When Bruce Hornsby won the Best New Artist Grammy in 1987, it was logical to expect that he would proceed on an even course of churning out pop hits like "The Way It Is."

But that's not the way it was.

Hornsby is more the musical drifter than determined hitmaker, and that early combination of blowup success and musical curiosity opened a lot of doors for him along the way. Like becoming a part-time member of the Grateful Dead for two years in the early '90s. Like working with various jazz musicians, including a trio with Jack DeJohnette and Christian McBride. Like working with Ricky Skaggs on a bluegrass compilation that would include Rick James' "Super Freak." Like crafting a Broadway-style musical, "SCKBSTD," that's in the works. Even the hip-hop community knows who he is, as "The Way It Is" has been famously sampled by Tupac Skakur and Snoop Dogg, among others.

Coming off the jazz and bluegrass stints, Hornsby is back with his current band The Noise Makers for "Levitate," a new album that plays down his piano work for a bit of everything: Celtic rock on "The Black Rats of London," modern classical influences on "Paperboy," junk blues on "Prairie Dog Town," and the Dead-like "Cyclone" written by Robert Hunter.

In a recent phone interview, Hornsby admitted that "Pittsburgh's never really been a hotbed for my music." But that's not keeping him away on this current tour with The Noise Makers that stops at the Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead on Sunday.

When you started out, with that first album, did you anticipate that your career would branch out in so many directions?

Oh no. I didn't allow myself to think that way. I struggled for so long just to get a record deal and I didn't get signed till I was 30. So I had no great ambition. I was just trying to get to the point where they would let us make a second record. I had no idea about all this, but as I look back on it, I realize how I've been able to make this career about everything that I'm about musically and I've been able to just expand and expand, so now when someone comes to hear me, they're likely to hear me play something [Arnold] Schoenberg or Ives of Elliott Carer. You know, I inflict that on my audience along with old hits and new more exploratory ventures, from the bluegrass to the jazz.

You just did jazz and bluegrass, as you mentioned. How do you see this record fitting in?

I just think it fits with the overall arc of my career as a songwriter. I just hope it shows development as a songwriter. Lyrically, it's certainly more diverse and crazier, dealing with inspiration from science, geology, physics. On the musical level, dealing in more of the modern chromatic language of 20th-century classical music that I was mentioning. I've been interested in music like that for years but it's never been a part of my writing until recently. This is just another chapter, but it is influenced by those past two records in that those records were really about playing the instrument, a lot of soloing. I thought 'I've done that on just about every record I've made.' I just felt no need to do it, no interest in it.

Were you at all concerned putting this together that the songs vary in style quite a bit?

I actually think of that as a plus. It's funny because for years, I thought, 'Let me make real, coherent stylistic records.' But some of my favorite records -- 'Abbey Road,' for instance, 'Let It Be,' 'The White Album' -- they are all over the map stylistically, even more so than this. It's all about what one looks for, but if you want to find precedent for it, there it is. And there's lots of others I could name, but those are three very good ones as models. I just feel when you make a record, you're trying to reflect where you are now. Where I'm at musically is a broad place stylistically, so why should I limit myself for some notion of a concept record?

How did the song with Robert Hunter come about?

It's always been in the air that he was interested in writing with me at some point. I had this track with the band with no words. I hardly ever write this way. I often write lyrics first. But I thought this really gives me the feeling of one of those classic Dead rock ballads. I reached out to him and he got back and said 'Yes, send me something.' Two weeks later he sent me these completed lyrics. I got chills when I got them. It was fantastic. I always loved his use of card-playing, gambling references and he had some of them in this song, so I was ecstatic. It was like the Elton John-Bernie Taupin separate rooms scenario.

How did things change for you playing with The Dead, in terms of opening up musically and appealing to a different crowd?

My time with the Dead, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I loved the guys, I loved the music, I think they're underrated as songwriters. It mostly influenced me as a songwriter. But their approach to playing the songs made it possible for them to become new. We've taken that approach with our band for many years now. In a different way. I'm not much for the five-minute solo -- at all. I think it's a rare soloist who can hold an audience's interest for that long. But we like to try to make the music new in our own way.

As far as the crowd, we definitely had some people coming to our shows but the problem is, a lot of Deadheads like to dance the whole concert and a lot of my audience, they want to just sit down and enjoy their concert. We actually have fights break out at our shows now and then, which is quite a scream, but you can see how it could happen. My standard description is Stockbroker Stan and Dreadlocked Dave, and how they want to enjoy their concert is really different. So one's in the other's way, one says 'Hey, sit down.' And the other one says, 'Hey, loosen up, old stiff.' And so sometime they come to blows. It's a scream. Other things that are also coming from the Dead scene: If someone's taping and you have someone near them who's just talking through the gig and ruining the tape, they get [mad], I saw a fight break out at a solo piano concert of mine because of that!

We talked about this broad range of your career, excuse the pun. Do you think you lost people along the way as well by experimenting so much?

Oh, of course, you're just going to. We lost some people but the people we lost were going to go away anyway. What I mean is, we came out and we we're doing fine on AOR radio, rock radio. We were playing clubs and sold about 100,000 records. Then 'The Way It Is' broke in England and around the world and we became this Top 40 group. It's not at all what we thought we were. We thought we were sort of a modern day band, just utilizing dulcimers, fiddles and accordions on the first record. All of a sudden we became this hit radio group, so our following was the fickle Top 40 audience. And I never trusted that at all. One, I didn't want to be a prisoner to it stylistically. Of course, you're going to lose those fans, because you can count on two or three hands the amount of people who have had lengthy, lengthy runs as Top 40 artists. If you live and die by the Top 40 hit, you will surely die sooner than later. We had a five-year run of that. Then it was over. Our Top 40 run was over when Pearl Jam and Nirvana took over the radio and blasted people who were on it out of the game. The short answer is, of course, we lost people. The audience of adventurous music lovers is a way smaller audience, but it's an audience that's way more loyal and there for the right reasons.

Two of those career Top 40 artists are piano men -- Billy Joel and Elton John. Were they a model in a way?

No. As I said, early on we were just trying to be an American band utilizing the old folk instruments with our music, but also with the piano. No, they weren't models, not really, because I've never considered myself to be good at that. My hits were hardly formulaic Top 40 material. 'The Way It Is,' for god's sake, it's a song about racism with two jazz piano solos. It was a just a wonderful accident. And then 'Valley Road,' a song about a girl who gets knocked up, as they say in the South, with once again lots of blowing. Kind of like Mark Knopfler did, I got away with a lot of soloing on Top 40 a couple of times. My music school friends couldn't believe what I was getting away with. My Top 40 career was a fluke. I loved Elton, he was a hero of mine, I just didn't think that's what I could do well.

You have this Broadway musical in the works. Are you a little nervous venturing into this tough area?

I have no expectations. The streets are littered with amazing songwriters who have stiffed on Broadway, so I fully expect not much to happen, but I like where's it led me songwriting wise.

"Listen Up With Andrew Druckenbrod" and "The Beat With Scott Mervis" are available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.