Hi,
Well, ”Temptation” was finally officially released on May 24th. I’ve been waiting for it to come out so you guys could hear it. I love it , I hope that you do too. Some of the songs have a slightly different approach. I guess you could call it a little more sophisticated sound. I’ve typically had a very old school, set up and play approach to record making but I wasn’t afraid to embrace modern technology on some of this record. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of it is the band and I in the studio jammin’ the way we always have but some of the songs seemed to lend themselves to a more modern sound, so I went where that took me.
Here’s a few song by song notes
1. “Uptown Express” This one is a “set up and play” approach. It’s a party song so I wanted to make sure that the band was in the studio partying when we cut it.
2.”On the Wes Side” I’m referring to both Wes Montgomery and my home on the West side of Manhattan. I was trying to capture a vibe like Wes’s “Bumpin On Sunset” where the groove just keeps simmering along from start to finish.
3.”Metro Cafe” I co-wrote this with Chris Palmaro, who I’ve written a lot of songs with in the past - ( Dangerous Curves, Boom Boom, No Two ways about It and quite a few more)
This is live track that’s a little more on the jazzy side. It’s named after the Metropolitan Cafe in NYC where I hang out and jam a lot.
4.”Cream and Sugar” This is an interesting track because I think it really blends the old with the new. All of the production is modern with samples and such but the samples are of retro sounds and the melody is very old school contemporary jazz. Euge Groove played on this one and really sounds great..
5.”Silhouette” This rhythm track was put together by Brian Culbertson and has that urban sound that he’s so good at. Euge again sounds great on this one.
6.”Take Me Home” This is a good excuse for me to play some blues guitar. Old school funk with a rockin’ horn section. The band is groovin’ hard here.
7.”Temptation” We came to the studio one day and D.C. (short for Dragan Capor), Paul Brown’s engineer, was working on this track. He immigrated from Croatia and and has a very different slant on pop music than I do. This just sounds “Eastern Block” to me. I plugged in my strat and started playing. This was the 2nd take (the first take I was still learning the form). It just all came together easily on this one.
8."Evolution” I wrote when I was on tour with Rod Stewart last year along with his keyboard player and drummer, Chuck Kentis and David Palmer. It’s an interesting track because these guys are into a lot of European pop music that doesn’t typically influence my sound very much. It sounds pretty cool combined with my bluesier approach.
9.”Just For You” . Being the Romantic that I am I always like to put at least one love song on a record. They’re always my favorite songs to play. Paul’s friend Tommy from California Vintage Guitar shop had loaned us his Eastman acoustic guitar to check out and we came up with this tune.
10.”Have You Heard”. To me this is kind of reminiscent of the Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers stuff. Just good time music.
11.”Simple Pleasures” . I love the hook melody in this. We wrote the song along with Jonny Britt, who plays trumpet and flugle horn with Jennifer Lopez. I really dig the little licks he plays between the guitar melodies. For me it’s a great way to end the record because the I keep singing the hook over and over in my head long after the CD’s finished.
There you have it. I hope you like it as much as I do.
Here’s to a great summer!
Thanks,
