The guitarist breaks down his work on Asia’s “Heat of the Moment,” Queen’s “Innuendo,” his new solo song “Love Is a River,” and more

Steve Howe will go down in rock history as the guitarist who helped Yes craft their most ambitious works in the Seventies before leading them through very difficult years in the Nineties and 2000s as critical members either died or were sidelined due to health issues or persistent personality clashes. He’s the sole member of the early-Seventies lineup that produced Fragile and Close to the Edge who’s still in the group, which remains his primary creative outlet and touring act. But during all that time, he’s also managed to find time for 13 solo albums and other side projects like Asia, GTR, and the Steve Howe Trio along with guest spots on albums by Queen, Lou Reed, the Bee Gees, and even Frankie Goes to Hollywood. To commemorate the release of his new solo LP Love Is — out July 31st — we spoke to Howe about 10 songs he created outside of Yes, even if a certain Star Trek captain erased all of his work from one of them.

The Syndicats, “Maybelline” (1964)

I formed that group with the bass player, Kevin Driscoll. His mother was very bullheaded and determined. She went up to [producer] Joe Meek’s office in Holloway, London, where I was born, and said, “I want you to see my son’s band.”

For some reason, he did. We’d been on the circuit playing pubs. We had “Maybelline” and we played loads of other Chuck Berry songs. We passed the audition and went back there a couple of weeks later. It was my first ever recording session. I didn’t know what to expect, but we stylized the arrangement with lots of bass drum and low end. We kept the track without the guitar break and then overdubbed that on later. We put lots of spins on it. There’s a bit of Chet Atkins on there, but with Chuck’s general approach.

We got on really well with Joe, maybe a bit too well at times. He used to come onto me. He was more trouble on the follow-up records that were licensed to EMI. And, of course, he never paid anybody. Nobody ever got royalties. I guess he thought he was the genius of the thing and he’d keep all the royalties. Of course, we were supposed to get paid. I don’t think we ever did, hence EMI returned the tapes to me, being the only real long-term performer in that group. But that song was a big moment for me. First recording. I was 17.

Reed, “Ride Into the Sun” (1972)

I remember very, very little about this. Yes, was recording at Morgan Studios at the time. It was a brand new 24-track studio and, of course, it was always a hubbub of activity since there were other studios. Rick [Wakeman] and I just got invited to go play. I must say, from memory, what happened is we walked just to see, and Lou was like, “We’re going to play you these three or four songs and then we’re going to go play them. Alright?” They were clear enough demos to grasp the structure and things. Basically, we went out there and it was the old recording method where everybody played at once. My guitars were across the road, so I plugged in and it was an interesting day’s work. It didn’t have any follow-up. It was just a one-off, which was great. Lou was quite charming, and he knew what he was doing.

Steve Howe, “Doors of Sleep” (1975)

This is from my first solo album, Beginnings, and I was excited to be in full control. Singing lead was fairly scary, though. I took it on. Some of it is good. Some of it is not so good and a lot is mixed. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot more about my range and in the Eighties, I learned to sing properly. That song epitomizes the whole album. I was taking on a lot, including the bass playing as well, which I loved. Part of it was taken from a poem by Alice Meynell. She wrote the middle eight, the “Doors of Sleep” part. Because I wanted to call it that, they wanted most of the songwriting. I should have changed the title. [Laughs] She didn’t write any of the music or any of the other lyrics, but the publisher was very hard-nosed and I had to part with a considerable amount of the songwriting just because I used the title and that part of the middle eight. I’m not one to regret things, but you wonder sometimes.

Asia, “Heat of the Moment” (1982)

I introduced [King Crimson bassist-singer] John [Wetton] to [Buggles and Yes keyboardist] Geoff [Downes] back when we started Asia. I said that we needed Geoff in the band, but [ELP drummer] Carl [Palmer] and John were quite adamant that we were a guitar trio. I made it happen, though. Anyway, Geoff and John teamed up well as songwriters. Basically, they came in one day and said, “We have a song here.” All the other songs for the record were done by that point. We listened to it and went, “Well, this is good. This is really hot.” It gave us renewed enthusiasm since we had new material right near the end of our work that elevated our feelings and beliefs about where we were going. This was cited as the first single. It was immediately obvious that it was a decent song and had a good attitude about it. I tracked up all these guitars through different amps while I was doing it, so there’s masses of guitars overlaid on the power chord stuff. That was a Gibson Les Paul, but in the choruses, I’m playing a Telecaster. Basically, I got a nice chance to do some things there that I hadn’t really done before. This was a power rock song. Everything I did that wasn’t like Yes, I was more sure it was the right thing to do. I had 10 years of doing Yes. I didn’t want Asia to be too much like Yes, and this was obviously not Yes. [Laughs] But I was happy with that. But oddly enough, it became like Yes. [Laughs] It was part of the style that Yes took when they made “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” which was quite different than what Yes is known for.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood, “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” (1984)

It’s always nice when you have a relationship with people. Even if it doesn’t go on and on and on, you find other ways of working together. That happened with Trevor Horn [who briefly fronted Yes in 1980 for the Drama album and tour]. I became one of his “call to get a guitar” guys. He’d call me up and be like, “Steve, would you fancy playing on this?” Basically, doing that track on the Frankie album was just an afternoon. I brought the dobro and it kind of worked. I was really just a bit of color, some extra texture that wasn’t expected on a Frankie record. What a great album. Trevor put so much into those recordings. I did go on later to play on their second record, Liverpool, as well. So, I was the go-to guitarist at times for Trevor and I was delighted to do that. There was such a nice vibe around doing things with Trevor and his team. It was all very high-tech. I was making the GTR record at the time and I took a lot of reference from where Trevor was going. It wasn’t anywhere Geoff [Downes] was going [when he produced the GTR record]. They were two different places. GTR was going very stadium rock, but Trevor was picking up on the new Eighties sound, which he helped develop and I was hot to trot on. For me, it was a piece of frivolous fun.

GTR, “When the Heart Rules the Mind” (1986)

I don’t like exaggeration, but I think [former Genesis guitarist] Steve [Hackett] and I spent six months writing the GTR record together. At the least, it was many, many months. We wrote the album and also formed the band towards the end of that period. We got all the material. It was rehearsed. People knew what they were doing. We had a pretty good band. There was a lot of fun going on. There were some riotous moments of good-spirited humor in the studio. Obviously, [singer] Max [Bacon] and [bassist] Phil [Spalding] were a rambunctious couple of guys who were always good for a laugh. Steve was a little more serious. He had been used to running his own band with a bit more of a tight fist. I’d been used to being in a band where everyone was kind of on the same level. That may have caused later problems, but at that point we were flying with it. When we recorded “When the Heart Rules the Mind,” we thought it was going to be the main song. We could sense it with the structures and choruses. The production got quite elaborate. There’s backwards guitars and different moods in the song. There’s an awful lot of the Roland synth guitar and a lot of color on the track and singing and choruses. It’s like we were building a track that had everything. We had a lot on offer though. In my ears, though, it was over-produced. It had way too much. Strangely enough, when we presented it to Arista … [uncontrollable, wheezing laughter] they actually wanted more reverb. I’m getting slightly hysterical here because it was so funny. When I heard that on this track and that track, they want more reverb, I don’t think I was happy. It was ridiculous. There were about 10 reverb units on every song. [Laughs] Every instrument was assigned to different reverb. It had tons of reverb. But that was a joyous time. At that point, GTR were feeling a bit Asia-esque. We were confident and it seemed to be a match made in … at least somewhere near heaven. It was a very powerful time.

Queen, “Innuendo” (1991)

I was moving around Switzerland at the time, doing some recording. I had some days off and I went to Montreux because of the memories of [the Yes album] Going for the One being made there. I was in a restaurant that was slightly below the ground. A guy walks by that goes, “Steve!” And I look up and it was a Queen crew member that used to be a Yes crew member. I think his name was Martin. He said, “Do the guys know you’re here? Can you come down to say hello?” I finished my lunch and went down there, and it was a setup job. I walked in and we chatted a bit and they said, “We want to play you the album.” I was like, “I’ve got loads of time. Play me the album.” They play the album, but they save “Innuendo” for last. When it finishes, they go, “Do you think you could add some guitar to that?” I said, “I don’t think you need any. There are some great parts there.” They said, “No, no, no. We want something more.” I said, “I’ll give it a run.” They had a Gibson Chet Atkins guitar, which was a solid Spanish guitar. That is what Brian [May] had used on it. I used one of his and over a couple of hours in the late afternoon, we took a few takes, took a break, took another take. It really was just improvisation. That’s what they wanted. They didn’t want any structural type of functions that I could do. They were just like, “Play anything.” That has always been something I’ve been able to do. I don’t know how or why, but thank God because it’s something that I love to do. Very good things happen in that process before a producer can wear you out by saying, “Can you do another take?” “Well I’ve done 10! What do you want out of me? Blood?” The guys were really cool. They wrote me a letter to thank me for doing it and gave me a credit. That was it. It was a wonderful time to meet the guys, before we lost Freddie. I found that, particularly Roger [Taylor] Brian and Freddie, they were really kind. That was really a band. They were so tight. They sat together; they agreed. They were so similar. It was a beautiful thing.

William Shatner, “Planet Earth” (2011)

Get lost! Absolutely get lost! And you can print that! I played some really good things on that and they aren’t on the recording. There is none of me there at all. There is some guy playing what everybody else could have played. I said, “Look, I’m not going to play the part that everybody knows is part of that song. That’s easy. You can’t make anything of it.” And so, I did some single-line stuff. God knows what happened. But when the record came out, I put it on and there was none of me on there at all. As much as I think that William Shatner is fun and all that — I know he’s good friend of [Yes bassist] Billy Sherwood — but that is rude. To credit me and not have me on there is just about the nastiest you can do. It’s not a good thing to do.

Jon Anderson, “Now and Again” (2019)

Jon contacted me and was like, “Want to play on this song?” I said, “Yeah, yeah. Send it to me.” He did. There were some spaces on it where I decided to play. I did some Spanish guitar. That’s the guitar I use when I want to stand out, but not go through the wall. It cuts through in a totally different way. I didn’t hear that for about 11 months. I was promised I’d hear the mix. And then I got a lovely communication from Jon that said he really liked what I did, and so much so that he’d sung along with it. [Laughs] I thought, “Oh, my goodness. How could you sing with that?” But he had done it. He was inspired to join me, if you like, and sang along with me. That’s all I can really say. I heard it differently because I had all these spaces and that’s where I performed. But it’s Jon’s record and he can do what he likes with it. He has that freedom and that’s what he decided to do.

Steve Howe, “Love Is a River” (2020)

I loved doing this record, Love Is, but I’ve enjoyed all my solo albums. Half the songs are instrumentals and finding that balance really pleased me. [Current Yes singer] Jon Davison sings harmonies and plays bass on it. He’s very talented and has a lovely voice. I started the album in 2015 and “Love Is a River” was kind of floating around in there. I’d been holding onto this song for a little while and developing it, and I started seeing it as the pivotal, main song on this album. It takes me on my own sort of journey. It’s sort of like pointing towards the ebb and flow of the unsuspecting complications, but also pleasures of love. If you tried to put in one sentence, “What is love?” you couldn’t really do that. It’s a combination of emotions. It doesn’t have a place. You can say that love is in the mind or it spreads all through the body, but I think that love is a process of beauty and appreciation of nature. There is nothing more interesting than approaching somebody else who is part of that nature and part of that beauty. I guess that’s what it is, really. It’s an emblem or flag for the natural beauty of love for the world. It’s all connected together.

Rolling Stone Magazine - Andy Greene

Recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Hugh Grundy and Chris White were the latest artists to appear on Craft Recordings’ weekly series.

This week’s installment of Craft Recordings’ Shoplifting – a series in which artists and tastemakers raid the reissue label’s record bins and review their loot – featured Hugh Grundy and Chris White of the pioneering psych-pop group, The Zombies.

Grundy was the first to share his picks, including Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1969 LP, Bayou Country. The drummer and founding member of The Zombies proclaimed his love for CCR and called their enduring catalog “some of the most classic, rock country-time music that ever was.” Grundy also snagged a copy of the Traveling Wilbury’s 1988 debut LP, The Traveling Wilburys Vol.1. “What a collection of fabulous people,” he said of the band, which consisted of Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, and Bob Dylan. He added that they were “one of the few…supergroups that actually were really, really good together.” Grundy also spoke about his love of James Taylor, R.E.M., and The Beatles, who he said, “influenced all of us.”

Bassist Chris White, who stands as one of The Zombies’ most prolific songwriters, meanwhile, picked up a musically diverse selection of titles, including a compilation of hits from one of the architects of rock’ n’ roll, Little Richard. “What a giant,” said White of the late artist. He also proclaimed his adoration for Miles Davis, Country Joe and The Fish, and Leon Russel. “What a man, what a pianist, what a songwriter,” declared White, as he perused a copy of Russel’s Live at Gilley’s. White also spoke of his love of musical theater as he showed off a copy of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. His final selection, Carl Orff’s 1937 cantata, Carmina Burana, wasn’t a surprise, given The Zombies’ classical influences. “It’s just a vocal piece which stuns,” he said.

The duo also happened to grab a reissue of their landmark 1968 LP, Odessey and Oracle, which features such classic tracks as “Time of the Season,” “A Rose for Emily,” and “Care Of Cell.” “Who knew that this album would be such a success in these recent years. How honored and proud I am to be on it,” said Grundy.

The Zombies first rose to fame in 1964 with their hit single “She’s Not There,” followed by “Tell Her No” a year later. The group stood out amongst the British Invasion acts of the era with their sophisticated blend of psychedelic pop, R&B, jazz, classical, and even baroque textures.

While the band only released two albums during their first incarnation (Odessey and Oracle and their 1965 debut, Begin Here) their influence has been mighty throughout the decades. In more recent years, various members of The Zombies have reunited for new albums and shows, including a 50th-anniversary tour in 2017, which featured the group’s four surviving original members. Last year, the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

CREDITS: Sophie Smith - https://www.udiscovermusic.com/

New Studio Album ‘Ordinary Madness’ by Walter Trout to be released on August 28, 2020

Walter Trout and Provogue Records / Mascot Label Group have released a second lyric video in front of his upcoming new studio album Ordinary Madness out globally on August 28. The song, “All Out Of Tears,” was co-written with Teeny Tucker and Marie Trout. Trout shares, “In January, I was walking around at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis and ran into my friend (Blues singer), Teeny Tucker. I asked her how she’s doing, and she told me of recently losing her son, Boston. She said ‘my heart is crying but my eyes are dry. I guess I’ve just run out of tears to cry.’ I felt so bad for her and asked her if she’d like to write a song with me to honor her son’s memory using those words – and my wife and I worked with her to turn it into a song about the loss and grief one feels when losing a loved one.” The pre-order is live, featuring configurations that include 2LP+MP3, CD, Limited CD Box, and MFiT Digital, all of which are available here

For Walter Trout, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Across his five-decade career, the great U.S. bluesman’ s music has always been a lifeline and call-to-arms, reminding listeners they are not alone. Now, as the world seeks solace from a tragedy that has touched us all, he comes armed with a boundary-exploring new studio album and eleven searingly honest songs that bring his fans even closer. “There’s a lot of extraordinary madness going on right now,” considers Trout, of the COVID-19 crisis. “This album started because I was dealing with the flaws and weakness inside me. But it ended up being about everyone.”

Ordinary Madness was completed mere days before the U.S. shutdown, its cathartic songcraft and themes of shared troubles couldn’t chime better with a period in which our souls and spirits are under fire from tumultuous global events.

Admirably open about his troubled youth, and his own ongoing struggles with mental health, the bluesman had spent recent tours soothing himself by scribbling down his thoughts and feelings. It was only later he realized he’d just written the most honest lyric-sheet of his career – and felt he had an opportunity to let fans share and identify with him. “Everybody is dealing with something,” he says. “And I’m no different from anybody else. Ordinary Madness doesn’t mean you’re gonna end up in a mental institution. It’s just being human. It’s common humanity.”

Trout’s formative blues influences are well-documented, spanning from Paul Butterfield’s 1965 self-titled debut alongside Mike Bloomfield to John Mayall’s seminal 1966 ‘Beano’ LP with Eric Clapton. But as he cut his teeth in New Jersey, the young guitarist was also drawn to the maverick songwriters, taking in The Beatles, Dylan, and Neil Young’s Crazy Horse. At every step of his career – moving to California in ’74 to back up giants like John Lee Hooker, joining Canned Heat and Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in the ’80s, then flying solo in 1989 – the stockpile of songs kept growing.

This time around, Trout is doing things a little differently. Led in by an electronic intro created by eldest son Jon Trout, the song sets off on a hypnotic groove with a gloriously languid guitar break that’s anything but autopilot blues. “I’ve broken the pinkie on my left hand three times in the past year,” remembers Trout, “so the guitar playing on this album took a little work, and there’s some anger and frustration in some of the solos. I really like that solo on the title track. It took two or three re-takes. But I think I nailed it.”

From that jump-off, a career-best album spilled out, as Trout convened his band of Michael Leasure (drums), Johnny Griparic (bass) and Teddy ‘Zig Zag’ Andreadis (keys) – along with long-time producer Eric Corne, plus special guests Skip Edwards, Drake ‘Munkihaid’ Shining and Anthony Grisham. The backdrop, once again, was the private LA studio of Doors legend Robby Krieger. “The whole place is full of vintage gear, and it’s all there for you, whatever you want. The keyboard that Ray Manzarek used in The Doors – it’s just fucking sitting there. I remember, on the rhythm track for OK Boomer, Michael Dumas, who runs the studio, comes walking in and says: ‘Here’s the SG that Robby used in The Doors – wanna try this?’ Then, for the rhythm guitar on Heartland, he says: ‘Here’s one of James Burton’s Paisley Telecasters…’”

Touring plans will be announced in the coming months as The World returns to some level of normalcy enabling all artists to return to staging appearances.

CREDITS: https://www.rockandbluesmuse.com/ - Martine Ehrenclou

A camera crew from a local TV station decided to film Iggy Pop’s band even though they were far from top of the bill ... and the footage was extraordinary.

Cincinnati’s Midsummer Rock festival would probably be as forgotten as one of the dozens of post-Woodstock events that sprang up across America in the summer of 1970 – Sky River, the Cosmic Carnival, the Day of Joy, Kickapoo Creek, Rainy Daze – had a camera crew from a local TV station not been on hand to film it. It was subsequently broadcast as a 90-minute TV special, Midsummer Rock, and there’s every chance their footage would have been forgotten too – consigned to the same dusty corner of rock history as the films shot at that summer’s Atlanta Pop or Love Valley festivals – had they not elected to shoot at least some of the day’s performance by the Stooges.

That they did was a curious decision. The Stooges were far from top of the bill – the festival’s big draws were the reformed Traffic, or, if you preferred your music “heavy”, Mountain and Grand Funk Railroad, both riding high on the back of gold-selling debut albums. Perhaps the filmmakers were attracted by the buzz around the band in spring 1970. Their eponymous debut album had been a critical and commercial flop, but a certain media momentum was now building thanks to a new line-up featuring saxophonist Steve Mackay and the songs they had written for their second album, Fun House. Rolling Stone, Creem and even Entertainment World ran big features on the band. Perhaps they were just looking for something visually arresting and had heard the stories about what happened at Stooges shows: their frontman diving into the crowd, or swinging from the ceiling, or pouring hot wax over his chest.

If it was visually arresting, they were after, they got it. Watching Midsummer Rock today is a bizarre experience. For some reason, it was presented by the 58-year-old TV announcer and talk show host Jack Lescoulie, a former second world war correspondent who gives every impression of never having seen a rock band before, boggling at the sight of musicians tuning up and “checking their speakers”. Certainly, he’d never seen anything like the Stooges before. The band sound extraordinary, completely unlike every other band in the film: a battering, relentless assault of drums and distorted guitar with Mackay’s sax blowing freely over the top. When a shirtless Iggy Pop jumps into the crowd midway through TV Eye, Lescoulie cuts to an ad break, apparently assuming something’s gone wrong.

When the program returns, the band are playing 1970, Iggy is onstage on all fours, and Lescoulie is so discombobulated he feels obliged to offer viewers a running commentary on what’s happening: “Since we broke away for our message, Iggy has been in the crowd and back out again three different times. They … seem to be enjoying it. We seem to have lost him ... there he is,” he adds, as Iggy dives into the audience again, still howling the song’s chorus: “I feel alright! I feel alright!”

What happens next is etched in Stooges legend. The crowd hoist him up above their heads, holding on to his legs. He poses, then grabs a jar proffered by an audience member: “That’s peanut butter,” says a bemused Lescoulie, as Iggy smears it over his chest and throws handfuls of it into the audience. At one moment, he stands fully upright and points ahead of him with a silver-gloved hand, while somewhere behind him, the band pounds, and howls away. It’s one of the great images in rock history: he looks fantastic, simultaneously feral, and majestic, heroic. We’re accustomed to thinking of audiences in the late 60s and early 70s being shocked or horrified by the Stooges’ live performances, an impression reinforced by the notorious live album Metallic KO. But the one time a professional camera crew caught them in action, they caught them at a moment of complete triumph. Then Iggy falls back into the crowd and the footage cuts away to a cheery reporter gamely asking monosyllabic audience members where they’ve travelled from and if they’re having fun.

Incredibly, by the time Midsummer Rock was broadcast in August, the Stooges’ career was unravelling. Laudatory reviews couldn’t convince radio to play the claustrophobic, uncompromising Fun House. Bass player Dave Alexander was sacked after a disastrous performance at another festival, Goose Lake. Their manager quit. Almost immediately, his replacement introduced the band to heroin. By autumn, they were playing irregular gigs for which they would get paid not with money, but smack. Weeks later, their record label Elektra asked for their advance back. The original Stooges were over.

CREDITS: https://www.theguardian.com/