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Written
by David Shouse, posted by blog admin
Gregg
Stewart’s tenure as front man for the indie rock act Stewboss ideally set him
up to get a good reception with his first solo album released in March of this
year and he’s kept busy since then following it up with this new release months
before the year concludes. Twenty Sixteen foregoes his usual collection of
originals in favor of covers, but this isn’t the usual cover album either working
as a tribute or else hinting at some sort of creative block for a songwriter.
Twenty Sixteen, instead, mines the tragically extensive list of musicians and
songwriters who died in 2016 and picks songs from their discographies that Stewart
responds to in some meaningful way. The result is a collection full of low-key
surprises, deep cuts that casual fans of the artists may not be familiar with,
and an overall feeling of an artist who is revealing something to us of himself
even through other people’s songs.
We
get our first earful of those qualities with the opener “You Spin Me Around”, a
huge 80’s hit for Dead Or Alive and their legendary front man Pete Burns.
Stewart hits all the key points of the song that are instantly recognizable for
fans, but he gives the performance a twist not present in the original by
dialing back the musical intensity in favor of an acoustic setting. His version
of Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” centers the bulk of listener’s musical focus on
the central melody, conveyed by keyboards with an exquisitely light touch, and
supported by jangling acoustic guitars. Stewart’s voice is a very different
instrument than Prince’s, obviously, but he brings the same sort of musical
touch to the words while singing them in a little bit more of a straight
forward manner than what the Purple One did. “If I Could Only Fly”, a cover of
Blaze Foley’s song for country legend Merle Haggard, abandons the genre touches
present in Haggard’s version and, instead, embraces the song as a straight
forward folk song lightly adorned with organ and some lovely harmony vocals.
“Pure
Imagination” covers an unlikely source, actor Gene Wilder’s foray into music,
and recasts the tune as a languid, dreamy track with a dollop of echo added to
the vocal and some lush instrumentation that never goes too far or plays it too
safe. “Out in the Parking Lot” interprets one of Guy Clark’s most famous songs
and stays closer to the original than most, though Stewart opts for playing
things even lower key than Clark does in his performance. The album concludes
with his cover of David Bowie’s “Starman” and one of the most obvious
differences, the acoustic trajectory of the song, leaps out immediately and
means listeners are treated to something truly special with a difficult artist
to cover. Some singers/writers aren’t as problematic – their style is a less
defined, intricate thing, but Bowie is more of a chore to cover because
everything he did was so idiosyncratically his own. Stewart pursues a slightly
hallucinatory vibe with the song, but keeps it on a tight leash and just that
added dash of extra color is enough to distinguish it from the raft of Bowie
tributes and covers following his death. Twenty Sixteen is a special listening
experience, undoubtedly one that will never be repeated, and Gregg Stewart’s
mildly audacious willingness to go in this direction for his sophomore solo
effort reminds us what an unique figure he is on the modern music scene.
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