You can't say May hasn't heeded his own advice. So far life - mostly in the form of a staggering series of health issues - has forced the Sandusky, Ohio, native to make a habit of reinvention: He has gone from the Air Force to college to careers as an opera singer and contemporary-ballet dancer and - beginning just four years ago - into pop music. With his recognition on the rise, he headlines a hometown show Saturday night at the Tin Angel.
"Making the crossover from classical music to pop music is not done very often; it's a tough thing," May says. "People say, 'When I heard you were an opera singer, I was expecting something completely different.' "
May's deep, slightly husky voice, reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot and Richard Thompson, hints at the bass he once was in opera, but with his own music he never aims for any kind of operatic, or even Orbisonesque, grandeur.
The Long Road Home is the latest of his three exceptionally well-crafted and well-written albums of pop music with often rootsy colorings, from mandolin to dobro and fiddle. They're full of insistently catchy, emotionally substantial songs that in another day could have been massive radio hits rather than being limited to the Americana charts.
They also lack arty pretense. "My goal as a songwriter is: 'By the second chorus, [the listener] can sing along with it,' " May says. "I try to make the listener feel like they've heard it before, but it still sounds new to them."
"Artistically, he's exceptional," says Bruce Ranes, program director at the Sellersville Theater, who gave May a headlining gig in May after several opening slots. "He's as good as any of the best national talent we've had here."
Glenn Barratt, a Grammy-winning producer and engineer who coproduced The Long Road Home with May at his MorningStar Studios in Spring House and is collaborating on the follow-up, points to the distinctiveness of May's baritone voice and the quality of his storytelling.
