Chuck Prophet isn’t in a reflective mood today. It’s early Wednesday morning and the San Francisco singer-songwriter has just returned from a hectic European tour in support of his latest album, “Let Freedom Ring.” In just a few days, he’ll launch the American leg.

“I don’t know why you want to talk to me, I’m totally brain dead,” he says by way of greeting. “I’ve gotten about three hours of sleep in the past 72 hours. There’s actually drool running down the front of my shirt.”

The former Green on Red front man, who plays at the Great American Music Hall next Sunday, is nearly two decades into his celebrated solo career and still taking huge risks. “Let Freedom Ring” was recorded in Mexico City with co-producer Greg Leisz this year just as the swine flu pandemic hit.

“Our timing couldn’t have been worse,” Prophet says. “Within three days of arriving, the city shut down. So we put on our blue masks and got to work.”

The musician and the members of his band - including his wife, Stephanie Finch; guitarist Tom Ayres; bassist Rusty Miller; and drummer Ernest “Boom” Carter - were able to avoid the H1N1 virus but not the ensuing paranoia, giving his roots and rock tunes added edge.

“It was definitely an adventure,” he says. “But it was recorded under such duress, it made a band out of us.”

We asked Prophet, who has released more than a dozen full-length albums on his own and with his former outfit, to reminisce about his recording sessions.

Green on Red, “Gas Food Lodging” (1985)

“I just got my first passport and all we wanted to do was make a record and go out and play our songs. We met our producer Paul Cutler through a mutual friend, who was a pot dealer and worked five days and nights. It was totally effortless. We had a van and the label gave us a gas card. Those were good times.”

Green on Red, “The Killer Inside Me” (1987)

“That was the record that split the band. It was bombastic and humorless. I remember on that tour we played in Athens, Greece, and Dan Stuart attacked somebody in the audience with his guitar and broke it. So we got a note from a doctor and canceled our final gig at the Astoria in London. It was something I never felt good about, so three years ago, when we had our reunion tour, we rescheduled that gig, and anybody who was supposed to be at that original gig could get in for free.”

Chuck Prophet, “Brother Aldo” (1990)

“I just had my kite up, and the wind changed direction at the right time. It just kind of happened that myself and Stephanie and a bunch of other local songwriters were all sort of in bands that had gone out of business or collapsed or folded. We started a poker night at the Albion, and there was a healthy competition among us. We would play a gig one weekend and come back the next week and do the songs differently. But people ended up stealing each other’s girlfriends and guitars, so it was scene that didn’t last long.”

Chuck Prophet, “Feast of Hearts” (1995)

“It’s the record that cost the most and made the least. If I stand back and squint, it’s got some pretty good songs. But it’s where I just hit a wall. It was probably the first record where I worked with an outside producer (Steve Berlin), and we never really got in a groove. He just worked out of one side of his brain - I’m not sure what side, but it was the opposite of mine.”

Chuck Prophet, “No Other Love” (2002)

“That was when we seriously started to think more about the States. Stephanie said I needed to dumb it down a little bit, so I wrote ‘Summertime Thing’ using the first three chords everybody learns on guitar. We were on tour with Lucinda Williams, and I was at a salad bar and heard it coming out of a speaker. It was a very strange feeling. From there it started getting some airplay and climbing past people like Sheryl Crow, the Wallflowers and Springsteen on the adult alternative charts. Heart later recorded ‘No Other Love.’ That record has more than paid the utility bills.”

Chuck Prophet, “Age of Miracles” (2004)

“It was a fun record to make. I recorded it in a lot of different places. That song ‘You Did’ has been in ‘True Blood.’ It’s just got a bunch of weird stuff on it - songs about marriage, miscarriages of justice and midgets. And that’s just the M’s.”

Chuck Prophet, “Dreaming Waylon’s Dreams” (2007)

“It’s not an official record. One weekend. we got locked in the studio, and I was bragging how I could recite Waylon Jennings’ ‘Dreaming My Dreams’ record by memory. So we started with one song, and by the end of the weekend we recorded the whole album. My friend, who was on tour with a bunch of new country acts, told me he bought it and put it on the tour bus and a fight broke out.”

Chuck Prophet, “Let Freedom Ring” (2009)

“I found a studio in Mexico that was state of the art for 1958. In today’s economy, that had it’s appeal. In terms of perspective, I was writing that album just as the bottom was falling out of the wet sack of the American dream. We didn’t really go for mariachi horns, but we were hoping to feed off the energy there. It’s a city that hustles and bustles and vibrates beneath your feet. I thought, ‘With these songs, why not?’ ” {sbox}

Chuck Prophet: 8 p.m. next Sun. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell St., San Francisco. $15. (415) 885-0750, http://www.gamh.com.

To hear Chuck Prophet’s music, go to

chuckprophet.com.

Follow Aidin Vaziri at twitter.com/MusicSF. E-mail Aidin Vaziri at .

Chuck Prophet has always been so far ahead of sonic trends that he can barely see them in his rearview mirror. From the visionary country-rock architecture of Green on Red in the ‘80s to his wide-ranging solo career, Prophet has been creatively restless, reinventing himself like a rootsy David Bowie and applying his own stamp to whatever direction he pursues. His last album, 2007’s Soap and Water, was yet another demonstration of his ability to find new inspiration within Stonesian parameters while wearing all of the hats he’s sported since 2000’s roots-and-turntables marvel, The Hurting Business. His latest, ¡Let Freedom Ring!, broadens the focus even more while honing in on the specifics of each individual song, perhaps influenced by his work on Alejandro Escovedo’s Real Animal last year.

“You and Me Baby (Holding On)” is the sound of Bob Dylan guided by the Velvet Underground rather than Woody Guthrie, while “American Man” is the Stones posing as SoCal rockers at their swaggering, staggering best and featuring some of Prophet’s most incisively political, Dylanesque lyrics (“American Man, up on the mound/With an orange alert and a new wave sound”). Recorded in Mexico City at the height of the swine flu epidemic and in the middle of an earthquake and brownouts in a studio that hasn’t been upgraded since the Eisenhower administration, Prophet poured the negative energy into this amazing set of songs written in and about the economic, political and emotional maelstrom we find ourselves in at the moment. Is this the best Chuck Prophet album ever? Sure, why not? They all get to wear that medal for a while. — Brian Baker

Chuck Prophet

Let Freedom Ring (Yep Roc)

You’ve got to hand it to Chuck Prophet. While the rest of the world was panicking about the swine flu outbreak, the San Francisco-based songwriter was holed up in a sound studio in Mexico City, recording what ranks as the most staggering rock record of 2009. From the blistering opening chords of “Sonny Liston’s Blues” to the plaintive refrain of “Leave the Window Open,” Prophet has produced a suite of songs whose exuberance will call to mind not just the mid-‘70s heyday of the Stones, but also vintage Cheap Trick.

Prophet’s voice is pure Southern California drawl, and his Stratocaster seems never to have met a lick it couldn’t shred. But what stands out here is Prophet’s ability to survey the moral landscape of America, as the nation faces up to the brutal economic hangover of the go-go Bush years. “Let there be markets, let them run wild,” he sings, on the rousing title track, “as the sisters of mercy just laugh/All the lost brothers can drink themselves blind/While good fortune breaks hard work in half.” Not even the shimmering chorus can blunt the sting of that sort of truth. What’s most remarkable about this album is that Prophet has told the ugly truth about our imperial ills and made it impossible for us not to sing along.—Steve Almond

It sounds like a collection of disasters that could befall a character from one of his songs: When Chuck Prophet went to Mexico City to make this record, he encountered a pandemic, an earthquake, and an antiquated studio. But with the grit and resilience that have typified his work since his days in Green on Red, Prophet soldiered through. The result is “Let Freedom Ring!,“another solid collection of his sturdy, rootsy rock ‘n’ roll.

Prophet is a storyteller with a sharp eye for detail and a deft sense of character. His ninth solo album nods to Bob Dylan (“Hot Talk,” “You and Me Baby”), Randy Newman (“Barely Exist”), and John Mellencamp (“American Man”), with a bit of Texas roadhouse blues thrown in (“Where the Hell Is Henry?”). It doesn’t delve quite as deeply as “The Hurting Business” or “Soap & Water,” but as always, Prophet’s stories ring true.

Music is universal, we know that much. But when Chuck Prophet rolled up his sleeves for his newest album, ‘Let Freedom Ring!,’ he decided to travel outside of America and cut the tracks in Mexico City. A few days into the process, swine flu started to spread—both as a virus and as a media hot topic—with Mexico City at the epicenter.

“I should say that Mexico City is an ancient and ailing metropolis, but at the same time it’s booming. It rocks, it bustles, it’s a hell-hole and it’s paradise,” Prophet tells Spinner. “Yes, it’s also the capital of the second or third world, our own urban future—almost sci-fi. It’s not the place you want to be when the black plague comes down.”

Neither Prophet nor anyone in his band or crew caught the illness but they did seem to be afflicted, at points, by another viral scare—hype. “If you turn up the heat on the hype high enough, everyone starts feeling a little off,” says Prophet. “You can’t help but to take your own pulse every 10 minutes.”

That kind of nervous energy can fuel an entire album. So with co-producer Greg Leisz (Wilco, John Fogerty) behind the knobs, Prophet braved exposure to H1N1 for the sake of art. “The amazing thing about Mexico City is that beyond the bustle, the grime and the chaos, everything gets done,” he says. “There are commuter train lines that bring half a million people in and out of the city every day. Think about it. So I think ultimately that all the extraneous BS we went through just to get to the studio everyday and to get a take when the power didn’t go out brought us all together and made a band out of us.”

That may be so, but Yep Roc Records will still release ‘Let Freedom Ring!’ as a Chuck Prophet solo album when it drops on Oct. 27.

Not an everyday occurrence, admittedly, but Prophet remains the only performer I’ve ever heard quietly slag off his audience to a fellow band member just minutes before going onstage to play for them. (“Look at all these f***ing sheep”, he drawled to Green on Red partner Dan Stuart. Trent Poly, 1989. I was there. It happened. Makes me smile to this day.) Since the band fell apart not long after, Prophet has done well with his particular blend of spit and sawdust blues rock, releasing albums regularly and playing and writing for the likes of Aimee Mann, Jonathan Richman and Lucinda Williams. ‘!Let Freedom Ring!’ was recorded in Mexico City last year. Prophet’s smart liner notes tell the story, the album pieced together in just 8 days with the help of blackouts, police corruption and an earthquake. (“With the paint barely dry on a shoebox full of songs and the telescope pointed backwards, we rolled tape and with the punches …”)

‘!Let Freedom Ring!’ is a beautifully realised slice of soulful rock ’n roll and exquisite song writing. As always, the guitar playing is exemplary, breathtakingly good on the soaring title track where his double tracked solo is an unholy marriage of Keith Richards and Tom Verlaine. ‘Sonny Liston’s Blues’ kicks in the door with that trademark Telecaster snapping off all over the place. ‘You and Me Baby (Holding On)’ is a beautiful ode to growing old and growing apart. ‘American Man’ is wry with its politics, from the same mould as Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days’. ‘Hot Talk’ struts like early 70s Stones and the breathless delivery carries lyrics poignant and true. ‘Leave the Window Open’ is the most heartbreaking take on ‘Me and you against the world, babe,’ I’ve heard in quite a while. The mix of bluesy balladry and bar band rocking is smartly placed throughout.

A work of honest, soulful endeavour, ‘!Let Freedom Ring!’ is a timely reminder that, amidst the recent clamour for anyone who’s managed to buy a plaid shirt and go without a shave for a few weeks, there were those who stood above the scene long before the scene existed. If you subscribe to ‘Uncut’ and are comfortable using the word ‘Americana’ in polite conversation, I’m offering you a risk-free recommendation.

Two decades into his solo career, Chuck Prophet still tends to be defined by his time spent with LA-based roustabouts Green on Red, Which must be galling because he’s a sparky songwriter worthy of greater attention. A snarling Sonny Liston’s Blues and American Man’s tongue-in-cheek Tom Petty-isms help bring ¡Let Freedom Ring! well up to par.

Cult longevity can often be as much a curse as it is a blessing. While the existence of an audience means an artist can continue to make his or her presence felt, opportunities for gleaning new listeners tend to be scant. That doesn’t mean that the product has to be irrelevant – something former Green on Red man Chuck Prophet proves to mighty effect on this incendiary new offering. Recorded with luminaries such as Kelley Stoltz and former E Street Band drummer Ernest ‘Boom’ Carter in Mexico City at the height of the swine-flu panic, Let Freedom Ring is an energised shot across the bows of the American dream. Prophet’s playing and singing burns with righteous ire throughout from the Clash-like Telecaster thrusts of opener Sonny Liston’s Blues to the disgusted denouement of the title track where he laments the fact that ‘the hawk always cripples the dove’. Lovers of unfettered rock and roll and impassioned and politicised songwriting chops will find much to cherish.

Soap and Water is the latest album from Chuck Prophet. It’s a burst of unrestrained creativity from a man who enjoys confounding people’s expectations. “When I get some kind of inspirational virus, I follow it through to its conclusion. The virus starts with two or three songs that take me someplace I haven’t been. It’s like writing a play; the songs are characters, inhabited by their own needs or whatever. This time there’s probably more devil-may-care spirit to it. It’s more spontaneous, less introspective. I sang a lot of it live and the musicians played it on the floor, live.”

The twelve tunes on Soap and Water run the gamut from lavishly arranged tunes featuring a string section and Nashville’s Methodist Church Children’s Choir to minimal late night meditations caught on the fly in one take.

Prophet recorded the album in San Francisco at Closer Studios and Nashville at Alex the Great with co-producer Brad Jones (Yo La Tengo, Josh Rouse, Dolly Parton) who helped keep Prophet on point. Prophet explains, “When I produce myself, I inevitably get to a place where I wake up in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat with bats coming out of my head. It was nice to work with someone who had my back. Brad was able, in his own gentle way, to keep me between lanes.

“The musicians involved are all friends. We approached this record differently. We gave all the musicians and engineers a stake in the masters. I think the traditional system doesn’t work anymore. These talented, difficult people all played their hearts out. You can hear it.”

Soap and Water kicks off with “Freckle Song,” “I set out to write a one-chord classic like ‘Electric Avenue’ by Eddy Grant, but when we got into the studio I wussed out and came up with a chord change for the bridge to play my guitar over.” The lyrics? “When I say ‘Let me please help you out of that dress, before you catch a cold,’ it makes me laugh now. It’s all so very suave. Like Gregory Peck or someone. That’s the beauty of songwriting, you get to be whoever you want to be.”

“Doubter Out of Jesus (All Over You)” is a kind of electro-punk blues produced with digital keyboard, drum machine and a couple guitars plugged directly into the board. “I love guys like Alan Vega, Alex Chilton, Mink DeVille…guys who’ve been able to take classic Brill Building pop and deconstruct it.”

“Every time you blink, every time you rest your eyes, there’s another new crop of tragedies off the bus,” Prophet laughs about the inspiration for “Small Town Girl.” With a simple choogin’ Bo Diddley guitar, heartrending female vocal from his wife Stephanie Finch, percussion tapped out on the top of a guitar case and Stygian guitar and organ accents. Prophet delivers this tale of innocence, in a gentle, mournful tone.

“Let’s Do Something Wrong” starts out quiet and meditative. Prophet’s half-spoken, half-sung vocal with lyrics repeating like a sick mantra (“Let’s do something wrong, let’s do something stupid”) accented by his sparse, single-coil guitar and a marching drumbeat. The bridge ramps up into full bi-polar glory with Prophet pleading at the top of his lungs, “I always did the right thing, what did it get me?” Prophet’s closing solo weaves through a rush of strings and a mocking children’s chorus.

The album also includes the surrealistic poetry of “A Woman’s Voice”; “Would You Love Me?,” a folk ballad full of eerie sounds; “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat,” a stuttering bit of Southern rock cha-cha; “Downtime,” an off the cuff in the studio ode to the pleasures of isolation; and the title track, a gloves-off, back-and-forth duet with his wife Stephanie.

The album closes quietly with “Happy Ending,” a breezy meditation on loss and limitation that slowly builds to a climax with a hint of hope and a glimmer of light. Prophet’s quiet finger-picking and weary vocal portray the uncertainty one feels when a relationship comes to an ambivalent conclusion.

Chuck Prophet was born and raised in Whittier, California, President Richard M. Nixon’s hometown. “If you shook a tree in my neighborhood, five guitar players would fall out,” Prophet recalls. “My sister had a lot of records, Stones, Bowie; the music was magical to me. Everyone I knew had picked up a guitar at some point. It was natural to start playing, but I never thought of it as a vocation.”

“I moved up to San Francisco to go to college, majoring in financial aid. I saw the Dead Kennedys at the Mabuhay Gardens (the legendary punk venue) and all the early Slash Records bands like Rank and File.” Prophet soon hooked up with Green on Red, a groundbreaking, hard to pigeonhole band that would act as a catalyst for the Paisley Underground and alt-country sounds of subsequent years. “Green on Red were the first band I’d met with a van and a gas card, so I joined up. It was summer, I figured I’d get in the van and go back to school in the fall.”

That summer vacation turned into eight years and as many albums with Green on Red - a band many people, including Prophet himself, are still trying to make sense of - burning through more than one major label deal. “Some people thought we were the saviors of rock ‘n’ roll; other people thought we were pathetic knuckleheads. I think they’re both right. It was like being in a motorcycle gang; we lived out all the excesses.”

When Green on Red disintegrated, Prophet launched a solo career with Brother Aldo (1990), an album that fused his love of blues, rock, Waylon Jennings and Richard and Linda Thompson. His jagged guitar lines, gritty baritone and stellar songwriting soon made him a cult figure in Europe, while stateside he won fans like Lucinda Williams, Stephen King, Ryan Adams, songwriting legend Dan Penn (a song they co-wrote, “I Need A Holiday” was covered by the mighty Solomon Burke) and Kim Richey with whom he co-wrote Cyndi Thompson’s Top 40 hit “I’m Gone.”

A video and film enthusiast, Prophet along with Teddi Bennet makes his own no-budget videos and is always ready to collaborate as musician, producer or sideman to other projects. He’s done sessions with Warren Zevon and Cake and produced Kelly Willis’s latest Rykodisc album, Translated from Love, co-writing some of that album’s songs as well. He’s also writing and editing Road Song for the San Francisco Chronicle’s book division. “I’m putting together a collection with lots of pictures and ephemera that will explain how you can go from city to city and maintain some sort of sanity. Or not. The road brings out the best and worst in people so I thought I’d ask other road warriors to let me edit their diaries.

For the rest of the year, Prophet will be on the road himself, doing what he does best. “I must be one of the last musicians that still enjoys touring,” Prophet says. “When people see us live they’re going to get involved. We wiggle and we wobble but we don’t fall down.”

We spoke to Chuck Prophet about “Always a Friend,” the opening cut on Real Animal:

I suspect that you’ve known Alejandro a long time, probably even dating back to his Nuns days, but I think this is the first time you’ve written with him. What led to you work with him on his new record?

He had an idea that it would work. And he was right. He asked me to come out to his place in Wimberly, Texas. We then spent a year splitting time between my little office space in San Francisco and his garage-cum-manspace in Wimberly. It took us a while to get up to speed. But Al has this incredible faith and patience. He’s very patient. I’m like, “What’s with the whole patience thing?” He tells me, “Bro, that’s the Mayan thing.” There were days of us just laying around talking. We spent a lot of time laying on the carpet in the dark talking. And listening to Mott the Hoople records. And naps. Lots of naps. But when we got worked up into a lather, it would flow through us. I often thought that if someone were to see us-if someone were to look in the window at us when we’re in the throes of it-they might be tempted to call the cops.

The full interview is here: