My local jazz festival, St. Javier, has a worldwide reputation for excellence but is in serious danger of not being held this year. Living in a fairly remote part of Spain, the opportunities to see world class artists for very reasonable cost is very important for any music lover.
Say it aint necessarily so!
I recently went to see the above mentioned young man in my local city’s theatre. This young white guy from Boston USA can sing like James Brown, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding – simply stunning. With his superb 6 piece band “The True Loves” he had the, any excuse for a party , Spanish out of their seats and dancing in no time.
Now I have only recently discovered this young protege and obviously the packed house knew more about him than I did. His songs sound like the stax soul of the 60s but they are all self penned, great lyrics, catchy melodies, great grooves, all in all, mighty impressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMDGKjCSnmo
Musically Paul Carrack is the best thing to come out of the UK since John Lennon. Wow – some statement but fully justified. This unlikely looking pop star, a quiet, modest and unassuming guy is a brilliant musician revered by his peers as a solo and session artist. He writes great songs with superb melodies, plays all sorts of instruments, keyboards being his main one, and oh yes has just about the most soulful voice you’ll ever here, period.
Paul has the wonderful knack of slightly changing arrangements to his studio songs to make them sound better live – something few can achieve. “Who is Paul Carrack?” people have asked me in the past and I replied “just go and see him Live” They did and now they know.
Video 1 - No doubt about it – is a classic case of the live version being better than the original studio recording.
Video 2 – My Kind – written for his daughter is pure emotion. A beautiful song in all respects with a superb guitar solo.
Living in Spain, as I do, and being a musician, as I am, means I have very strong views on music and the effect that Karaoke has inflicted upon us. It’s great for a bit of fun and nothing wrong with having karaoke evenings in bars etc. But once they start to replace actual musicians then the joke wears a bit thin. I know that in the US musicians have the same rights as any other worker and a strong union ensures they will not be cheated out of work like this.
Europe has no such safeguards and the Musicians Union in the UK is a toothless pussycat. So now, as a compromise, we have musicians playing and singing along to backing tapes, which is still karaoke in my eyes. Strangely enough this only occurs in places run by Brits as the Spanish would never consider substituting a real musician for karaoke.
The demise of live bands in venues that could clearly benefit from having them is sad. However in Spain we have 10 piece bands making a good living through the fiesta circuit which is always financed through local taxation. Imagine the uproar that would cause in the UK and probably the US too. Unlike the work obsessed countries of Northern Europe and the States the Spanish value their free time more than anything – mind you they also have the weather to enjoy it most of the time too!