Covers album from Chris is just wicked
CD REVIEW BY JON WRIGHT AT last there’s a small trickle of new albums coming through!
This always seems to be the worst time of the year so one has to do some fine picking of what’s there.
When I received Chris Isaak’s new album, I have to admit I was slightly dubious as I always am when it comes to an album of cover songs.
But in the case of his new opus I had no need for any apprehension.
The collection of songs is his musical salute to the famous Sun Studios producer Sam Phillips and the great visionary artists whose tracks he’s laid down in that famous studio in Memphis.
It really comes across as personal labour of love by the singer and this really does show throughout the 19 (yes 19!) songs on the CD, even more if you get the deluxe edition, which I would highly recommend.
He successfully and magically recaptures the transformative brilliance and essences of classic artists such as Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis who recorded during the 50’s but what I like about it he also gets down to the nittygritty of his own deeply rooted musical identity.
The album, which is produced by Isaak himself, is recorded in the famous studio itself, where these songs found life, which adds to the whole sonic magic of the release.
The album opens with ‘Ring Of Fire’, which he sings in a low register voice full of swagger and coolness as if he wrote the song himself.
The one thing missing from most of the tracks is his famous trademark falsetto, but he duly makes up for this when he fires all pistons and full of gusto on Jerry Lee Lewis’s ‘Great Balls Of Fire’.
On other songs such as ‘So Long I’m Gone’ and ‘Miss Pearl’ he also really gives it all he has.
The album’s only original track is ‘Live It Up’ which I truly believe proves to the listener that he rightly belongs to stand next to these rock ‘n’ roll legends as it really is as musically worthy as the ones he’s covering on it.
On ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ he really pays a fair homage to the original with his silky smooth and emotive vocals that always seemed to have a retro tinge to them.
All in all, it’s a great achievement for an artist who has made these classic numbers sound like he was the originator of them.
Many may only remember him from ‘Wicked Game’ but here he has definitely won it and has given us one hell of a wicked album.