Feature - Ziggy Marley

Published on the Rhythms Magazine website, April 2014.

The Future Is Now

With his latest release, Ziggy Marley is aiming for the future of reggae.

By Samuel J. Fell

After the initial niceties that come with a short phone interview are dispensed with, I congratulate Ziggy Marley on his recent Grammy win. “Thank you,” he says modestly.

I go on to point out it’s his sixth Grammy win, and so his trophy cabinet must be getting quite full. “Yeah, it’s all right, it’s getting there,” he laughs. The gong was for his 2013 live release, Ziggy Marley In Concert, in the Best Reggae Album category, no surprise.

It’s interesting to note that this category was only added to the Grammys in 1985, and so Marley’s famous father never received one. Having said that, Ziggy, Stephen and Damien Marley have all won multiple times, so it’s not like the most famous name in reggae is going underappreciated. At least not by the establishment, as Ziggy is quick to point out.

“Even if we didn’t win a Grammy, we’d still be relevant, you know what I’m sayin’?” he says in his thick, Jamaican accent. “It’s a good thing, but we don’t need a criteria to validate who we are, or our music.”

It’s a truth bomb, and it explodes all over the sequined dresses, the rented tuxedos and the big hats of all who attended the Grammy ceremony itself. The Marley name, and reggae as a genre of music, doesn’t need awards to validate its success and reach. Just look at how the music – which is of course as much about community and culture as it is about how it sounds – has affected people all over the world.

With this in mind, Marley has since switched from the live frame of mind, to the studio frame, a change which has seen him come out with his latest in a long line of albums, Fly Rasta, due for release later this month. “I knew what I wanted this record to be about,” Marley says, the passion evident in his voice, more than aware of what this music, if done properly, means to so many people.

“I wanted it to be futuristic, in terms of where reggae is today. I wanted to push the envelope, be adventurous, push the borders. I want the songs to be full songs… I wanted them to have emotion, to be alive, to live. I wanted these songs to have arcs, arc up, arc down, I wanted them to live, to be a living thing, you know? So I wanted this futuristic thing… this is reggae, but this is the future.”

In order to look into the future however, Marley in this instance went back to the past. In 1979, as an eleven-year-old, Ziggy and a handful of his brothers and sisters formed The Melody Makers, who despite a debut record which was derided as too pop, went on to record and tour until 2002. It’s with fellow-original MM members Cedella and Sharon Marley, along with Erica Newell, that Ziggy reunites on Fly Rasta.

“Yeah, it’s been a while, but it’s nice,” he smiles on this musical reunion, the first time the siblings have recorded together since 1999’s The Spirit Of Music. “They bring a really special sound to the music [here], really cool and it uplifts the songs. It’s been really exciting to have that back.”

The album itself, which is a booming paean to reggae music in general while indeed reaching to the future via the messages contained within, is being released on Tuff Gong Worldwide, the label Bob Marley founded in 1965 in order to “produce, distribute and promote his music free from the constraints of corporate label politics”, something Marley junior is more than willing and able to continue.

“It’s something that feels good, it’s something I want to do anyway,” he says when asked if this ethos is harder to achieve in this day and age. “This is something that… we have to keep it going. It’s real important to keep to these roots.”

Roots, it seems, and obviously so, are incredibly important, not just for Ziggy, but for all the Marley clan making music today. The legacy of their father, the wide-ranging reach of reggae, the impact Tuff Gong has had on people all over the world. It’s not lost on Ziggy, hence his rabid love and need to continue making this music, paying homage to where it’s come from, but at the same time, pushing it further. Reggae music is in good hands, there’s no doubt.

Fly Rasta will be released on April 18 through Tuff Gong Worldwide. Keep an eye out for Ziggy Marley tour dates, later in the year.

Feature - Allen Stone

Published in the Shortlist section of The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday March 28.

Life And Soul

In the 1950s, a new musical movement came to be. Spawned from African-American gospel choirs, and taking on elements of the still fledgling R&B movement, soul music came into its own, a joyous celebration of life, love and the power within, delivered with an incomparable passion and fire.

Record labels like Stax, Motown and Atlantic fostered the sound, with artists like Aretha Franklin, Solomon Burke, Al Green and Otis Redding being propelled to international stardom, their indelible mark left on a genre which remains to this day. Whether black or white, soul music still brings that passion, leading all in the know to acknowledge that in order to sing soul, you’ve got to have soul. It’s more than just the music.

“There are plenty of people who can sing technically well… but there’s a difference between Donny Hathaway singing ‘In The Ghetto’, versus Christina Aguilera singing the national anthem,” smiles 26-year-old Allen Stone, the soul singing prodigy who in the past few years, has taken the roots music world by storm. “There’s a specific amount of soul that I don’t think pertains to what you’re doing with your voice, it’s a feeling.”

Stone is widely acknowledged to genuinely have this feeling. The self-proclaimed ‘hippie with soul’ has become a leading proponent of blue-eyed soul, the name commonly given to white purveyors of the genre. “I don’t care what they call me,” he laughs when asked what he thinks of this term. “They can call it gopher music if they like, as long as they’re listening to it.”

Listening to it they are. When Stone first appeared at the Byron Bay Bluesfest last year, he wowed crowds, so much so he’s been invited back this year. As well, his two full-length releases have been critically lauded, particularly his second, self-titled effort, which was re-released in 2012 by ATO Records (and featured Raphael Saadiq’s backing band, as well as Miles Davis’ keysman, Deron Johnson). Stone has been described as a “pitch-perfect powerhouse”, and it’s obvious why.

It’s interesting to note then, that he didn’t discover soul music until well into his teens. He’d grown up singing in his father’s church (“The church I went to was very much contemporary Christian worship music, which wasn’t the greatest interpretation of church music,” he says, clarifying that he didn’t come into soul from a gospel background), and it was by accident that he discovered the music that would end up shaping his life.

“Yeah, when I was 14, someone played me ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ by Stevie Wonder… Stevie’s voice was always a beautiful thing to me. So I just dug in there, from the late ‘60s to the early ‘70s.” From there, Stone has mined the depths, and we see him today as one of the more exciting soul prospects on the scene. The fact he’s so young and has so much more to offer, is a fine thing indeed.

“I’ve started writing, probably three months ago… I’ve picked a producer, and I know what I want the colour and the texture of the record to be,” he says on where to next, his next album. “What do I want to immortalise, with my name on it? Which is always a scary thing for me.” It’ll be interesting to see how this young talent develops, but it seems soul music is still alive and well.

Samuel J. Fell

Gig: Metro Theatre, April 13 / Byron Bay Bluesfest, April 17 & 19

Tickets: www.ticketek.com / www.bluesfest.com.au

Live: Powerhouse new soul

Best Track: ‘Unaware’ from Allen Stone

Feature - Aaron Neville

Published in The Big Issue, April 4-18 2014. (Unedited version below).

Aaron Neville

“It’s a love, and it makes me whole. If I couldn’t sing, then I wouldn’t want to be here.” This is how Aaron Neville feels about his craft, more than five decades into a career which sees him now as a legend, a pioneer, a behemoth in the world of roots music.

“For me it’s about the love of the music. Not about the business, none of that stuff. I’m glad that I’ve been able to have longevity, to be still doing it. You hear of so many people falling by the wayside and I’m still around, I feel blessed.”

In 1960, as a 19-year-old, Neville released his first single, ‘Over You’. It was a precursor to his debut full-length release in 1965, Tell It Like It Is, and the beginning of a career which has seen him hit the lofty heights most can only dream of.

With brothers Art, Charles and Cyril, he was a part of The Neville Brothers (the first family of New Orleans R&B); he’s dueted with Linda Ronstadt, a collaboration which produced the Grammy-winning single ‘I Don’t Know Much’; and he’s released a slew of highly acclaimed solo records, mining the depths of R&B, gospel, soul and blues, his falsetto voice as recognisable as any other sound in music.

But it was another sound, another style, which initially made its way into a young Aaron Neville’s head – doo-wop, a vocal-based off-shoot of rhythm & blues which came about in the ‘40s, achieving larger recognition in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It was this music which first grabbed Neville, which had him careering off down a path he had no choice but to follow.

“The doo-wop stuff captured my heart,” he concurs. “It’s been there my whole life, everything I’ve recorded has had some kind of doo-wop essence in it, you know? It was the harmonies… my brother, Art, had a doo-wop group in New Orleans and he let me sing with them. Putting the harmonies together, hitting the high notes and singing the bass parts, all of it, it was fascinating to me.”

Despite the fact it was doo-wop that first ignited Neville’s taste for music, it wasn’t until some fifty years later that he’s been able to pay tribute to this style specifically. Yes, it’s permeated his music from day one, but it was only last year that Neville released My True Story, a record acknowledging the doo-wop numbers that have shaped his musical life – a covers record that tells his story.

“I’ve been trying for a long time to do it,” he says with a smile. My True Story came about via a couple of interesting connections – Blue Note Records head and producer par excellence Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Elton John, Brian Wilson et al), and legendary Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Not a bad team to have in your corner.

“Don produced Voodoo Lounge by The Stones, and he was rooming underneath Keith in the hotel [in 1993],” Neville explains. “And Keith had this album on a loop, over and over and over, it was ‘My True Story’ (the song) by The Jive Five, so I knew he was into the doo-wop. And so Don asked him to be involved, and he said, ‘What took you so long, man?’”

As such, Richards takes on guitar duties on My True Story, which also features Eugene Pitt, the lead singer of The Jive Five, singing background vocals, along with the likes of Greg Leisz on guitar (Beck), Benmont Tench on organ (Tom Petty), George G. Receli thumping tubs (Bob Dylan), and bassist Tony Scherr (Bill Frisell). It’s a real rock ‘n’ roll band, which is interesting – doo-wop is very vocal based, the focus is on the voice as opposed to the band. With My True Story, it seems Neville has stepped away from that somewhat.

“Well, doo-wop was a feel, you know?” he explains. “It was an era. People didn’t start calling it doo-wop until later, in the ‘50s. They were calling it rhythm and blues, R&B. It was a sound I loved back in that era.” Regardless, with this record, as with all his others, Neville’s voice takes the spotlight, no matter who’s in the backing band.

“There have been many highlights,” he smiles, on his career thus far, and no doubt My True Story is one of them. And yet he’s not done yet, this stellar career having no foreseeable end. “We’re talking about doing some original stuff, I’m doing a lot of writing on my cell phone, on my iPhone,” he tells.

“I’ve got maybe a hundred little parts on my phone, some [of which] will probably turn into songs. Maybe the next record, I don’t know. I still want to do some more country, some more gospel, some blues. I never did a [full] blues album.”

For Aaron Neville, it’s a love. If he can’t sing, he doesn’t want to be here. But he can sing, he’s still singing, and it looks like he’ll be singing for a long time yet.

Samuel J. Fell

Aaron Neville plays the Byron Bay Bluesfest (April 18 & 19), plus Melbourne (April 21), Sydney (April 24) and Perth (April 26).

Record Review - Walter Trout

Published in the Shortlist section of The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday April 4.

Walter Trout & His Band

Luther’s Blues

Provogue Records

While Walter Trout isn’t a household name, his pedigree is indisputable. Having played with Big Mama Thornton, Lowell Fulson, Canned Heat, and held the coveted lead guitar spot in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in the ‘80s, Trout is a sideman par excellence, one of the slickest electric blues guitar players in the world today.

He’s also carved a niche as a solo artist, which is where Luther’s Blues comes in, being his own homage to old friend and fellow blues slinger, the late Luther Allison. Featuring 11 Allison originals, as well as a spoken word piece and a Trout original (When Luther Played The Blues), it’s a comprehensive look at a stellar player, interpreted by another.

While a lot of the record could be described as guitar masturbation, it’s so tastefully done, you can’t deny it’s entirely called for. Trout is in incendiary form; whether hurtling through sonic space (most of the record), or slow bluesing (Pain In The Streets and Freedom), he pulls new meat from old bones. Good stuff.

3.5/5

Samuel J. Fell

Record Review - Robben Ford

Published in the Shortlist section of The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday March 28.

Robben Ford

A Day In Nashville

Provogue Records

Almost five decades into a career that’s seen him play with the likes of Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell and Dizzy Gillespie, Robben Ford releases what must surely rank as one of his best works yet – no mean feat for a guitarist many regard as one of the greatest blues/jazz players of our time.

Recorded in a single day in Nashville, hence the record’s name, Ford has, with the help of a stellar supporting cast (including members of Tony Bennett, Jason Isbell and Sting’s bands), continued to show he’s more than just a sideman.

Despite the recording location, the album is more New Orleans than Nashville, an invigorating blend of swamp/pop (Ford’s voice on Green Grass, Rainwater is eerily similar to Van Morrison’s), slow blues and N’Awlins swagger, courtesy in large part to the masterful addition of Barry Green on trombone. Add to that Ford’s trademark tasty guitar chops along with his ever-strengthening songwriting, and this is the mark of a man at the top of his game.

4/5

Samuel J. Fell