The Mail on Sunday (1.2m) October 22nd 2017
The Times (446k) 28th October 2017
The Wharf 19th October 2017
London Planner October 2017
The I (270k) October 6th 2017
Saga Magazine October 2017
ELLE July 7th 2017
Daily Star (438k) June 7th 2017
Time Out (309k) June 6th 2017
South London Press July 7th 2017
Greenwich Mercury July 27th 2017
South London Press July 28th 2017
Greenwich Mercury June 4th 2017
South London Press July 27th 2017
South London Press July 7th 2017
South London Press
May 13th 2017
BBC Radio 2 – Paul Jones July 3rd 2017
BBC Radio 2 – Zoe Ball October 21st 2017
Jazz FM August 6th 2017
BluesFest Director Leo Green is interviewed to coincide with International Blues Day
BBC 6Music – Mary Anne Hobbs September 2nd 2017
BBC Radio London – Robert Elms October 24th 2017
BBC Radio 2 – The Zoe Ball Show July 8th 2017
BBC Radio London – Robert Elms October 23rd 2017
Jazz FM June 24th 2017
On his Jazz FM show ‘The Nigel Williams Saturday Show’, Nigel Williams plugged Steely Dan’s upcoming performance at Bluesfest (at 56min in the recording).
BBC Radio 2 – The Blues Show with Paul Jones October 23rd 2017
NME 25th October 2017
TimeOut October 2017
UK Festival Guides 23rd July 2017
Get Surrey 3rd July 2017
The Independent 2nd November 2017
“We haven't played in a big room like this for a long time, so it's really good to be here,” mutters Daryl Hall, one half of Hall & Oates, the third bestselling double act of all time. The 71-year-old Hall, who resembles a rangy, ageing tom cat (think Choo-Choo in Top Cat, but in black leather jacket) does most of the talking (or muttering), while his diminutive, moustachioed partner (they’re the Starsky and Hutch of pop), John Oates, specialises in gnarly blues guitar licks. It’s a stirring performance from a blue-eyed act that – as recently as the last decade - were being sneered at by rock critics as yuppie, “yacht rockers”, but more on the Eighties playboys later. The “support” act at this impressively staged Bluesfest (which has also featured Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers) is inveterate crowd-pleaser Chris Isaak. The 61-year-old Elvis lookalike channels the likes of the Grand Ole Opry, rock’n’roll and, most of all, Roy Orbison, in his perky, generous 18-song set, which is packed into little over an hour. Isaak, backed by his band of 32 years, delivers two Orbison covers, a splash of Johnny Cash (“Ring of Fire”) and James Brown’s “I’ll Go Crazy”. The trim Californian claims he’s very “thankful” that we've come out to see his music as otherwise he wouldn't be able to wear his excessively sparkly shirt. Isaac is a droll showman but he isn’t scared to unleash a dash of nihilism; witness menacing and unsettling hits “Blue Hotel” and the magnificent “Wicked Game”, on which he claims “Nobody loves no one”. Philadelphia’s Hall and Oates are little more po-faced, but no less entertaining, armed as they are with a legion of huge hits. They kick off with two tracks from 1982’s mega-selling H20, “Family Man” and “Maneater” (with its rather dubious lyric, “The woman is wild, a she-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar”), before a rousing performance of the heinously catchy “Out of Touch” from 1984’s Big Bam Boom. There are some technical issues and feedback during their first three numbers, but a willing and appreciative crowd bellow the choruses through the hiccups and assist an occasionally croaky Hall. Highlights in the 14-song set are 1973’s exquisite “She's Gone” (which contains the immortal line “I'd pay the Devil to replace her”) and “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”, which morphs into 12-minute jam on which saxophonist Charles “Mr Casual” DeChant (who sports a Gandalf-style beard that nearly reaches his belly) takes centre stage for long periods. It’s hugely indulgent but this is a blue festival after all and it demonstrates just how accomplished Hall and Oates are as musicians. As they always were. Their naysayers have been silenced tonight, and it’s time to go for that.
Uncut 30th October 2017
Just Listen To This 26th August 2017
Steely Dan – Are These People With You? Meet the strange characters inhabiting the world of Steely Dan Take any album release, slip the record onto the turntable…and you will soon be rubbing shoulders with a bizarre slew of individuals brought to you by Steely Dan. Sometimes named and sometimes not, rather few of these coves seem, well..normal. But Fagen and Becker don’t lean towards playing straight rock. Or straight pop. Or even straight blues, as the warped yet somehow neat chordal progression of Chain Lightning seems to demonstrate. At first a tad obtuse by choice and perhaps jazz-elitist, the group developed and waned and returned over years. The pop melodies and clever chordal twists and tumbles encouraged those who sing along – and that’s a double-edged sword – and still do, with the high/mid vocal range of Fagen drawing in the female fans, unable to resist ( and who could ?) chiming in on Babylon Sisters and Dirty Work. See, that song isn’t far from straight country, melodically at least, but the grubbiness of the lyric of a despair the narrator does not really want to end put paid to any John Denver cover. Many of the rest of us continue to savour the sheer quality of the musicians brought in to bring this sonic world to life. Larry Carlton fer God’s sake, Jeff Porcaro the drummer’s drummer, Jeff Skunk Baxter, a character you couldn’t make up with his military/tech side work, Chuck Rainey, the mighty guitar master Elliott Randall ! All these fine performers serve the songs on the songs that Steely Dan put together, often producing their most memorable work cos these ace muso’s don’t always have a handle on what makes a likeable tune, which is curious but refinement of technique can mean the loss or perhaps more accurately neglect of melodic appeal to all those general public types… And how glorious when an insidious tune with a strong vocal – not shouted, ever – combines with stellar playing and hook tempo’s !! Little Feat did it with Dixie Chicken and Skin It Back, but The Dan, man !?….Do It Again, Fez, Mobile Home, Reeling In The Years…. The group’s score rate is high, maybe one of the highest. Me – I love the jazz influences and use of unusual tempo’s and keen percussion. And oh yes, I do LOVE the songs’ inhabitants….so in no order of merit or anything like that may we just list a few favourites and our reasons for including them. Though we don’t want a readers’ war of views, maybe there is a cut or two you will wish to hear or re-visit..and here we go : SHOW BIZ KIDS This was an observation at time of recording but also a Vision Of The Future. The Dan laugh at the spoilt Hollywood brats and their
Evening Standard 27th October 2017
It’s no coincidence that one of the most indemand names in the music industry is also one of the busiest. It’s around 10am in Los Angeles when I call Nile Rodgers, but he’s been awake for hours and hours, favouring ‘really early’ starts in his home studio. The disco icon thinks of himself as a “working musician”, and a hard working one at that. He’s currently putting together a new Chic record, expected later this year, and he sounds incredibly passionate about the project. Speaking about the upcoming album, Rodgers says: “I’m so, so happy. I’m doing a record and I thought I had this big old plan. I thought: ‘I’m going to pay homage and tribute to all the friends that I’ve lost…’ and then friends keep passing away, and I’m like ‘what’s going on here?’ "You know, these people really changed my life, like Bowie and all these buddies like Prince. I just couldn’t believe it, but then I said to myself, ‘You’ve got to get off this concept”. I do party music, so that’s what I decided to do.” As well as his seminal work with Chic of course, Rodgers is known as one of the music industry’s greatest collaborators and producers. He’s worked on some of the most celebrated records ever made, while his bulging contacts book these days includes the likes of Daft Punk, Disclosure and Pharrell Williams, all of which have worked with him over recent times.
When I ask what he believes people are looking for when they invite him onboard, he says, simply: “They want it to be a hit. That’s certainly what I want! I’m certainly not trying to make a flop.” He continues: “I think we’re also all a bit superstitious, so if somebody, or some studio, starts coming up with a bunch of hits everybody wants to record there. They don’t know why, but that’s just how it is and it’s always been that way. Like there’s some magical vibe in the air that they want to breathe. So when somebody calls me I don’t know what they’re looking for exactly. I always ask them, and then if they tell me I do
what they want but by this point I’m actually hearing something. By this point I’m hearing the music: I never work on stuff that I’ve heard in advance. I never hear it until I get there. That’s usually how my sessions work.” Talking about his particular approach to writing, recording and producing new tracks, he says: “I’m never trying to copy what’s out there. I’m always trying to do the thing that others will copy. It’s hard for me, because I know that I’m breaking the rules as soon as I finish the song. I’m just built that way; I’m never trying to do something that’s wacky, I just hear it that way and then I try and make sense of it. In that effort to make sense of something that’s angular and nonsensical it becomes my kind of pop record.” His back catalogue is, of course, staggering. Take even just a quick glance down his lengthy discography and you’ll find classic after classic, hit after hit, as well as an eye-popping array of highprofile names. Having played with some of the world’s greatest artists, he selects Let’s Dance by Bowie and We Are Family by Sister Sledge as his two favourite albums, but he has a hard time picking out the technically best musician he’s worked with. “It would be a list of about 20 people on the list of the technically best, starting with Bernard Edwards and Luther Vandross. As a matter of fact, in my last recording session with Luther Vandross he sang a note and his voice cracked. I turned around and stopped the session. It was funny actually, Spike Lee was filming this. I went, “Oh my god, your voice cracked! That’s the first time I’ve heard it since we were teenagers!” We’ve known each other all our lives. He said: “Oh, that wasn’t my voice cracking I was just trying to do that!” I’d never heard him sing a bad note ever. Ever! We’d known each other since we were like 16, and I’d never heard a bad note come out of that man’s mouth. "My whole life has been filled with working with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock… all these like extraordinary musicians that seem to occupy my world. So it would impossible for me to pick one out. I mean, Brian
Setzer. People forget how great Brian Setzer from the Stray Cats. He’s a genius musician.” Rodgers’ enviable body of work was recently honoured with a new BBC Four music series Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Industry, which takes a look back at his early life and career, before offering a little advice for young music makers. So, in short, how do you make it in the industry? “You have to be incredibly persistent, and it’s nice if you have some talent! I always say you have to love, and I mean passionately love what you’re doing, because you’re going to fail. That’s the one thing that’s absolutely positively, 100 per cent inevitable. You are going to fail. It doesn’t mean you’re going to fail in life, but you’re going to have failures - a lot of them. Failure, failure, failure… and those failures are going to be your number one teaching mechanisms. They show you how to become successful. Finally, we speak about Tom Petty. The legendary musician passed away on October 2, and while Nile never worked with him, he reveals he thought he was “incredibly cool”. Speaking about his memories of the musician, he says: “When MTV first became pop… he did that record Don’t Come Around Here No More. Of course, that’s not the song everyone talks about, but I just thought that it was so brilliant. He did the whole Lewis Carroll/Alice In Wonderland thing with the video. I just thought it was amazing, and I thought an artist like Tom Petty wouldn’t go there because that wasn’t his persona. You feel like he’s a more down to earth, gritty kind of guy or a traditionalists. But when he did that, it was like: ‘Oh man, check out Tom! He’s cool’. Rodgers goes on to say: “If he’d have called me I’d have been overjoyed, and I would have on my way to the studio within a nanosecond.” Nile Rodgers & Chic play the O2 on October 27. Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Industry is available on BBC iPlayer now
Just Listen To This 28th October 2017
On the Friday evening before Halloween, we travelled to the entertainment complex known as The O2 Arena to see a headline concert by singer-songwriter Jack Savoretti who has recently re-released a deluxe edition of his latest album ‘Sleep No More’. Having verbally fought through the passive aggressive staff at the box office and then witnessed a flustered Robert Elms stride over to the ticket window wearing a 1970s grey suit wanting to know where the Live Nation window was, we headed in. The entry queue was long and winding for the Indigo as crowds of people all arrived at once for both Savoretti and an evening with Chic featuring Nile Rodgers and special guest Chaka Khan in the main O2 Arena thus making the necessary security checks longer. At nine o’clock after a forty minute interval Robert Elms appeared with an introduction detailing when he first met Jack at BBC Radio London (he presents his own radio show you know?). The houselights went down and the applause and cheering echoed around the room. Backed by a four-piece band, Jack Savoretti’s strong vocals on ‘Truth Or Dare’ proved why this venue was sold out as he played off his electric guitarist with his acoustic axe. We were informed that this was Jack Savoretti’s last show of the year and that one of the first shows that he ever played was in this same room opening for Christopher Cross. The fluid organ intro on ‘Tie Me Down’ blended with the purposeful drum fills meant that foot-stomping and clapping ensued. “We are at a blues festival so we thought we would do something special for you.” Would they do a Howlin Wolf song or a Bonnie Raitt classic? No you guessed it – ‘Midnight Rider’ by The Allman Brothers. Don’t get me wrong, this is a fantastic song that suited Jack’s voice perfectly but it just felt out of place. The heartfelt lyrics of the love song ‘I’m Yours’ were well-received whilst the punchy ‘Whiskey Tango’ let the band play out. Live favourite ‘Back Where I Belong’ got everyone dancing as the rich keyboard sound flowed. It was the spellbinding ‘Catapult’ though that produced pure silence from the capacity crowd. This track has been championed by radio and television presenters including Graham Norton and because of this, Savoretti’s fanbase increased. Closing the set with ‘When We Were Lovers’ (before the encore) I felt that whilst elements of the evening had punchy delivery overall it was quite lacklustre. The main set was finished in one hour and five minutes which for someone with several albums and radio-friendly singles really surprised me. Having been touring the UK and Europe since September as John Legend’s special guest and only needing to do one half an hour each night I wonder if a mixture of tiredness and complacency set in when it came to the final show of the tour. In conclusion, he does have a smooth pleasant voice and with tracks such as ‘Home’ and ‘Written In Scars’ he does deserve the recognition he has received but compared to the last three shows I have seen from him (Cornbury Festival 2017, Royal Festival Hall, London and Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith) this was not Jack Savoretti firing on all cylinders and it was definitely not blues
Attitude Magazine 30th October 2017
Daily Express 1st November 2017
The Telegraph (147k) 30th October 2017
The Arts Desk 30th October 2017
NME 30th October 2017
The American 31st October 2017
Gest West London 3rd July 2017
London News Online 4th July 2017
Festival Flyer 1st July 2017
American In Britain Magazine (20k) Summer 2017
The Wharf June 9th 2017
The List May 30th 2017
Stereoboard May 30th 2017
London News Online June 1st 2017
eFestivals May 31st 2017
The Wharf (23.6k) May 12th 2017
Soul and Jazz and Funk Thursday 11th May 2017
Planet Rock May 9th 2017
Red Guitar Music May 9th 2017
eFestivals Site May 9th 2017
Stereoboard May 9th 2017
Team Rock May 9th 2017
Music Republic Magazine May 9th 2017
The Ear May 9th 2017
Uncut Magazine (43.2k) May 9th 2017
Jazz FM Website May 9th 2017