RIDGEFIELD — After a rousing, sold out set from former Eagles member Don Felder a few weeks back, The Ridgefield Playhouse is welcoming another major contributor to that seminal California classic rock band Saturday, June 20, as John David, or JD, Souther hits the stage for an 8 pm show.

In an exclusive and extended interview with The Newtown Bee earlier this week, Souther said he is excited to showcase material from his latest release, Tenderness, which he said represents a return to the kind of songwriting that was a hallmark of an earlier stage in his career.

“My last studio project, If the World Was You, was very ambitious. I was trying harder to be a bandleader than anything else. I was very committed to that sextet,” Souther said. “That album was all cut live in one room with all live vocals.

“This time was more traditional. I cut the record in Los Angeles and I don’t live in Los Angeles so I had my producer come out here,” Souther said. “It sort of came together from different places and in different pieces. But Tenderness is much more a songwriter album — the songs are much simpler. The melodies are certainly much more simple and elegant. Much more easy to sing.

“It’s probably in some ways more of a return to how I made albums in the beginning. Except the singing is better, the songwriting is better, the playing is better and I don’t over sing as much,” he said. “I have much more confidence in the songs now so I don’t try to shred.”

Souther said back in the 1970s, when he and friends Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bonnie Raitt and other notable Southern California artists were all hanging out together and swapping ideas for songs, his material tended to be a little more stripped down, thoughtful and melody driven.

And it was a little easier to share creative ideas among friends.

“In those days we all lived close together in the Hollywood Hills, and we didn’t really have much else to do or many other interests except music,” Souther recalled. “So we were always around each other, and we all heard each others’ songs. I can’t remember a time calling someone and saying ‘Hey, I’ve got a song for you.’ It was more like we were always sitting around playing and one of us would say, ‘oooh, I want to do that one.’

“Today it’s different because all those friends are scattered all over the country. Linda’s in San Francisco, Don Henley’s in Dallas, Glenn is in New York, Jackson’s in L.A., Karla Bonoff is in Santa Barbara, and Zevon, sadly, is gone, so there’s no proximity anymore. We can’t just, on a moment’s notice, all show up at somebody’s house.”

As his notoriety grew, however, Souther said his arrangements and production grew more complicated, while his performances and vocal stylings became more forced.

“I used to be such an excitable singer — I tended to over sing everything,” Souther said. “But I don’t do that anymore. I’m much more relaxed and much more clear on stage — much more audience oriented.”

Souther & Company

Souther, who nixed the solo spotlight in favor of bringing along a pair of supporting musicians, said his current tour gives him the opportunity to present a fuller sound in a more comfortable performing environment.

And it gives him a chance to give Eagles — as well as his own fan base — a wider variety of material, including a reworked version of the seldom performed mega-hit “Heartache Tonight.”

“We’re doing a really fun version of that one — and it’s the most fun I ever had playing it,” Souther said. “I was just listening to some old shows of mine from the L.A. Forum and I heard ‘Trouble in Paradise’ and ‘Heartache Tonight,’ the way I was playing them with a six-piece band, with two electric guitars, a drummer and an electric bass...very different. I think it’s more fun like this. More than any other song I’ve done, on this one the audience spontaneously becomes the drum section.”

As he began crafting material for his new release, Souther said he opted to include mostly new material that he’s written in the past couple of years, versus culling an entire new project from cast-off and incomplete songs he’s inventoried over the past couple of decades.

“Most of these songs are really new, written in the last year or so. There’s a lot of great stuff on it. There’s a beautiful string quartet on four or five songs. And there’s this brilliant German trumpet player named Till Bronner playing on three of them,” Souther said. “One of the older songs, actually a bonus track, I wrote years and years ago when Linda [Ronstadt] and I were living together. And the only other one that is older I wrote for Judee Sill called ‘Something in the Dark.’ And I wrote it on Warren Zevon’s old manual typewriter.”

A Different Approach

Souther said he approaches songwriting and recording a little differently than most of his peers, letting instrumental, lyrical or melodic inspirations come to him in no specific order, and without a lot of planning.

“I don’t really do demos in the traditional sense. I’m writing on piano most of the time. Then when we get in the studio we write up charts, because I’m very particular about what gets played,” Souther said. “Very often my demo turns out very much like the record. But I do like to save a little bit of experimentation until we get in the studio. It’s a lot like jazz in that we write it out, but there is some freedom if everyone learns the forms and the moods and nuances of the chords I want. Then there’s some freedom for them to stretch a little bit.”

Fans and music lovers are likely to see a snapshot of the most comfortable and relaxed tour Souther has ever mounted when he hits the Ridgefield Playhouse stage Saturday evening.

“It became more clear to me as we were performing these songs for this tour, to try to sing them like Sinatra,” he said. “Now I can’t sing like Sinatra, but he always delivered the lyric. He understood what the intent of the song was, and he also had great taste and picked great melodies. So those became our watch words: don’t hide the melody.

“This little tour is not just me and a guitar — it’s a little trio with Chris Walters on piano and Dan Immel on upright bass,” Souther said. “These guys are fantastic, and it gives us more color, we can do more of the uptempo songs people have been asking for for years — we’ll do a couple of songs from the Black Rose album that are really fun with these guys. It’s a fun show, but it’s a tender show. We really try to touch people with these songs.”

For information about JD Souther’s June 20 show, and to snap up remaining tickets, visit . ridgefieldplayhouse.org

Check out JD Souther performing “Something in the Dark,” from his new album Tenderness. When he appeared at Fairfield Theatre Company in June 2011, he rolled out his major solo hit, “You’re Only Lonely.”