborations and more vocals and stuff like that. And I felt like ‘hey can I just play the piano?’ So it was an effort to go back to basics, to try to go back to the stuff that really was important and to me that was solo piano. It kept coming up in conversation how I just wanted to go back to the simple piano stuff. So it became sort of colloquial in my speech, ‘simple things.’ And I thought whenever you have something that is that obvious sometimes you just need to go with it.”

BH – If you don’t mind me asking you, where were you on September 11th when the terrorist attack happened?

JB – “I was at home in Los Angeles asleep actually. It was so rare for me to be home. It was bizarre because usually I’m on those flights. I’ve been on those flights many, many times. And so it was very rare for me to be where I was. But as a songwriter that certainly has some impact on the way that you look at the world. As a writer, some of the things that you use for inspiration or that you decide are valuable about your songwriting as a message to people, I found that for me it was really trying my best to send a message of healing as much as possible in my music.”

BH – Do you remember how you felt the first time you took the stage after September 11th?

JB – “I did a lot of benefit performing during that time and it was actually very challenging. The first time I think it was just about the 20th of September and people were just in a daze. Everybody was kind of in this fog. And certainly the last thing many people wanted to do was thinking about buying a ticket to a concert and going to see entertainment. But at some point, as I think we said in the holiday show, it was about me purposely trying to make it so that people could just enjoy themselves and use the music as not only healing but as an escape from the pressure and the chaos that September 11th put everybody’s world in to. Of course it was also geographically specific. It impacted so much more in certain places than others. Certainly on the east coast and in your area it was much more impactful because there were more personal stories. But it definitely impacted everything from that point on, no doubt about it.”

BH – Jim, are there any new projects you’re involved in right now in addition to the PBS special?

JB – “The PBS special is titled ‘Love Songs & Lullabies,’ so the next project is a lullaby record. And it’s going to be largely based on what I do on the TV show but it’s going to be a studio project, it’s not a live recording. So I’m writing for that right now.”

BH – When I saw you in New Haven I was impressed with the way you took the time to meet and greet about a hundred of your fans.

JB – “I take it very seriously. It’s a very personal kind of music so I kind of figure if you’re having that personal relationship with people that that should carry through in everything you do, not just in your stage persona.”