CD Review: Albertville - Corey Stevens (March
03, 2007)
Music, Video and Concert Reviews
Modern Guitars Magazine Column by Brian D. Holland
Albertville, by Illinois born and bred guitarist Corey
Stevens, is an interesting CD for numerous reasons. Though the title
is a dead giveaway of what to expect, I wouldn’t brush Stevens off
as being just another white boy forging Albert King licks. Besides the
fact that it’s a CD of Albert King covers (and songs Albert King
often covered) done strictly on purpose, there’s something different
about the manner in which Corey Stevens goes about playing in the
style of the great blues icon.
The album’s opener, ‘A Real Good Sign’, is a catchy and
beguiling tune. It’s a perfect choice for those who haven’t yet
had the pleasure to hear the music of Corey Stevens and his four
previous CDs. However, though he has covered King’s music in the
past, keep in mind that much of Corey’s previous material is more
contemporary in style than this tribute CD. His technique here is a
lot of Albert, in tone, licks, and phrasing. And I mean that in a good
way. Over the past quarter of a century, blues and blues-rock fans
have been exposed to more than enough Albert forgers and copiers.
Sometimes this is okay, in my opinion, just as long as they add their
own thing to it. After all, there’s no sense in a guitarist hiding
his most profound influences and never letting them shine. That said,
it’s the actual ‘clones’ who have a tendency to annoy listeners,
the ones who don’t add much of their own style into the mix.
Corey seems to break all the rules here. If you forget, or don’t
realize, that Albertville is a tribute CD to Albert King, he
can appear a clone at times. However, he does it in an original manner
that many players don’t have the patience for. Corey’s playing
does the late bluesman justice with respect and restraint. In other
words, he doesn’t embellish himself in the areas of volume, tone,
and substance. His playing style is very practical, in a mode that
even King himself would enjoy. In fact, I wouldn’t mind hearing
Corey play like this all of the time. Adding to the ambiance is his
gruff and mannish vocal resonance in songs like King’s ‘There’s
Got To Be Some Changes Made’, and ‘I Get Evil’. He sometimes
evokes vibes of Stevie Ray and Eric Clapton, and I mean that in a good
way as well. It’s like a breath of fresh air. His cover of Jerry
Strickland’s ‘That’s What The Blues Is All About’ is all that
and more. The driving, rhythmic song must be heard to be appreciated.
His own composition, ‘Another Pretty Face’, sits beside these
classic blues songs nicely.
For fans of Corey Stevens and Albert King, and for those who don’t
mind hearing that unforgettable guitar style replicated once again
through the fingers of a young player, and also for those like myself
who welcome it, Albertville is a refreshing tribute and an
excellent Corey Stevens offering.
Music Review: Corey Stevens Albertville
I have to admit that even after who knows how many
years of listening to pop music I still haven't
overcome a prejudice. Put a single white guy on the
cover of a disc with a guitar and call it blues and all I
can think is – great another guitar hero, just what the
world needs.
Patently unfair and completely without any sort of
basis in fact, it means a disc with that type of cover is
going to have to do something special right from the
first song in order to catch my attention. So when
Corey Stevens' latest disc Albertville showed up and had a
picture of a guy leaning on his guitar on the cover
well let's just say I had concerns.
Reading his
biography made me feel a litter better. He's been playing on the
road for the
last ten years, including a stint touring with the ultimate in Classic
Rock bands Z.Z
Top (one of the few times I'll go along with the strange way you
Americans have of
saying that letter – Zed Zed Top just wouldn't cut it) and Lynard
Skynyrd.
This means he's knocked around a bit and won't have many illusions
left, so if he's still
playing it's' because he really loves the music. The other thing that
captured my eye was
his decision a couple years back to record an album of acoustic blues
as a break from the
electric blues/rock stuff he'd been playing for the prior ten years.
To me that showed he
was also a guy who was willing to take risks musically, which meant
there was a good
chance it wouldn't be the same old boring songs as an excuse for
guitar solo stuff
you hear you so often.
Finally there was the name of the disc,
Albertville, and the fact that it was a tribute
to one of my all time favorite blues players
Albert King that made it really catch my
attention. I had actually seen an
advertisement for it and been curious as to
how it sounded even before I received a
copy from Corey's new label Ruf Records of
Germany.
Hoping the title track, "A Real Good Sign" would be, I
slipped it in and hadn't realized I'd
been holding my breath until I released it with the first sound of
horns after three or four
bars. That's when I knew I was safe – it wasn't another guitar hero
album, it was a Blues
album that I could settle back and enjoy without any worry about
somebody's ego getting
in the way of the music.
That's what great about this album, and something that is becoming
harder and harder
to find, is that you can just settle back and enjoy listening to
somebody playing and loving
every second. Stevens seems to remember that's its called playing for
a reason and enjoys
himself. It could be the six hundredth take for all we know but he is
having so much fun
and playing every note that even if you were in the studio you
wouldn't be able to tell.
What I liked about this tribute album was not only is there
material written by King on
the disc, but also tracks that he was famous for playing and that
Corey included one of his
own songs that showed King's influence on his playing style. Corey's
track, "Another
Pretty Face", blends in perfectly with all the other material on the
disc, not because it's
derivative or imitative, but because it is played and written in the
same spirit as the other
music. Being influenced by does not mean copying, it means absorbing
what the other
person did and incorporating into what you do.
Albertville is also a lot of fun to listen to because of
Corey's willingness to play
with different styles and to not just spotlight his own talents. His
use of the two horn players
for emphasis on songs, the Hammond organ pulsating in the background,
and letting a
well played base line march to the front of the mix, all contribute to
making the disc as a
whole a far more diverse and interesting presentation then similar
solo projects.
Of course the choice of material doesn't hurt either, from a nicely
slowed down version of
the Carl Perkins classic "Blue Suede Shoes", the fun of "I Get Evil"
and the funkiness of
"Little Brother (Make Way)" Corey Stevens has put together a
collection of music that
shows of his talents to their best. From his stripped down bare bones
guitar playing with
never a wasted note to his raunchy voice, trying to picture him
singing anything but this
type of material is next to impossible.
Before his death in 1992 Albert King had influenced a number of
rock guitar players,
among them Jimi Hendrix. Almost forty years after his death what I
remember most about
Jimi was not his pyrotechnics (literally and figuratively) but the
blues he began
giving more focus to near the end of his life. Sure he was
spectacularly fast
and flamboyant. But he could also play a sparser and neater style when
called for by the song.
Like all decent performers he allowed himself to be a conduit
through which the music
could pass untouched by his ego to the waiting listener. Even in the
case when the
material was something he'd written Hendrix realized the song was more
important then
he was. Guitar players are a-dime-a-dozen, but the men and women who
can interpret a
song with respect are few and far between.
Corey Stevens shows himself on Albertville to be more then
just a guitar player. He can
take a song and coax it to life with an interpretation that might be
his own, but still
respects the original material. Listening to Albertville is
listening to a collection of songs,
not guitar solo's masquerading as music. Corey Stevens may be a guitar
player, but he's a
musician first, and he definitely proves it on his latest release.
