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Kérjen
árajánlatot! |
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| 1. | Supernatural
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| 2. | Indianola
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| 3. | There'll Never Be Another You
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| 4. | Spoonful
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| 5. | Nothin' To Nobody
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| 6. | Please Set A Date/You Don't Have To Go
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| 7. | Earthquake
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| 8. | How Deep In The Blues (Do You Want To Go)
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| 9. | Don't Worry 'Bout Me
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| 10. | Thoughtless
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Jazz / Modern Electric Blues, Crossover Jazz
Robben Ford - Guitar, Producer, Vocals
Jon Button - Bass
Karl Denson - Saxophone
Larry Goldings - Organ (Hammond)
Neal Evans - Organ (Hammond)
Toss Panos - Drums
Travis Carlton - Bass
Albert J. Roman - Package Layout
Dave McNair - Mastering
Eric Gerber - Management
George Wells - Photography
John Paterno - Engineer, Mixing
Larissa Collins - Art Direction
Oscar Doniz - Engineer
Rick Wheeler - Management
Rob Saslow - A&R
Seth Presant - Engineer
For Soul on Ten, his fourth and latest album for the Concord Music Group, five-time Grammy nominee Robben Ford is definitely 'on ten,' playing with the kind of skill and experience that had Musician magazine dubbing him one of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century."
With eight of the ten tracks recorded live over two nights at The Independent in San Francisco last April-just across town from the Fillmore, where the north California native grew up hearing the likes of B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton, Jerry Garcia, Albert King, Jimmy Page, Michael Bloomfield and Elvis Bishop-Soul on Ten captures Ford's unique style, one that combines, yet transcends, his roots in jazz, fusion, blues, soul and rock, distilling the past into the moment, with an eye on the future.
"I wanted to capture that experience of playing live," says Ford of the album, which follows his three other Concord Music Group releases, Blue Moon (2002), Keep on Running (2003) and Truth (2007). "I find it has a lot more impact than a studio recording. Music is a living, breathing thing. Real art is timeless. It doesn't have a beginning and an end. It's all about the present moment."
The album features Robben's road-tested band of the last few years. Athens-born drummer Toss Panos is a musicologist, a student of African percussion and Greek music, who has also played the blues in South Central L.A., bringing a world music perspective to the mix, while L.A.-born bassist Travis Carlton is the 26-year-old son of jazz great Larry Carlton, with whom Ford also played. Organist Neal Evans provides the distinctive B3 on five of the tracks.
The material ranges from the title track and "Nothin' to Nobody," his collaboration with Michael McDonald, from 1999's Blue Thumb album, Supernatural, and "Indianola," his B.B. King tribute, from 2002's Blue Moon, to "There's Never Be Another You" and "How Deep in the Blues (Do You Want to Go)," from 2007's Truth. There are also three brand-new Robben Ford compositions in "Earthquake" and a pair of studio recordings, "Don't Worry About Me" and "Thoughtless," as well as covers of classic Chicago blues numbers in Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" and Elmore James' "Please Set a Date."
"This was about the live experience of playing and hearing music," he explains. "What music is really about is what happens when it's played in front of people. That's when you really understand it. That's what I wanted to capture."
And capture is he does, in only the way Robben Ford can.
"Supernatural" starts with a wah-wah psychedelic guitar interlude before slipping into an evocative jazz-like riff, all of which contributes to the difficulty of pigeonholding Ford's music into a single category.
"What we do isn't constrained by the past, it's informed by the past," insists Robben. "When we play, it's not about what happened before. It's about what's going to happen next."
It's no wonder Ford doesn't want to be pigeonholed. His background is similarly eclectic, having started out touring with blues legends like Chicago harp player Charlie Musselwhite and singer Jimmy Witherspoon, then going on to play with Joni Mitchell as part of Tom Scott's L.A. Express, George Harrison on his ‘70s Dark Horse tour, jazz icon Miles Davis and fusionists the Yellowjackets, as well as rockers Greg Allman and Phil Lesh.
His version of "There'll Never Be Another You" includes an elongated improvisation that touches on Miles Davis at his most spacious, with a Panos drum solo that eventually involves the entire band.
As for his version of Dixon's classic "Spoonful," Robben says: "That's something I've wanted to play for a long time, but I never found quite the right band or arrangement to feel good about it, but it finally came together with this group. It takes a lot of nerve to do a song that was originally done by Howlin' Wolf and then a classic version by Cream. So I did my own thing. I didn't try to imitate anybody."
"Nothin' to Nobody" mutates from R&B to jazz, with a featured bass solo by Carlton and Evans' gurgling B3 organ part.
In tackling Elmore James' "Please Set a Date," Ford combined the song with Jimmy Reed's "You Don't Have to Go" to come up with a hybrid mutation. "I rarely play a straight-ahead 12-bar blues like I did here," he reveals. "I didn't want to cover something everyone's heard. I found the Jeames on a three-volume set from Chess, Chicago: The Blues Today that also included songs by James Cotton and Otis Rush. I just really like this song, but it's half-written. He's faking the lyrics on most of it, so to make it a whole song, I combined it with the Reed song."
About his love for the Chicago blues, Ford says: "There's a lot of creativity, a great variety within that context, a lot of different kinds of songwriting-great drum, bass, rhythm section stuff. For me, these things can't quite be pinned down. There are surprises within the format, if you look for them, which I do."
"Earthquake" is a new song which Ford describes as "a black comedy about the difficulties in maintaining relationships with the demands of a touring musician forced to be away from home much of the time. "I've traveled miles to find you waiting/Waiting for someone I've never been," he sings. "Being a musician's really hard work, debilitating, and pretty awful sometimes."
It's a subject he returns to in "Thoughtless," one of two studio recordings that mark his continued emergence as a singer/songwriter alongside his recognized ability as a guitarist. On these two songs, Ford is joined by keyboardist Larry Goldings, Sheryl Crow bassist Jon Button and sax player Karl Denson.
"‘Thoughtless' is a song about separation and being on the road, with the person you left back home wondering where you are and why you're gone," he says. "It's a lonely road being a musician. But this is what I do. I have to do it."
"Don't Worry About Me" continues the socio-political bent of his last album, Truth, as it points out society's ills, while also acknowledging the urge to disengage: "It's not so bad to be alone/I got nobody bending my ear."
"The war is still going on, and these guys will keep it going as long as they can make money on it," he says of the song's abrupt shift in attitude. "The song says ‘I'm cool, I get the picture, but
don't kid yourself. There are some real horrendous things happening on this planet. There's a monster rearing its head.' "
The title to the new album perfectly describes Robben Ford's commitment to his muse. He's at maximum capacity and there's no holding him back.
"I'm still inspired," he says.
One listen to Soul on Ten makes you realize Robben Ford means it.
Some of guitarist Robben Ford's weaknesses, such as song composition and vocals, are rectified or at least made less obvious, on this predominantly live release. On his fourth release for the Concord label, and first live CD in about a decade (although there have been some concert DVDs during that time), Ford is able to cherrypick better material from inconsistent albums, unearth choice covers, and generally broaden the music with his fiery playing. This, along with the natural energy generated by the stage environment, focuses attention on the guitarist's skills as a creative six-string bluesman who expands the somewhat narrow confines of the genre by adding soul and jazz influences. He kicks off the set with a lazy, wah-wah enhanced "Supernatural," the title track to his 1999 disc, and revs up the energy from there, jumping into the instrumental "Indianola." This is where Ford seamlessly combines rock, blues, jazz, and surf into a five-minute tour de force that leads one to believe that a vocal-free show might display his superb guitar talents better than one where he sings. Still, he acquits himself admirably in front of the microphone to pull together "Nothin' to Nobody." That selection from Supernatural is extended to twice its original playing time with an 11-minute version that finds its groove as Ford's guitar spars with Neal Evans' husky B-3 organ and Travis Carlton's (son of Larry) bass solo. Ford is no Howlin' Wolf, or even Jack Bruce, but he tears into "Spoonful" with enough guitar guts to make it easy to ignore his well-meaning if slightly listless vocals and concentrate on the combo's taut playing, led by Ford's tensile, stinging solo. The combination of Elmore James' "Please Set a Date" with Jimmy Reed's "You Don't Have to Go" has Ford diving into traditional Chicago blues, something he does not typically do. Unfortunately, "Earthquake," a new composition in the set (as opposed to two other fresh songs tacked on as studio versions) suffers from the same weak writing that mars much of Ford's work, although his Steely Dan-inspired solo rescues it. The concert portion ends with a rugged, funky "How Deep in the Blues (Do You Want to Go)," a highlight from his previous album Truth performed here with amped up energy. The two original tunes that close out this project are pleasant but superfluous and probably should have been saved for his next studio outing while adding more live performances to this one. Since it clocks in at only 68 minutes, there is room for more material recorded at the same shows. ~ Hal Horowitz, All Music Guide
Robben Ford
Active Decades: '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: Dec 16, 1951 in Ukiah, CA
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Blues-Rock, Contemporary Blues, Crossover Jazz, Fusion, Jazz Blues, Modern Electric Blues, Soul-Blues
Robben Ford has had a diverse career. He taught himself guitar when he was 13 and considered his first influence to be Mike Bloomfield. At 18 he moved to San Francisco to form the Charles Ford Band (named after his father, who was also a guitarist) and was soon hired to play with Charles Musselwhite for nine months. In 1971 the Charles Ford Blues Band was re-formed and recorded for Arhoolie in early 1972. Ford played with Jimmy Witherspoon (1972-1973), the L.A. Express with Tom Scott (1974), George Harrison, and Joni Mitchell. In 1977 he was a founding member of the Yellowjackets, which he stayed with until 1983, simultaneously having a solo career and working as a session guitarist. In 1986, Ford toured with Miles Davis and he had two separate periods (1985 and 1987) with Sadao Watanabe, but he seemed to really find himself in 1992 when he returned to his roots: the blues. Ford formed a new group, the Blue Line, and subsequently recorded a couple of blues-rock dates for Stretch that are among the finest of his career. In 1999, he released Sunrise on Rhino and Supernatural on Blue Thumb. Ford signed to the Concord Jazz label in 2002 and released Blue Moon that same year, followed by Keep on Running in 2003 and Truth in 2007.
---Scott Yanow, All Music Guide |
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