MP3 Saiichi Sugiyama (1st album 1994) - BLUES: English Style

Blues Songwriter

11 MP3 Songs
BLUES: English Style, ROCK: Classic Rock



Details:
The eleven tracks on Sugiyama's first album released in 1994, simply titled with his name, are made up of his compositions and blues numbers. The album features a dark and moody version of Wolf's "Who's Been Talkin" with a Peter Green-esque lead guitar and Zoot Money in a dark mood on his Hammond, a rocker "Pretty Tanya", mellow "China Doll", epic "Never Turn Back" and "Somewhere Down the Road" which has since become Sugiyama's signature tune.

The album was recorded in two separate sessions with Sugiyama co-producing with his then manager, Gordon Sutherland. The seven original songs were recorded with his then touring band members at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales (built by Dave Edmonds) in April 1994, while Stone Roses were recording their second album in the studio next door. His band at the time featured Justin Hildreth dms (Joan Armatrading band), Phil Williams bs(Rick Wakeman, Keith Emmerson, Kim Wilde, Walk On Fire), Andy Smith ky (Hot Chocolate) and Mike Caswell rhyth gtr(Cozy Powell, Brian May, Walk on Fire). The session ace Steve Williams played the percussion and Tony Collins from LA (Diana Ross) provided backing vocals.

The remaining blues tracks came out of Saiichi jamming with guest musicians Zoot Money and The Cutting Crew rhythm section at Jacobs Studios in Farnham, Surrey later in 1994.

Much of the material on many of the tracks was recorded live in the studio. Saiichi's guitar solos on Somewhere Down the Road, China Doll, What's Going On, as well as all of the solos on the blues tracks are first takes. The basic tracks were overdubbed at Jacobs where amongst other things, percussion, horn sections, backing vocals, guitar parts through two rotating Lesley speakers, and voices of Japanese crickets (!) were added. The sessions were engineered by Phil Ault who worked on, among other sessions, Free's Heartbreaker album at Island Studios. Saiichi was able to draw on Phil's experience of recording Paul Kossoff's amazing guitar sound on that album.