Gary Rue's many steppingstones

Country blends into ballad into rock into power pop into torch into soul into Tin Pan Alley into campy jingle into sweet childhood melody. This is the Gary Rue musical catalog -- either an eclectic testament of genius or the mark of a dabbler who won't commit to one genre. Or perhaps it is simply the work of a stubbornly independent man who wants fulfillment without celebrity, success on his own terms.

SteppingStone Theatre for Youth opened Randy Sue Latimer's adaptation of "The Nightingale" this weekend, the 30th show for which Rue has written music since 1993. He's written about goats and cheese men, island girls and the Milky Way, immigrant hopes and fantastic dreams.

"It's so smart and tender," said singer/writer Leslie Ball of Rue's work with SteppingStone. "He doesn't write down to kids, and he can write so many different styles that it serves his artistry."

Yet, as estimable as is his output at SteppingStone, it is only one chapter in a musical career that stretches back to the winter night in 1964 when Ed Sullivan shouted, "Here they are, the Beatles." Young Gary Rue grabbed his father's guitar and didn't let go of it for six months.

Since that day, he has made his living from the constant and lonely turmoil of the creative spirit. He has written more than 1,000 songs, including tunes recorded by Nick Lowe and Helen Reddy. One of his better-known ditties is also one of his shortest: "There's a place for fun in your life: Mall of America!" He has been a teen heartthrob, a music director for Gene Pitney, a promoter, a showman and a musician whose knack for invention and ear for melody made him perfect for theater and ruined him for arena-rock stardom.

"Any time Gary writes a show, you always walk out of the theater humming one of his tunes," said Richard Hitchler, SteppingStone's artistic director. "He's kind of a Renaissance man in what his capabilities are."

A long ride

The fuse was lit when 5-year-old Gary wowed his classmates in Tracy, Minn., as the lead character in "Johnny and the Magic Carpet."

"I must have been successful, because they did a two-page spread in my kindergarten yearbook," Rue said.

In junior high, it was all rock 'n' roll.

"We were in algebra class and I was drumming my fingers on my desk," said Steve Theilgas. "He passed me a note that said, 'You play drums? You wanna start a band?'

"Our lives were out of control after the Beatles.'"

Theilgas drummed in several groups with Rue as their parents drove them to roadhouses and ballrooms across southwest Minnesota. Then Rue went off to Southwest State University in Marshall, Minn., and connected with a young singer from Minneapolis who was also making a glancing attempt at college.

"The first thing I saw him do was 'Hang on Sloopy,'" said Curt Almstead (Curtiss A) in a recent interview. "He has the best ear and he did the lead exactly perfect."

Rue, Almstead and later Theilgas, again, were part of Wire, a band that made a name for itself from Omaha to Chicago. In Marshall, Rue had dropped out of college and become a big fish in a very small pond. He disliked the fame.

"I used to have hair down to my waist and when I went to get it cut, the stylist said she took pieces of it and put it in envelopes and sold it," he said.

He did not, though, want to get away from music. Wire broke up, and Rue moved to the Twin Cities, starting several more combos before forming Rue Nouveau in the early 1980s with bassist Jeff Willkomm, singer Ball and drummer Brad Gilbo. Rue ("I was a tyrant") insisted on a musical aesthetic that was original and diverse.

"I think Gary would have enjoyed being a star," said Ball. "But because Gary cared about the music more than marketing, that was the engine that always drove him. Our biggest criticism was that we were too eclectic, that we needed to define a niche and focus on that."

Rue Nouveau was popular, though, particularly with local theater folks. David Ira Goldstein, now artistic director of the Arizona Theatre Company, roomed with Rue in the mid-1980s and invited him to write incidental music for a show at the old Actors Theatre of St. Paul. That led to a concert play, "Painting It Red," which put Rue Nouveau onstage in 1986.

That same year, Rue accepted an invitation to play with Gene Pitney. Two years later he became the singer's music director. He also took a stab at Nashville, which he hated, and started writing commercial jingles with Johnny Hagen of Absolute Music in Minneapolis.

Hitchler was a guest director at SteppingStone when he met Rue, who had written music for Dane Stauffer's "Trickster Tales." Once Hitchler took over the organization in 1997, he routinely commissioned Rue. Quite often singer Prudence Johnson, then married to Rue, was music director for the shows. The two were together nearly 10 years before splitting in 2003. However, as was the case at a rehearsal of "The Nightingale" two weeks ago, they frequently work together on SteppingStone shows.

Happy days?

Nearing 58, Rue remains a musical and personal paradox. He has chased away most of his demons and, depending on which day you talk to him, he's content or in turmoil -- perhaps the definition of an artist.

Over pizza recently, he could only come up with one thing when asked what he still wants out of life -- health insurance. "I've got rhythm, I've got music, I've got my girl, who could ask for anything more?" he said. "Really, I'm not kidding."

Getting ahead has taken a back seat to a steady income, and for the most part he's pleased with his teaching gig at McNally Smith School of Music.

SteppingStone is fun, and he loves the kids for their courage to take the stage, he said, but he also wishes he "could do some adult theater."

Otherwise, Rue said, he's happy at home in St. Paul with his partner, traditional Irish musician Laura MacKenzie, and occasionally getting out to fly fish with his old buddy Theilgas.

Then a few days later, he wrote an e-mail that said: "You asked what I want out of life. Well, here it is. A Hit Record."

Moments later he amended the note: "A Hit Anything. I imagine it to be the joy of actually being understood, of having communicated something that everyone feels, a genuine 'shared experience' in this age of isolation-by-personal electronics and I-Me-Mine."

This despite all the work he's done in theater and musical groups that have created "shared experiences" for 40 years.

"I have more regard for Gary as a musician and a sensitive soul than anyone I've ever played with," said Almstead, who gets together with Rue every Dec. 8 for the John Lennon Tribute at First Avenue. "He accepts nothing less than perfection, but he's the first to admit it's hard to achieve, so he's never totally happy. He has that little twitch going on. I love that about him."

Perhaps that is it -- the twitch, the inability to sit comfortably in a single spot, satisfied with one's art. It is Gary Rue's greatest attribute and the constant needle that keeps him going.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299