paligap said:

Hey Sweet!


Aye Aye!

xxx

Lovely people on Lewis site.

No bitching

No trolling

Just respect for Lewis and each other.

engima said:

True! Kool place!


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BTW, Here's a New York Times review from Jon Pareles:


Jazz Review | Lewis Taylor

Songwriter, in U.S. Debut, Traverses Styles of the 70's




By JON PARELES
Published: January 28, 2006

The only instrument Lewis Taylor played at the Bowery Ballroom on Thursday night was his guitar; his band did the rest. It was a modest choice, since on his albums he plays everything else, too, building lavish, eccentric pop structures all by himself.



Although Mr. Lewis, who is British, has been making albums for 20 years, Thursday's show was his first concert in the United States. It brought out tenacious fans who yelled requests and sang along when one of his meticulously assembled parts was missing from the live arrangements.

His demeanor was modest, too; he is just a slight, shaven-headed Englishman who joked that his band was still trying him out. At one point, he announced, "This is something that is a bit of an odd song."

Actually, they all were. Mr. Lewis is a throwback to the one-man studio bands of the analog 1970's: songwriters like Todd Rundgren, Stevie Wonder, Prince and Paul McCartney. He skews half a dozen once-disparate 1970's styles to his own whims. Among them are smooth soul, psychedelia, progressive rock and blues-rock, any of which might show up in the course of songs that can change drastically between beginning and end.

One thing stays constant. Mr. Taylor sings about love and presents himself as a man obsessed, regardless of whether things are going right or wrong. "I should have realized, no matter what you do, that I would go on feeling just the same," he sang.

He's equally obsessed with his chosen pop era. His set at the Bowery Ballroom included versions of obscure songs by Funkadelic and Mr. Rundgren (as well as Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein") and musical quotations from Genesis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. There were also songs, or parts of them, clearly modeled on Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Steely Dan and Earth, Wind & Fire. When Mr. Taylor wants to plead gently for another chance or slash through uncertainty with a guitar solo, he knows just what to do.

There have been British soul aficionados before, like the Average White Band and Jamiroquai, who added little to their American models. What makes Mr. Taylor different — and better — is that he's not content to stay within one genre.

As a pop craftsman, Mr. Taylor has reverse-engineered the music he loves: not just to emulate it, but also to graft unlikely combinations. A pounding, zigzagging prog-rock riff gave way to an aching ballad and a spiraling wah-wah guitar solo; a pop love song detoured into chromatic chords or started hopping upward, repeatedly changing key.

Mr. Taylor gave the audience a glimpse of his structures when he took requests for songs he hadn't rehearsed, teaching chords to the band as he sang. Yet even with their mechanisms revealed, Mr. Taylor's musical stratagems were overshadowed by what comes so clearly through the songs: the yearning of a man alone.





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[Edited 1/30/06 7:54am]

What a terse and accurate statement, equally applicable to Prince.

Lewis has been in the game 20 years? Really? I thought he first dropped in 1996, not 1986.

I watched homeboy on Conan. Very cool. Any idea when he's coming to Lost Angels?

namepeace said:

in the mid to late eighties, he was recording under the name Sheriff Jack....it was more rock/power-pop stuff, much different from now....



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btw, a couple o'photos from the Bowery:










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