Never heard of Steve Salas?
Shurely shome mishtake.
Musical director for American Idol, led Mick Jagger's and Rod Stewart's tour bands (not at the same time, sadly). Played on and produced Was Not Was's worldwide hit
'Walk The Dinosaur'. Wrote the score for the phenomenal
"Bill&Ted's Excellent Adventure". Recorded nine solo albums, all selling a million or more. And on and on and on.
Kind of puts him in context. Yeah?
On his own admission, Salas's unique brand of funk came from his idea to mix James Brown and hard, Led Zep type rock. Although it could just as easily have been alchemised from soul, Jimi Hendrix and groundshaking beats.
Native American Salas has a new album out on the Canadian Arbor label, titled
'Be What It Is', with guest players that include Richie Kotzen, Dave Abruzzeze and Matt Sorum. But before we get to that, we're taking a look at his double CD release,
"The Essential Stevie Salas, Volume 1" aka
'The Sun And The Earth'.
Salas encouraged his fans online to choose their own favourite tracks. This 2 CD, 26 track release is the result.
As you would expect, selections from '
Back From The Living' and
'Colorcode' feature strongly, with the bulk of both Discs 1 and 2 coming from these releases.
Interestingly, the second disc has some great guest players.
It has
Glenn Hughes contributing to Salas's cover of Stevie Wonder's
'I Was Made To Love Her'; Jerry Cantrell features on '
Soul Ecstacy', and Sass Jordan on one of the two bonus tracks,
'Shake This Town'. Illustrious company indeed.
It comes with an opening essay from Salas, and continues with an amusing, highly interesting (but too short) track by track commentary.
For anyone who is a stranger to Salas's melodic, funk rock power, this double CD best of is the ideal place to begin.
Written by
Brian Monday, May 11, 2009
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