An older man going through the pain of a divorce poured out his regrets to country songwriter-singer Phil Vassar one night in Las Vegas.
It was last December, and Vassar, newly divorced himself, was contemplating his first Christmas as a single man. As his new friend rattled on about what he would do differently to turn time back to the happy beginnings of the marriage, Vassar's songwriting inclinations kicked in.
"I went up to my room and I had a piano up there and it kept sticking in my head: 'I would do this' and 'I would do that.' So I just wrote the song down," Vassar recalled in a phone interview last week to talk about his concert tonight at Desert Diamond Casino. "And I didn't have a tape recorder so I just called my house and left it on my answering machine from Vegas.
"When I got home I was checking all my messages, scrolling through. Of course I had the Orkin man and the 50 million other ones. And then I came across this song. 'Oh yeah, I forgot about that.'"
People are also reading…
That nearly forgotten song, "I Would," is the third and latest single off his months-old album, "Prayer of a Common Man." The album is his fifth in a career that started back in the mid-1990s when he was a Nashville songwriter and restaurateur.
"Prayer" came nearly three years after the release of his greatest-hits package. Vassar made some dramatic changes in those years. He divorced his wife of five years and split with his longtime label, Arista Nashville. He landed at Curb, home of Tim McGraw and Jo Dee Messina, two of the many artists who have recorded his songs.
Much of his emotional state from the time is on full display in "Prayer."
"I'm an artist and a songwriter. I can't not write about it," said Vassar, a 44-year-old father of two. "Actually, it's cathartic. It's really good for me to do that. I've always found that when I write about something, I can express it better than just saying it to somebody.
"Whether it's good or bad, if you write about it, if you're honest about it, you come up with a true, honest song. I think that's where the best songs come from."
The album's mood goes from reflective on the title track ("Life takes its toll on the heart and soul / But I'm doing the best I can") to defiant in the piano-tickling toe-tapper "It's Only Love" ("I'm going to spring right back like a rubber band, I know that I can"). Vassar dips his toes in remorse on the sobering ballad "Let Me Love You Tonight" ("If I could reach inside your heart / I'd make you mine again"), then rebounds with the rollicking moving-on anthem "Baby Rocks" ("Start me up, sugar, let the tumbling dice roll / My baby rocks like the Rolling Stones").
The album has rich Billy Joel-esque turns, including the politically tinged rant "This Is My Life," the pop piano testament "The World Is a Mess" and the album-closing piano ballad "Crazy Life."
Critical reviews of the record have alternately dinged him and praised him as country music's piano man, a comparison that delights Vassar.
"I just think being mentioned in the same sentence with someone like that is a great honor," Vassar said. "We're both piano players and songwriters. Being compared to Billy Joel is never going to hurt my feelings at all. Never."
Vassar also wouldn't mind one day being lumped into the growing group of country artists like Trace Adkins, Dwight Yoakam and Billy Ray Cyrus who have dabbled in acting. Vassar has appeared in a couple movies and recently starred in a Funny Or Die short, "Phil Vassar's Random Grillin' Tips."
"We had a loose script and kind of went in there and improv'd and just had some fun," he said of the clip, which is posted on www.funnyordie.com. It was just a hoot. It's fun to do different things like that. It keeps you honest."
For now, though, Vassar is focusing on "Prayer," hoping that it will give him momentum and the consistency that has seemed to dog him since he released his first album in 2000.
"I've had a lot of trip-ups. It just seems like I'll have a hit, then the next one won't be a hit. I'll have a big No. 1, then the next one won't be," he confided. "To me, I think what I've lacked is consistency. But I'm still here."
• When: 7 p.m. today.
• Where: Desert Diamond Casino, 1100 W. Pima Mine Road, off Interstate 19.
• Tickets: $18 through Ticketmaster, www.ticketmaster.com.
• Soundbites: www.myspace.com/philvassar.
