Chris Isaak to release new album this month
aaamusic | On 14, Jan 2012
CHRIS ISAAK
Releases Sun Records album project ‘Beyond The Sun’ on January 23rd on Rhino
Chris Isaak pays tribute to the glory days of Memphis’ Sun Studio and the visionary artists who started out there under the guidance of Sam Phillips with the release of his new album ‘Beyond The Sun’ on January 23rd on Rhino.
Produced by Isaak, ‘Beyond The Sun’ was recorded mostly at the historic Sun Studio with his long-term band; Rowland Salley (bass), Kenney Dale Johnson (drums), Hershel Yatovitz (guitar), Scott Plunkett (piano) and Rafael Padilla (percussion). The album also features a guest performance by the Memphis legend ‘Cowboy’ Jack Clement, a songwriter, musician and producer who worked with the majority of the Studio’s biggest names. Isaak magically recaptures the transformative brilliance of the classic sides cut by greats such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun with Phillips during the mid-’50s, while also getting down to his own deeply rooted musical identity.
“When I started making music, I thought that if I do those songs, where do I go from there?” says Isaak. “I wanted to make sure I found my own sound and established who I was. But I always loved that music and I wrote songs in that spirit. You can go through all my songs and you won’t find one reference to goin’ to the bop. They’re about my life, not about nostalgia for the ’50s. I came to a point where I felt like the time was right to do this record. I’d met all my heroes and worked with most of them, and I didn’t hear anybody else doing it the way I wanted to do it.”
Elvis is heavily represented on this handpicked collection, with ‘Trying to Get to You’, ‘I Forgot to Remember to Forget’, ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’, ‘How’s the World Treating You’, ‘It’s Now or Never’, ‘She’s Not You’ and ‘My Happiness’ – the first song Elvis ever recorded. Isaak opens the set with Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ and later offers his take on ‘I Walk the Line’. He wails his way through Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘Great Balls of Fire’, revisits Roy Orbison’s ‘So Long I’m Gone’ and heats up Carl Perkins’ ‘Dixie Fried.’ Also featuring some carefully created new songs such as ‘Live It Up’ which were written in the spirit of the Sun Studio discography, the album is closed with a blistering rendition of ‘Miss Pearl’ by the nearly forgotten Sun artist Jimmy Wages.
“We called the record ‘Beyond the Sun’ because the music starts at Sun Studio and just keeps growing and going”, explains Isaak. “I think Mr. Phillips would have understood.”
Chris Isaak’s performances of ‘Live It Up’ and ‘Ring of Fire’ for the Jimmy Kimmel show can be seen at http://youtu.be/w-NbuUesQf8 and http://youtu.be/zI_7QAltC1I.
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