Album Review: Buddy Guy - Live at Legends

The first time I saw Buddy Guy in concert I thought, This is what Jimi Hendrix could’ve been like had he lived longer. It wasn’t so much because of the over-the-top showmanship Guy displayed on the electric guitar. Rather, it was because of his absolute command of the instrument. Guy could be in the middle of a ferocious blues rocker, then suddenly slip into playing a nursery rhyme only to then return to his original groove without missing a step. No fancy rhythm or drum beat could throw him off. His guitar worked for him, not the other way around.

That temerity and mind-boggling talent are palpable on the newly released Live at Legends, which highlights Guy’s 2010 residency at his renowned Chicago nightclub.

Instinctively shifting from traditional warhorses (“Mannish Boy,” “I Just Want to Make Love to You”) to his own latter-day favorites (“Best Damn Fool,” “Skin Deep”), Guy is inspired throughout. In particular, on a medley that has become a staple of his live shows, he summons John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” and Cream’s “Strange Brew” with unbridled urgency and enthusiasm.

While this recording no doubt reflects the spirit and spontaneity of a Buddy Guy concert, at eight live tracks (seven if you discount Guy’s now-infamous introduction) it does not represent an unabridged performance. Three previously unreleased studio tracks culled from the sessions for 2010’s Skin Deep, most notably the raucous “Coming For You,” suitably round out the album. Still, it’s the in-the-moment magic of the primary material that makes Live at Legends such a treat.

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EP Review: Haroula Rose - 'So Easy'

Singer/songwriter Haroula Rose delivered one of 2011’s most charming debuts, These Open Roads, her reflective, mostly acoustic-folk songcraft coupled with an unaffected empathy in her singing endearing her as an artist of depth and considerable promise.

The five songs that comprise So Easy (released earlier this year) convey much the same charm while in some moments illustrating a bit more eclecticism, including broader sonic textures and some fuller-band arrangements. The title track, in particular, is an immediate standout with an irresistibly poppy, Beatlesque vibe, while “Only Friends” evokes the sort of wistfulness expressed in scenes of unrequited movie love.

With scarcely more than a piano accompanying her voice, Haroula Rose delivers a hauntingly beautiful, soul-clutching rendition of “Wichita Lineman,” distilling its underlying sense of lonesome desolation to its barest essence. Not only should this performance make the song’s composer Jimmy Webb proud, but it also deserves to be considered among its most definitive versions.

Altogether this modest set is reflective of an artist who is making good on the potential she displayed on her debut while growing more imaginative and confident with her talent.

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Sebastian Mikael: An Artist On The Verge

Sebastian Mikael didn’t write his first song until he was 18, but the now-24-year-old singer/songwriter is emerging as a versatile artist of significant talent and promise.

“I still feel like I’m always learning, always developing,” says Mikael, whose debut album is slated for release on Slip-N-Slide/Vested in Culture/Epic Records in the coming year. Early impressions in the way of such songs as “Speechless” and “Beautiful Life” suggest the album will offer a diverse range of styles and influences from old-school and neo-soul to contemporary jazz to pop.

Mikael emigrated from his native Sweden to the United States in 2008, enrolling at California’s Musicians Institute and, two years later, transferring to Berklee College of Music in Boston where he remains an undergraduate. Having learned to play guitar and piano by his own hand, Mikael says, “It was vocally that I went, for more classical training; also with writing music—like the harmony and theory of music.”

Of course having all the talent and ambition in the world doesn't ensure success, and the diligence it can take to achieve that success can be daunting. To that end Mikael acknowledges how R&B artist/producer Ryan Leslie, who was a featured speaker at the 4th Annual Business of Hip-Hop/Urban Music Symposium at Berklee in 2010, ultimately gave him the nudge he needed to shoot for the big time. “He was talking about showcasing your talent online and not hesitating on putting it out there," Mikael recalls of Leslie's message. "Even if you feel like you’re not completely developed, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Let yourself develop while you’re already out there. Really, just be bold with your talent and be creative.”

The insight continues to serve Mikael well as he nears completion on his as-yet-untitled debut, which for him is clearly a labor of love. “Right now it’s like I don’t want to stop,” he insists. “I want to keep going because I want to make this as good as I can.”

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An Interview with Tom Keifer of Cinderella

As the ‘80s were winding down Cinderella were on a heavy-metal high, having reached the Top 10 with Long Cold Winter, the Philadelphia band’s most successful effort to date. Frontman Tom Keifer had no idea how prophetic the title of the album’s hit power ballad, “Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone),” would become when in 1991 he was diagnosed with paresis of his left vocal cord — in other words, partial paralysis. “It affected my speaking voice slightly, but much more so in the singing ranges,” Keifer soberly recalls. “It just wreaked havoc on that. I couldn’t sing. It was awful.”

Undergoing intense vocal therapy to mitigate this incurable neurological affliction, he continued to tour with Cinderella despite (and arguably to spite) the diagnosis and rather daunting odds. “It really does take away your confidence,” Keifer explains, “and that’s everything when you perform. Most singers, if their voice cracks once it’s devastating to them. I went for years where I cracked multiple times a night and just had to deal with it.”

Throughout the last decade of this ordeal, in particular, Keifer, who lives in Nashville with his wife Savannah Snow and son Jaidan, has been at work on his as-yet-untitled solo debut, which will be released early next year on Merovee Records. “For a while I didn’t know if I’d be able to perform these songs live, to be honest, and I recorded them with a lot of blind faith,” says Keifer, underscoring the adversity he’s not only so far defied but still confronts. “I’m not going to say it’s going to be easy but I’m going to be able to do it.”

In writing the solo album, did you have to take your vocal condition into account insofar as what you would be capable of singing?

I tried not to. The fourth record for Cinderella, Still Climbin’, that was a hard record to write because I was in the depths of this problem and I didn’t know what was going to come out the other end. So I was writing for a voice that I didn’t even know if I was going to have or what it was going to sound like, but I decided to just write — and the same thing with this solo record.

Writing is a process where you don’t want to close any doors or windows. You want to be open to anything that pops into your head, melody-wise or range-wise. Sometimes after the fact when I’ve got to go into the studio and record it — because the writing comes first — I go, “Why in the hell did I write this melody, particularly with this condition? It’s going to be hard.” But, you know, you get around it. You get it down on tape any way you can and then when it comes time to perform it live you just practice, practice, practice, and try to get it ingrained in there. 

Can you sense any evolution in your songwriting over the years, having been in a group for so long and now doing the solo album?

I always try to write from the heart and from experience and from true inspiration. I’m not an appointment writer. I wait for a song to come to me. There’ve been times where I haven’t written for a couple years at a time and I don’t really worry about that. I know some people get freaked out, and they go, “I’ve got writer’s block.” If you’re not really pushing the issue you don’t have a block. [Laughs] So, the way I write songs hasn’t really changed over the years. I still believe, for me — I mean, everybody writes differently — that’s the best way. That’s when I do write my best songs, is when I just let them come to me and they’re real. I approached this record the same way.

The main difference on this record is I wrote with outside writers more than I ever have. Obviously, living in Nashville, there’s a huge resource here of songwriters — one of them being my wife, who has been a writer here for years and was a staff writer on Music Row and is just an amazing songwriter. She co-wrote a lot of the songs with me. And there were a few other people that I brought in, too, who were just friends, people that I’d known along the way and just sat down and wrote some songs with.… And a lot of the songs I wrote myself, too.

The medical issue with your vocal cords must be something you have to work to keep healthy.

Yeah, it’s a daily thing. It’s not something that they can really cure because it’s a neurological problem. It’s a partial paralysis on the one side. When I was diagnosed with it, they told me that most people never really sing again, or they don’t sing the way they used to. It’s not really curable, but the only way to combat it is through vocal training and you have to work with speech pathologists and also voice teachers and vocal coaches for the singing aspect of it. So yeah, it’s a daily thing, an hour to two hours every day of training. If I slack on that at all it goes backward pretty quickly.

It seems like you could risk over-stressing your good vocal cord in trying to just maintain the stamina of the bad one.

I’ve had six surgeries just to repair collateral damage, from — you put it very well — just forcing or overdoing it. So I’ve had six surgeries to repair hemorrhages and cysts and all kinds of things that have happened as a result of that. I was diagnosed with it in ’91 and it’s just been an ongoing battle. In recent years it’s been a roller coaster ride, honestly, until about three or four years ago when I started working with a vocal coach named Ron Anderson who really taught me a whole different way to support my voice and how to find those right muscles and how to train those and tune those and get the other ones out of the way. That’s the real trick, the training, because there’s a lot of different ways to produce sound. If you’re not exercising the right muscles you’re just spinning your wheels. Unfortunately it’s hard to find those because they’re the weakest ones.

Was there a moment when you consciously thought that you would not sing again?

I think when I was first diagnosed with it I was in denial and I didn’t want to accept that it was a condition that they just couldn’t give me a pill [for] or perform a surgery and fix…. I wanted someone to tell me that it was something that they could fix. Obviously, when you go to every major specialist in the country and they’re all telling you, “This is your situation,” eventually you accept it.

[I have] mixed feelings on your question because, yeah, on the surface I was, like, “Wow, this is it,” but I think there must’ve been something inside me that I believed I would sing again because I’ve just continued working at it. I think I would’ve given up a long time ago if I actually did think that. So, yes and no. At times I felt like I wouldn’t [sing again] and it was very frustrating. I’d be in the studio trying to sing parts and getting frustrated and smashing stuff and getting angry.

But your will was stronger than your discouragement.

I guess, because I’m still out there and I’m touring. I think that the best answer that I’ve found was finding the right teacher, which was Ron. What I’ve been able to accomplish working on what he taught me over the last three years, my voice is stronger than it’s ever been since I’ve been diagnosed with this. In some ways it’s better than before it happened because I’ve had to develop my voice in a different way.

It’s still a roller coaster. The frustrating thing is I can go out on the stage and give a great performance where I sound really good and everybody’s [like], “Oh, wow, he’s fixed,” but it doesn’t feel good. It feels so left-footed and it doesn’t flow the way it used to. It knocks a little bit of the joy out of it in the moment. But when you walk offstage and you step back from it and you go, “Well, coming from where I was, I was just able to do that,” the joy comes back. When you’re in the throes of it you’re just trying to make it happen.



For more information on Tom Keifer, please visit the artist’s official website.

—Photo courtesy of Thomas Petillo

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An Interview with Don Felder

His lead guitar will forever grace some of rock’s most perennial classics but Don Felder’s proverbial life in the fast lane came to a screeching halt in 2001 with his contentious exit from the Eagles and, later, the end of his near-30-year marriage. “There’s no therapist you can turn to that can repair that damage,” Felder says of these misfortunes, which admittedly left him shell-shocked and searching for solace. “You have to take a hard look at it yourself — who you were, what happened to you, how you reacted, the feelings that go along with it. And how do you resolve all of that before you go forward and continue to carry all of that baggage with you?”

Such introspection ultimately led Felder to pen his autobiography, 2008’s Heaven and Hell, and his first solo album in nearly three decades, Road to Forever, which was released last month on Rocket Science Records. Featuring such musical comrades as Crosby, Stills, and Nash as well as Styx’s Tommy Shaw, the album not only reflects Felder’s inner journey but also the peace of mind he's gained from the experience. “You have to find a way to take that and turn it into something positive or else you’ll spend the rest of your days unhappy,” he insists. “And I refuse to let myself go through life that way. That’s the feeling I tried to get across with this music and these songs.”

In writing these songs were there any moments when you surprised yourself with what you revealed?

Well, I think the whole process was a surprise to me. All of the images that I had adopted over the years — being a husband, a family man, a rock star in a band — all that was just stripped away from me. I had to go through a process of understanding how that happened. Going through such a debilitating period of my life, it was just a very tough blow to me. I had to find a way to understand that, emotionally resolve it, release those feelings, and go forward in life. And music is what I’ve turned to primarily to express myself in the past. So my salvation was to hang all those emotions and all those feelings in those songs.

Despite all the turbulence and tension that informed this album, it reflects an unmistakable sense of serenity.

It’s interesting you say that. A lot of the songs that are on that record came out of the experience of me writing my book. When I was writing my book I really had to take a hard look back at every part of my life that had led up to that, including the wonderful times and the tragic times. I’ve had a studio in my home. And as I would write the text for the book and have these feelings and emotions about things that had happened, I’d stop writing the text and I’d go in the studio with that emotion hanging very close to my heart and consciousness and I’d try to write music or lyrics about that feeling. And so to me it was kind of a dual, cathartic process that I went through in writing my life’s experiences and then writing these songs in hopes that people who have similar experiences — the loss of love, loss of family, tragedy strikes them — find some way to deal with those feelings, come through the other side, and be positive and optimistic about it.

As much as you're known for playing rock guitar, ballads like “I Believe in You” and “Life’s Lullaby” are very touching songs.

In the past, when I was writing material I was primarily writing for the Eagles. It was very much like writing for a sitcom: You had a cast of characters. You know each one’s personality. You know how they’re gonna play. If you write something too technical for [Don] Henley, he just can’t play it. If you write something too complex for Glenn [Frey], he can’t play it. So you had to write, really, within the context of that band, in the keys that the band sings in. It was somewhat constrained by the structure of that band.

When I left the band in 2001 and started writing for this record, the handcuffs were off. I could really write anything I wanted to write. As a matter of fact, I ended up writing 26 song ideas, 16 of which I finished in the studio. Then I pared it down to what I thought were the best 12. I wanted to have a wide variety of styles and song material other than just being the rock ‘n’ roll electric-guitar player. There’s plenty of that on there, but at the same time I wanted to show some depth in other areas.

If you kept playing just the same rock-riff kind of thing you’d end up a caricature of yourself.

Exactly, and that’s no fun at all. The challenge is to reinvent yourself. And I was not only able to reinvent myself musically after I left the Eagles, but also as an author by writing my life story; and then especially being able to reinvent myself in areas that I had not really been known for, on this CD.… I wanted to be able to push myself in areas musically that I wasn’t really that comfortable with. And it was a challenge to explore those areas. “Life’s Lullaby,” it’s very soft-spoken, tender, piano-based with acoustic guitar and strings — not something I had done a lot of in the past. So if I wanted to be able to do it I had to push myself. To me that’s the challenge of being an artist, to take on new genres and new areas writing and performing and seeing how you can do at it.

Does the guitar still challenge you?

It does. And I’ll tell you what challenges me the most is to take that same instrument and create a whole new voice or a whole new feeling out of it. That same instrument — if I had a guitar and I was sitting in a room with six other guitarists, and we just passed this instrument from hands to hands to hands to hands — would have a completely different voice. It would have a different feeling, a different tone. It would be that person’s touch, emotionally and physically, coming out of that instrument. That’s why so many people say it’s not in the guitar; it’s in the hands, the person who’s playing it. It’s not in the pen that’s writing the poetry; it’s in the soul of the person who’s revealing himself to you.

The natural inclination with any skill or talent is that you improve over time and with experience — and of course you’re a seasoned musician — yet you're revered more in the public eye for the music you made in your twenties and thirties with the Eagles. It's an odd paradox.

I feel extremely fortunate to have been part of some of the creations of some of those songs that had such worldwide success. I just did a show for the United Nations back in August, and it was about 300 heads of states from all over the world at this show. And when I started playing “Hotel California” they all knew the song. Less than half of them spoke English. They knew the song. They stood up. They gave me a standing ovation for that song. I don’t know how many people have ever had the opportunity to have written, performed, and recorded something that’s had such a global impact but it’s very few and far between. It’s quite an honor to have been part of something like that in my career, although that’s only one of my many children. All of the songs I’ve written and recorded, I love them equally. Some of them, obviously, have been more successful than others, but…to me that is not the real bearing of the value of the music and the writing of songs that any artist does. Of course it’s nice to have hits but at the same time that’s not why you do it.

You do it because you love it. Most people refer to music as, “I play music.” To me, playing anything is like a child at play; it has a youthful enthusiasm and excitement and laughter. It’s a very uplifting process to play music. I do it mainly because I love that feeling that goes along with playing music, writing music, recording music, performing it live.

Because you’ve had these opportunities to reflect in writing your book and in making this album, do you ever listen to something you recorded years ago and marvel at the craftsmanship or even the inspiration you had back then — considering you helped create such indelible, memorable music?

I think we all are given gifts. And I’ve been given an abundance of gifts, musically. The talent that I have, it could have very well been handed to another soul at birth instead of myself. The circumstance under which I grew up, with my father encouraging me in music and playing music in the house all the time and helping buy my first guitar, it was unique in the ‘50s; this is when all this happened for me. There weren’t a lot of guitar players.… When I saw Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show and all those girls screaming at him, I went, “That’s what I want to do! I want to do that!” [Laughs] But it really wasn’t just for the fame and the accolades and the attention. It was really because I became obsessed with music.

Not having the money to have teachers teach me, I had to learn to teach myself through just listening. There’s a thing called ear training where somebody can walk into a room now and play something on guitar maybe twice or three times and I can pick up the guitar and play it. What I hear I can play.... I’ve been given these great gifts that I’ve developed over the years myself, which I continue to develop. And I try to use those not only for my own satisfaction by writing these songs and doing records, but I do a lot of benefits for everything from St. Jude Children’s Hospital to Autism Speaks — for people, in general, that need help. If I can use that talent in another way to help someone else, I’m more than happy to do it. 

That also underscores how profound music is to people.

Yeah. The Canadians have this great organization called Canadian Music Therapy Trust. It’s an organization that’s been put together and funded nationally across Canada, and they use music as a therapy. People go into hospices where they’re dying of cancer and play music. They go in children’s cancer wards and they get them to play drums. And the joy and the happiness that comes out of music really is more uplifting and therapeutic than just about all the drugs doctors can give them.

For example, I went into Calgary last year with the Canadian Music Therapy Trust — I’ve done a series of fundraisers for them and benefits as well — to this thing called the Canadian Brain Injury Trust. It’s a big hospital where people have had serious brain injuries, whether it’s falling off a motorcycle or slipping on ice and hitting their head on a curb; one of the guys was a Canadian soldier that had had shrapnel in his brain. Most of these people can’t speak. They’re in wheelchairs. They’re very close to a state of vegetation.

When I went into this room there were probably 20 wheelchairs in a semicircle around where I was sitting. And in the back of the room there were probably a hundred relatives of those patients — husbands, wives, children, grandfathers — that were there to watch this. When I started playing some of the songs that these people knew before they’d had brain injuries — “Take It Easy,” “Hotel California,” “Tequila Sunrise,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling” — they started trying to sing. These people who couldn’t speak, they were touched in a way through music that was very therapeutic and uplifting. Music is just an amazing gift. To have that, to be able to use it in certain ways like that, is just as joyous as having a hit record to me.

Road to Forever is available now at retail and online music outlets. For more information, please visit the artist’s official website.

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