THE RIDES
''CAN'T GET ENOUGH''
AUGUST 8 2013
48:11
1 - Roadhouse/5:04
2 - That's A Pretty Good Love/2:49
3 - Don't Want Lies/4:38
4 - Search And Destroy/2:26
5 - Can't Get Enough Of Your Love/6:10
6 - Honey Bee/7:15
7 - Rockin' The Free World/6:06
8 - Talk To Me Baby/3:44
9 - Only Teardrops Fall/4:51
10 - Word Game/4:44
ABOUT
From a chance meeting at a Super Bowl jam session, Stephen Stills invited Kenny Wayne Shepherd to join him for an homage to his legendary "Super Session" Album. Musically, it was close to love at first sight, or perhaps first riff! What started as a fun idea turned into a year-long project, with songwriting woodshedding and of course, explosive guitar playing by two of the all time greats with production by Talking Heads alumn Jerry Harrison. Stephen has not sounded so good since his CSN&Y glory days with "Don't Want Lies" and "Only Teardrops Fail". He also contributes "Word Game" - a vintage Buffalo Springfield politico anthem. Kenny Wayne who entered the scene as a great white hope of the blues at age 15 almost 20 years ago, has matured into the best player of his generation. He even sings and sounds fantastic. Check out the guitar interplay on "Honey Bee" (with Barry Goldberg's fabulous piano) on "Talk To Me Baby" and Neil Young's classic "Rockin' In The Free World". With Stills, Shepherd, and Goldberg joining forces to create the supergroup, The Rides, the sky's the limit!
STEPHEN STILLS, KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD AND BARRY GOLDBERG FORM “THE RIDES,” A BLUES-ROCK SUMMIT WITH A DEBUT ALBUM—“CAN’T GET ENOUGH”—PRODUCED BY JERRY HARRISON
SET FOR RELEASE AUGUST 27
GENERATION-SPANNING TRIO BLISTERS THROUGH CO-WRITTEN ORIGINALS AND COVERS OF CLASSICS BY ARTISTS INCLUDING MUDDY WATERS, ELMORE JAMES, IGGY POP & THE STOOGES, AND NEIL YOUNG
Los Angeles, CA, May 9, 2013: No stranger to top flight musical partnerships, legendary singer-songwriter and Buffalo Springfield/CSN/CSN&Y principal Stephen Stills unites with fellow guitar slinger Kenny Wayne Shepherd and venerable Electric Flag keyboardist Barry Goldberg to form the new all-star blues-rock group The Rides. The multi-generational outfit’s debut album, Can’t Get Enough, is set for CD, digital, and vinyl release August 27 on 429 Records. Featuring four co-written originals, a handful of covers, and a vintage, previously unrecorded Stills gem, Can’t Get Enough was inspired by—and is an homage to—the now-classic 1968 album Super Session, which featured Stills on guitar on one side, and the late Mike Bloomfield on the other (Bloomfield had founded Electric Flag with Goldberg, who also played on Super Session, as did Blood, Sweat & Tears keyboardist Al Kooper). As The Rides bring a historic and distinctively American musical form into the 21st century, Stills calls them “the blues band of my dreams.” The Rides will embark on a world tour beginning in September. Dates TBD.
The project began with Stills and Goldberg writing together at their mutual manager Elliot Roberts’ recommendation. “It was like finding a long lost soul brother,” says Goldberg (who hadn’t met Stills before, their shared 1968 credit notwithstanding). “We connected on so many things, started jamming, and soon had begun writing our first song.” Next came Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and their three-way chemistry was immediate and intense. “The Rides are a perfect mix of generations, where three musicians who love and play the blues collide and create music that goes beyond all our other individual life experiences and career achievement,” says 35-year-old, Shepherd, who’s had six #1 Blues albums. “Stephen and I have rock backgrounds as well, but the blues is the fabric that holds this all together.” Stills says, “It was just really magical with the three of us, one of the best times I’ve had in my musical career.”
That exhilarating creative sorcery blasts through ten fire-breathing tracks, four of them Stills/Shepherd/Goldberg co-writes including the album-opening barnburner “Roadhouse”—about the life of an itinerant bluesman—the melodic, CSN-esque “Don’t Want Lies,” and the title track, a groove soaked, guitar-heavy anthem with a soul-baring lead vocal by Stills. Other highlights include a Crazy Horse-caliber send-up of “Rockin’ In The Free World”—“Everyone gets off on this one,” says Goldberg, “just a ton of electricity on this Neil Young classic.” The four additional covers are the tracks on which Shepherd sings lead, including “Talk To Me Baby” and “Honey Bee” by blues giants Elmore James and Muddy Waters, respectively, and Iggy Pop & The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy,” which The Rides truly make their own. The album closes with the raucous “Word Game,” a song Stills wrote during his late ’60s era with Buffalo Springfield, but never recorded. “It was an old acoustic song that I had fun adapting to an electric band,” he says.
The in-the-moment energy and unscripted emotion of Can’t Get Enough, however, are among the album’s greatest strengths, as is the powerhouse guitar interplay between Stills and Shepherd, and the stellar accompaniment from Goldberg—who, as a teenager in his native Chicago, sat in with Muddy Waters, Otis Rush and Howlin’ Wolf, and went on to play keyboards for Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, formed The Electric Flag, and composed with Gerry Goffin. The album was recorded live in the studio over the course of about a week at EastWest in Los Angeles, helmed by longtime Shepherd producer Jerry Harrison, a renowned musician in his own right (Talking Heads, Modern Lovers, Casual Gods). Mostly first or second takes made the album’s final cut. In addition to Layton—Shepherd’s drummer, and also a veteran of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Double Trouble—the players include bassist Kevin McCormick (CSN, Jackson Browne).
“In the spirit of that simple, raw authentic 40s and 50s blues music the three of us love, we got in there and boom! A few takes and we were done,” says Stills. “The songs have muscle, they don’t sound dated or contrived, they’re very natural and organic. I can’t wait to tour with these guys and start recording again!”
THE RIDES
Featuring Stephen Stills, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Barry Goldberg
Separated in age by a musical generation but bonded by a mutual love of classic cars and the blues, two time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Stephen Stills and five-time Grammy nominated singer, guitarist and songwriter Kenny Wayne Shepherd draw fire from their extraordinary collective histories--and join forces with famed Chicago rock/blues keyboardist Barry Goldberg--to blaze a fresh trail for the historical American art form in the 21st Century.
Launching an exciting new chapter in each of their storied careers, the trio’s new band The Rides—which Stills dubs “the blues band of my dreams,” built to last beyond the concept of a one time all-star gathering—is further powered by the explosive rhythm section of bassist Kevin McCormick and Shepherd’s longtime drummer Chris Layton (also a veteran of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble). Their 429 Records debut Can’t Get Enough, helmed by longtime Shepherd producer Jerry Harrison, is a fascinating historical sweep, featuring a hard hitting mix of Stills-Goldberg-Shepherd penned blues/rock originals, classic blues tunes by Muddy Waters (“Honey Bee”) and Elmore James (“Talk To Me Baby”) and blistering twists on Stills’ favorite Neil Young anthem “Rockin’ In The Free World” and the Iggy Pop & The Stooges’ early 70s classic “Search and Destroy.”
For each principal, the inexplicable, free flowing chemistry and collective energy they shared during that high octane week of mostly first and second takes recorded at EastWest Studios on Sunset Blvd. took their creative A-games to transcendent places. “Barry and I got rid of everything we have learned over the past 40 years about how to screw up a record,” says Stills, who launched his career with Buffalo Springfield in the mid 60s, penning the generation defining “For What It’s Worth” before cementing his legend with Crosby, Stills & Nash (and among many classic hits, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Dark Star,” “Southern Cross” and “Love The One You’re With”) over the ensuing decades. “In the spirit of that simple, raw authentic 40s and 50s blues music the three of us love, we got in there and boom! A few takes and we were done. The songs have muscle, they don’t sound dated or contrived, they’re very natural and organic. It’s been the most magical experience of my life and I can’t wait to tour with these guys and start recording again!”
“The Rides are a perfect mix of generations, where three musicians who love and play the blues collide and create music together that go beyond all our other life experiences and career achievements,” says the 35 year old Shepherd, whose accolades in the rock and blues realms since signing his first record deal with Giant Records at 16 include two Billboard Music Awards, two Orville H. Gibson Awards, the Blues Foundation’s Keeping The Blues Alive Awards, two Blues Music Awards and six #1 blues albums. “This is a whole new kind of ensemble for me. I built my own band, which includes Chris Layton, from the ground up, and at the end of the day I’m calling all the shots. But working with Stephen and Barry in The Rides is the first time I’ve been a member of a band where everyone contributes equally to the songwriting and creative and business decisions. It’s something I have wanted to do for a long time.”
Barry Goldberg’s decades of contributions to the blues and rock realms are formidable. As a teenager in his native Chicago, he sat in with Muddy Waters, Otis Rush and Howlin’ Wolf. He played keyboards for Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, formed The Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield and later helmed the Barry Goldberg Reunion. Goldberg’s songs (some co-written with Gerry Goffin) have been recorded by everyone from Rod Stewart, Gladys Knight and Joe Cocker to Steve Miller, Percy Sledge, Gram Parsons and B.J. Thomas. He has also received a Grammy nomination for producing and playing on Percy Sledge's Blue Night. More recently, he has been touring with the Chicago Blues Reunion Band and produced “Born in Chicago,” a documentary about the city’s younger musicians creating a blues/rock explosion from what they learned from the bluesmen who migrated there from the Delta. The film recently premiered at the 2013 South By Southwest Conference.
“Just hanging out and working with masters like Stephen and Kenny was one of the most soulful times I can ever remember having in the studio,” says Goldberg. “Working as a film and TV composer for many years, I had taken way too long a hiatus from my first love, the blues, until a few years ago. What they brought back to me is immeasurable, just reconnecting with the reason I started playing in the first place. I liked working for other people, but I had missed this kind of collaboration and the spontaneity that comes from this kind of immediate interaction and live playing. It’s really a full circle thing for me, and I’m enjoying playing as much as I did when I started in the 60s. As proud as we are of Can’t Get Enough, fans are going to see something even more exciting from us when we start getting out there and playing these songs live.”
Decades before Stills and Goldberg’s mutual manager Elliot Roberts—who has worked with Stills since his Buffalo Springfield days—planted the seeds for Can’t Get Enough with his suggestion that they hook up and start writing together, the two veteran musicians appeared on separate sides of the 1968 seminal jam album Super Session, conceived by Blood, Sweat & Tears founder Al Kooper. (Side 1 featured Mike Bloomfield on guitar, with Goldberg on two cuts, while Side 2 featured Stills). Stills says, “I’m not sure how or why I didn’t meet Barry when we both contributed to that recording, but despite being raised in different regions, him from Chicago and me the Southern white kid, we got together and discovered a mutual love for Little Walter, Elmore James, Ray Charles and all the great blues players of the 40s and 50s. That’s also the common thread Barry and I share with Kenny Wayne, despite being from different generations.”
Goldberg adds, “When I first went over to Stephen’s house to start writing, it was like finding a long lost soul brother. We connected on so many things and started jamming and soon had written our first song for the project, from which we got the album title.”
Roberts’ idea to reach out to Shepherd about bringing him into the project was ironic because of a unique musical connection that Stills and Shepherd had - a night jamming at a private party before the 2007 Super Bowl, hosted by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. As Shepherd recalls the night, he took the stage with Mike Mills from REM, John Mellencamp and drummer Kenny Aranoff and halfway through the second song, Stills jumped up and started jamming with them for the next few hours. Looking back, Stills finds it hilarious that the combination of his hearing loss and Aranoff’s drumming power overwhelmed his ability to hear Shepherd’s guitar. Though he and Shepherd hung out and interacted casually at other Colts games over the years, when Roberts suggested Shepherd for the project, Stills at first didn’t realize this was the guy he had shared the stage with that night. This unique background story brought irony and humor into their dynamic and spontaneous musical mix, which Stills compares to the otherworldly excitement he experienced jamming with Jimi Hendrix at their respective studios in the wake of the legendary Monterey International Pop Music Festival in 1967.
“Long story short, Kenny Wayne got together with me and Barry, we started working on some songs and everything happened very quickly, like Kenny Wayne and I were cousins or something,” Stills says. “I love him, he’s a great guitar player and one of the nicest people I know. All the great blues musicians I wanted to play with over the years had their own bands and because I was always busy with my harmony group, I never had time to find the right combination of people. As good as I think The Rides are now, I can’t wait till we get some live gigs under our belt.”
When Shepherd entered the picture, Stills and Goldberg had three songs that were close to being finished, which the guitarist later contributed to; they then began writing more songs and later chose a unique array of cover tunes. Their original collaborations include the heartfelt ballad “Only Teardrops Fall,” the searing and emotional “Can’t Get Enough,” the brooding, image rich “RoadHouse” and the reflective plea “Don’t Want Lies.” “Word Game” is a socially conscious song about the hypocrisy of the world which Stills wrote several decades ago but never recorded. The lead vocals are almost evenly split with Stills taking six and Shepherd taking four of the cover songs, “That’s A Pretty Good Love,” “Talk To Me Baby,” “Search and Destroy” and “Honey Bee.”
“From our initial songwriting session to our sessions at East West, everything happened effortlessly, and the creative process was invigorating,” says Shepherd. “We wrote the songs in a week and did the recording in a week. Can’t Get Enough has honest performances recorded the way old albums were made, using analog 2 inch tape with everyone playing in the same room together. When established musicians get together the way we did, everyone’s bringing different experience and musical contributions to the table, and you never know what it’s going to be like. But despite the so called ‘star power,’ we really didn’t have big expectations. We just wanted to have fun and play music together, with nothing contrived. The first day we started writing together, we became aware that this was a special chemistry and what began as a cool concept for the three of us to work together evolved naturally into a real working band that is creating and developing its own sound.”
Echoing his partner, Stills adds, “I’m absolutely dedicated to this group, including the rhythm section combination of Kevin McCormick and Chris Layton, who keeps a pocket on the drums that no one else can. We’re joined at the hip and nothing’s going to change that. These are the guys I’ve been waiting for to play the blues with.”
Track By Track Commentary
“Road House”
Barry: “It’s a story about really living the blues, which draws a bit from Stephen’s early days playing frat parties. We mention Highway 49, which is considered the Crossroads Blues Highway. It’s probably my favorite track on the album.”
Kenny: “This one full on started from scratch, with us jamming and me playing the initial guitar riff. We built the song and it’s a bit biographical, about what a blues player goes through in his life on the road. This is our testament to the fact that we love to play the blues. There are also some cool rusted out car references that I love.
Stephen: “It’s a combination of characters I have known and things I have done. It’s fictitious but sometimes more than that.”
“That’s A Pretty Good Love”
Barry: “Just A loose, fun song, a la “Hit The Road Jack.”
Kenny: “I was driving home from the studio one night after a recording session, listening to the XM Sirius blues channel and this song by legendary female blues singer Big Maybelle came on. I had never heard it before, but knew we could do a great version of this. Stephen wasn’t hip on it either and there was some hesitancy, but eventually we all three agreed it would be a great fit, with me on vocals.”
“Don’t Want Lies”
Barry: “To me, this is the most beautiful song on the album, pure original Stephen.”
Kenny: “This started off with a riff I wrote 12 years ago that was lingering in the back of my mind. I brought it to the songwriting process and Stephen liked it on the spot and wrote a beautiful vocal melody, which blossomed into an incredible track.”
Stephen: “Kenny started playing this great lick and I was like, ‘what’s that?’ We found the chords that went with it, then started a melody and Barry came up with the melody for the chorus and we wrote a nursery rhyme lyric before I rewrote it later into something more poetic.”
“Search and Destroy”
Barry: (Producer) Jerry Harrison brought that in and Stephen and I weren’t sure about it at first. I honestly wasn’t too familiar with Iggy Pop, but Kenny loved it immediately and when Stephen’s daughter and Elliot’s son told us they thought it was cool, Stephen and I looked at each other and thought it was worth a shot. Love the high energy and Kenny’s killer vocal on it.”
Kenny: “When Jerry brought it in as a possibility I thought it would end up being cool and basically sold Stephen and Barry on it based on the energy level and intensity. It sounds young and fresh and we put our own stamp on it. The original by the Stooges is more primal.”
Stephen: “This was a great accident waiting to happen, a great choice that I resisted at first. I wasn’t familiar with it, then once I played it, it was the coolest thing I ever did. I put a Keith Richards spin on it and it sounds like a really good punk band is playing it.”
“Can’t Get Enough”
Barry: “This is an anthem which Stephens’ soulful singing tore the heart out of. It’s really about how happy we were with our present situation and opportunity to do music together. It’s a story song about how lucky people can be when fate just sort of stumbles in. When you walk through the door, all your troubles turn around.”
Kenny: “It’s a low down, greasy sounding track that’s groove heavy, with heavy guitars and a gritty, raspy vocal. It’s a hardcore love song.”
“Honey Bee”
Barry: “A sweet tune, and a real testament to the enduring legacy of Muddy Waters, who I had the privilege of playing with many years ago.’
Kenny: “This was the first cover song idea I brought to the table, and it’s my first time being able to sing this kind of classic blues. I love it because unlike a lot of blues songs which are about troubles in life, this is a song about a guy who loves his woman and is running around town on the lookout. I am attracted to old blues songs that glorify women and relationships and look at them in a positive way.”
Stephen: “For me, this dates back to high school when I first heard it!”
“Rockin’ In The Free World”
Barry: “Everyone gets off on this one. Just a ton of electricity on this Neil Young classic.”
Kenny: “Pretty simple. Stephen was trying to come up with one more outside song and he texted this to me as a possibility. I loved it. Stephen and Neil have an amazing history and Stephen likes to cover some of this older material, so it was a great choice.”
Stephen: “My favorite Neil Young song.”
“Talk To Me Baby”
Barry: “Talk about rockin’ the blues. This is my favorite kind of shuffle blues, the Chicago shuffle.”
Kenny: “A great Elmore James shuffle tune. The hook was underused in the original version so we played it up. It’s a great song about a guy diggin’ on his girlfriend.”
“Only Teardrops Fall”
Barry: This is a sweet and soulful number that started with mutual life experiences Stephen and I talked about. It’s about passing through a wall of time and then coming back to the present, where you realize it’s better than anything in the past. Sort of like the girl got away, but maybe that’s a good thing.”
Kenny: “A real sleeper, super hooky. Once we started playing these songs for people, we found that women really responded to this one. It tells the story of a guy looking back on his life and his mistakes and the things he would have liked to have done differently. Stephen and I both play guitar on this and have fun trading sections.”
“Word Game”
Barry: “Love the raucous energy of this and the truly monumental lyrics by Stephen.”
Kenny: “To me this is classic Stephen, conveying the type of message about the world that he is so well known for. He’s just calling people on their hypocritical bullshit. He never recorded it but he has been performing it live over the years.”
Stephen: “It was an old acoustic song that I had fun adapting to an electric band. It probably could have used an extra day of practice but because Chris Layton’s groove is so good, we chose to go with what we had.”
DoWnLoAd
''CAN'T GET ENOUGH''
AUGUST 8 2013
48:11
1 - Roadhouse/5:04
2 - That's A Pretty Good Love/2:49
3 - Don't Want Lies/4:38
4 - Search And Destroy/2:26
5 - Can't Get Enough Of Your Love/6:10
6 - Honey Bee/7:15
7 - Rockin' The Free World/6:06
8 - Talk To Me Baby/3:44
9 - Only Teardrops Fall/4:51
10 - Word Game/4:44
ABOUT
From a chance meeting at a Super Bowl jam session, Stephen Stills invited Kenny Wayne Shepherd to join him for an homage to his legendary "Super Session" Album. Musically, it was close to love at first sight, or perhaps first riff! What started as a fun idea turned into a year-long project, with songwriting woodshedding and of course, explosive guitar playing by two of the all time greats with production by Talking Heads alumn Jerry Harrison. Stephen has not sounded so good since his CSN&Y glory days with "Don't Want Lies" and "Only Teardrops Fail". He also contributes "Word Game" - a vintage Buffalo Springfield politico anthem. Kenny Wayne who entered the scene as a great white hope of the blues at age 15 almost 20 years ago, has matured into the best player of his generation. He even sings and sounds fantastic. Check out the guitar interplay on "Honey Bee" (with Barry Goldberg's fabulous piano) on "Talk To Me Baby" and Neil Young's classic "Rockin' In The Free World". With Stills, Shepherd, and Goldberg joining forces to create the supergroup, The Rides, the sky's the limit!
STEPHEN STILLS, KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD AND BARRY GOLDBERG FORM “THE RIDES,” A BLUES-ROCK SUMMIT WITH A DEBUT ALBUM—“CAN’T GET ENOUGH”—PRODUCED BY JERRY HARRISON
SET FOR RELEASE AUGUST 27
GENERATION-SPANNING TRIO BLISTERS THROUGH CO-WRITTEN ORIGINALS AND COVERS OF CLASSICS BY ARTISTS INCLUDING MUDDY WATERS, ELMORE JAMES, IGGY POP & THE STOOGES, AND NEIL YOUNG
Los Angeles, CA, May 9, 2013: No stranger to top flight musical partnerships, legendary singer-songwriter and Buffalo Springfield/CSN/CSN&Y principal Stephen Stills unites with fellow guitar slinger Kenny Wayne Shepherd and venerable Electric Flag keyboardist Barry Goldberg to form the new all-star blues-rock group The Rides. The multi-generational outfit’s debut album, Can’t Get Enough, is set for CD, digital, and vinyl release August 27 on 429 Records. Featuring four co-written originals, a handful of covers, and a vintage, previously unrecorded Stills gem, Can’t Get Enough was inspired by—and is an homage to—the now-classic 1968 album Super Session, which featured Stills on guitar on one side, and the late Mike Bloomfield on the other (Bloomfield had founded Electric Flag with Goldberg, who also played on Super Session, as did Blood, Sweat & Tears keyboardist Al Kooper). As The Rides bring a historic and distinctively American musical form into the 21st century, Stills calls them “the blues band of my dreams.” The Rides will embark on a world tour beginning in September. Dates TBD.
The project began with Stills and Goldberg writing together at their mutual manager Elliot Roberts’ recommendation. “It was like finding a long lost soul brother,” says Goldberg (who hadn’t met Stills before, their shared 1968 credit notwithstanding). “We connected on so many things, started jamming, and soon had begun writing our first song.” Next came Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and their three-way chemistry was immediate and intense. “The Rides are a perfect mix of generations, where three musicians who love and play the blues collide and create music that goes beyond all our other individual life experiences and career achievement,” says 35-year-old, Shepherd, who’s had six #1 Blues albums. “Stephen and I have rock backgrounds as well, but the blues is the fabric that holds this all together.” Stills says, “It was just really magical with the three of us, one of the best times I’ve had in my musical career.”
That exhilarating creative sorcery blasts through ten fire-breathing tracks, four of them Stills/Shepherd/Goldberg co-writes including the album-opening barnburner “Roadhouse”—about the life of an itinerant bluesman—the melodic, CSN-esque “Don’t Want Lies,” and the title track, a groove soaked, guitar-heavy anthem with a soul-baring lead vocal by Stills. Other highlights include a Crazy Horse-caliber send-up of “Rockin’ In The Free World”—“Everyone gets off on this one,” says Goldberg, “just a ton of electricity on this Neil Young classic.” The four additional covers are the tracks on which Shepherd sings lead, including “Talk To Me Baby” and “Honey Bee” by blues giants Elmore James and Muddy Waters, respectively, and Iggy Pop & The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy,” which The Rides truly make their own. The album closes with the raucous “Word Game,” a song Stills wrote during his late ’60s era with Buffalo Springfield, but never recorded. “It was an old acoustic song that I had fun adapting to an electric band,” he says.
The in-the-moment energy and unscripted emotion of Can’t Get Enough, however, are among the album’s greatest strengths, as is the powerhouse guitar interplay between Stills and Shepherd, and the stellar accompaniment from Goldberg—who, as a teenager in his native Chicago, sat in with Muddy Waters, Otis Rush and Howlin’ Wolf, and went on to play keyboards for Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, formed The Electric Flag, and composed with Gerry Goffin. The album was recorded live in the studio over the course of about a week at EastWest in Los Angeles, helmed by longtime Shepherd producer Jerry Harrison, a renowned musician in his own right (Talking Heads, Modern Lovers, Casual Gods). Mostly first or second takes made the album’s final cut. In addition to Layton—Shepherd’s drummer, and also a veteran of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Double Trouble—the players include bassist Kevin McCormick (CSN, Jackson Browne).
“In the spirit of that simple, raw authentic 40s and 50s blues music the three of us love, we got in there and boom! A few takes and we were done,” says Stills. “The songs have muscle, they don’t sound dated or contrived, they’re very natural and organic. I can’t wait to tour with these guys and start recording again!”
THE RIDES
Featuring Stephen Stills, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Barry Goldberg
Separated in age by a musical generation but bonded by a mutual love of classic cars and the blues, two time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Stephen Stills and five-time Grammy nominated singer, guitarist and songwriter Kenny Wayne Shepherd draw fire from their extraordinary collective histories--and join forces with famed Chicago rock/blues keyboardist Barry Goldberg--to blaze a fresh trail for the historical American art form in the 21st Century.
Launching an exciting new chapter in each of their storied careers, the trio’s new band The Rides—which Stills dubs “the blues band of my dreams,” built to last beyond the concept of a one time all-star gathering—is further powered by the explosive rhythm section of bassist Kevin McCormick and Shepherd’s longtime drummer Chris Layton (also a veteran of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble). Their 429 Records debut Can’t Get Enough, helmed by longtime Shepherd producer Jerry Harrison, is a fascinating historical sweep, featuring a hard hitting mix of Stills-Goldberg-Shepherd penned blues/rock originals, classic blues tunes by Muddy Waters (“Honey Bee”) and Elmore James (“Talk To Me Baby”) and blistering twists on Stills’ favorite Neil Young anthem “Rockin’ In The Free World” and the Iggy Pop & The Stooges’ early 70s classic “Search and Destroy.”
For each principal, the inexplicable, free flowing chemistry and collective energy they shared during that high octane week of mostly first and second takes recorded at EastWest Studios on Sunset Blvd. took their creative A-games to transcendent places. “Barry and I got rid of everything we have learned over the past 40 years about how to screw up a record,” says Stills, who launched his career with Buffalo Springfield in the mid 60s, penning the generation defining “For What It’s Worth” before cementing his legend with Crosby, Stills & Nash (and among many classic hits, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Dark Star,” “Southern Cross” and “Love The One You’re With”) over the ensuing decades. “In the spirit of that simple, raw authentic 40s and 50s blues music the three of us love, we got in there and boom! A few takes and we were done. The songs have muscle, they don’t sound dated or contrived, they’re very natural and organic. It’s been the most magical experience of my life and I can’t wait to tour with these guys and start recording again!”
“The Rides are a perfect mix of generations, where three musicians who love and play the blues collide and create music together that go beyond all our other life experiences and career achievements,” says the 35 year old Shepherd, whose accolades in the rock and blues realms since signing his first record deal with Giant Records at 16 include two Billboard Music Awards, two Orville H. Gibson Awards, the Blues Foundation’s Keeping The Blues Alive Awards, two Blues Music Awards and six #1 blues albums. “This is a whole new kind of ensemble for me. I built my own band, which includes Chris Layton, from the ground up, and at the end of the day I’m calling all the shots. But working with Stephen and Barry in The Rides is the first time I’ve been a member of a band where everyone contributes equally to the songwriting and creative and business decisions. It’s something I have wanted to do for a long time.”
Barry Goldberg’s decades of contributions to the blues and rock realms are formidable. As a teenager in his native Chicago, he sat in with Muddy Waters, Otis Rush and Howlin’ Wolf. He played keyboards for Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, formed The Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield and later helmed the Barry Goldberg Reunion. Goldberg’s songs (some co-written with Gerry Goffin) have been recorded by everyone from Rod Stewart, Gladys Knight and Joe Cocker to Steve Miller, Percy Sledge, Gram Parsons and B.J. Thomas. He has also received a Grammy nomination for producing and playing on Percy Sledge's Blue Night. More recently, he has been touring with the Chicago Blues Reunion Band and produced “Born in Chicago,” a documentary about the city’s younger musicians creating a blues/rock explosion from what they learned from the bluesmen who migrated there from the Delta. The film recently premiered at the 2013 South By Southwest Conference.
“Just hanging out and working with masters like Stephen and Kenny was one of the most soulful times I can ever remember having in the studio,” says Goldberg. “Working as a film and TV composer for many years, I had taken way too long a hiatus from my first love, the blues, until a few years ago. What they brought back to me is immeasurable, just reconnecting with the reason I started playing in the first place. I liked working for other people, but I had missed this kind of collaboration and the spontaneity that comes from this kind of immediate interaction and live playing. It’s really a full circle thing for me, and I’m enjoying playing as much as I did when I started in the 60s. As proud as we are of Can’t Get Enough, fans are going to see something even more exciting from us when we start getting out there and playing these songs live.”
Decades before Stills and Goldberg’s mutual manager Elliot Roberts—who has worked with Stills since his Buffalo Springfield days—planted the seeds for Can’t Get Enough with his suggestion that they hook up and start writing together, the two veteran musicians appeared on separate sides of the 1968 seminal jam album Super Session, conceived by Blood, Sweat & Tears founder Al Kooper. (Side 1 featured Mike Bloomfield on guitar, with Goldberg on two cuts, while Side 2 featured Stills). Stills says, “I’m not sure how or why I didn’t meet Barry when we both contributed to that recording, but despite being raised in different regions, him from Chicago and me the Southern white kid, we got together and discovered a mutual love for Little Walter, Elmore James, Ray Charles and all the great blues players of the 40s and 50s. That’s also the common thread Barry and I share with Kenny Wayne, despite being from different generations.”
Goldberg adds, “When I first went over to Stephen’s house to start writing, it was like finding a long lost soul brother. We connected on so many things and started jamming and soon had written our first song for the project, from which we got the album title.”
Roberts’ idea to reach out to Shepherd about bringing him into the project was ironic because of a unique musical connection that Stills and Shepherd had - a night jamming at a private party before the 2007 Super Bowl, hosted by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. As Shepherd recalls the night, he took the stage with Mike Mills from REM, John Mellencamp and drummer Kenny Aranoff and halfway through the second song, Stills jumped up and started jamming with them for the next few hours. Looking back, Stills finds it hilarious that the combination of his hearing loss and Aranoff’s drumming power overwhelmed his ability to hear Shepherd’s guitar. Though he and Shepherd hung out and interacted casually at other Colts games over the years, when Roberts suggested Shepherd for the project, Stills at first didn’t realize this was the guy he had shared the stage with that night. This unique background story brought irony and humor into their dynamic and spontaneous musical mix, which Stills compares to the otherworldly excitement he experienced jamming with Jimi Hendrix at their respective studios in the wake of the legendary Monterey International Pop Music Festival in 1967.
“Long story short, Kenny Wayne got together with me and Barry, we started working on some songs and everything happened very quickly, like Kenny Wayne and I were cousins or something,” Stills says. “I love him, he’s a great guitar player and one of the nicest people I know. All the great blues musicians I wanted to play with over the years had their own bands and because I was always busy with my harmony group, I never had time to find the right combination of people. As good as I think The Rides are now, I can’t wait till we get some live gigs under our belt.”
When Shepherd entered the picture, Stills and Goldberg had three songs that were close to being finished, which the guitarist later contributed to; they then began writing more songs and later chose a unique array of cover tunes. Their original collaborations include the heartfelt ballad “Only Teardrops Fall,” the searing and emotional “Can’t Get Enough,” the brooding, image rich “RoadHouse” and the reflective plea “Don’t Want Lies.” “Word Game” is a socially conscious song about the hypocrisy of the world which Stills wrote several decades ago but never recorded. The lead vocals are almost evenly split with Stills taking six and Shepherd taking four of the cover songs, “That’s A Pretty Good Love,” “Talk To Me Baby,” “Search and Destroy” and “Honey Bee.”
“From our initial songwriting session to our sessions at East West, everything happened effortlessly, and the creative process was invigorating,” says Shepherd. “We wrote the songs in a week and did the recording in a week. Can’t Get Enough has honest performances recorded the way old albums were made, using analog 2 inch tape with everyone playing in the same room together. When established musicians get together the way we did, everyone’s bringing different experience and musical contributions to the table, and you never know what it’s going to be like. But despite the so called ‘star power,’ we really didn’t have big expectations. We just wanted to have fun and play music together, with nothing contrived. The first day we started writing together, we became aware that this was a special chemistry and what began as a cool concept for the three of us to work together evolved naturally into a real working band that is creating and developing its own sound.”
Echoing his partner, Stills adds, “I’m absolutely dedicated to this group, including the rhythm section combination of Kevin McCormick and Chris Layton, who keeps a pocket on the drums that no one else can. We’re joined at the hip and nothing’s going to change that. These are the guys I’ve been waiting for to play the blues with.”
Track By Track Commentary
“Road House”
Barry: “It’s a story about really living the blues, which draws a bit from Stephen’s early days playing frat parties. We mention Highway 49, which is considered the Crossroads Blues Highway. It’s probably my favorite track on the album.”
Kenny: “This one full on started from scratch, with us jamming and me playing the initial guitar riff. We built the song and it’s a bit biographical, about what a blues player goes through in his life on the road. This is our testament to the fact that we love to play the blues. There are also some cool rusted out car references that I love.
Stephen: “It’s a combination of characters I have known and things I have done. It’s fictitious but sometimes more than that.”
“That’s A Pretty Good Love”
Barry: “Just A loose, fun song, a la “Hit The Road Jack.”
Kenny: “I was driving home from the studio one night after a recording session, listening to the XM Sirius blues channel and this song by legendary female blues singer Big Maybelle came on. I had never heard it before, but knew we could do a great version of this. Stephen wasn’t hip on it either and there was some hesitancy, but eventually we all three agreed it would be a great fit, with me on vocals.”
“Don’t Want Lies”
Barry: “To me, this is the most beautiful song on the album, pure original Stephen.”
Kenny: “This started off with a riff I wrote 12 years ago that was lingering in the back of my mind. I brought it to the songwriting process and Stephen liked it on the spot and wrote a beautiful vocal melody, which blossomed into an incredible track.”
Stephen: “Kenny started playing this great lick and I was like, ‘what’s that?’ We found the chords that went with it, then started a melody and Barry came up with the melody for the chorus and we wrote a nursery rhyme lyric before I rewrote it later into something more poetic.”
“Search and Destroy”
Barry: (Producer) Jerry Harrison brought that in and Stephen and I weren’t sure about it at first. I honestly wasn’t too familiar with Iggy Pop, but Kenny loved it immediately and when Stephen’s daughter and Elliot’s son told us they thought it was cool, Stephen and I looked at each other and thought it was worth a shot. Love the high energy and Kenny’s killer vocal on it.”
Kenny: “When Jerry brought it in as a possibility I thought it would end up being cool and basically sold Stephen and Barry on it based on the energy level and intensity. It sounds young and fresh and we put our own stamp on it. The original by the Stooges is more primal.”
Stephen: “This was a great accident waiting to happen, a great choice that I resisted at first. I wasn’t familiar with it, then once I played it, it was the coolest thing I ever did. I put a Keith Richards spin on it and it sounds like a really good punk band is playing it.”
“Can’t Get Enough”
Barry: “This is an anthem which Stephens’ soulful singing tore the heart out of. It’s really about how happy we were with our present situation and opportunity to do music together. It’s a story song about how lucky people can be when fate just sort of stumbles in. When you walk through the door, all your troubles turn around.”
Kenny: “It’s a low down, greasy sounding track that’s groove heavy, with heavy guitars and a gritty, raspy vocal. It’s a hardcore love song.”
“Honey Bee”
Barry: “A sweet tune, and a real testament to the enduring legacy of Muddy Waters, who I had the privilege of playing with many years ago.’
Kenny: “This was the first cover song idea I brought to the table, and it’s my first time being able to sing this kind of classic blues. I love it because unlike a lot of blues songs which are about troubles in life, this is a song about a guy who loves his woman and is running around town on the lookout. I am attracted to old blues songs that glorify women and relationships and look at them in a positive way.”
Stephen: “For me, this dates back to high school when I first heard it!”
“Rockin’ In The Free World”
Barry: “Everyone gets off on this one. Just a ton of electricity on this Neil Young classic.”
Kenny: “Pretty simple. Stephen was trying to come up with one more outside song and he texted this to me as a possibility. I loved it. Stephen and Neil have an amazing history and Stephen likes to cover some of this older material, so it was a great choice.”
Stephen: “My favorite Neil Young song.”
“Talk To Me Baby”
Barry: “Talk about rockin’ the blues. This is my favorite kind of shuffle blues, the Chicago shuffle.”
Kenny: “A great Elmore James shuffle tune. The hook was underused in the original version so we played it up. It’s a great song about a guy diggin’ on his girlfriend.”
“Only Teardrops Fall”
Barry: This is a sweet and soulful number that started with mutual life experiences Stephen and I talked about. It’s about passing through a wall of time and then coming back to the present, where you realize it’s better than anything in the past. Sort of like the girl got away, but maybe that’s a good thing.”
Kenny: “A real sleeper, super hooky. Once we started playing these songs for people, we found that women really responded to this one. It tells the story of a guy looking back on his life and his mistakes and the things he would have liked to have done differently. Stephen and I both play guitar on this and have fun trading sections.”
“Word Game”
Barry: “Love the raucous energy of this and the truly monumental lyrics by Stephen.”
Kenny: “To me this is classic Stephen, conveying the type of message about the world that he is so well known for. He’s just calling people on their hypocritical bullshit. He never recorded it but he has been performing it live over the years.”
Stephen: “It was an old acoustic song that I had fun adapting to an electric band. It probably could have used an extra day of practice but because Chris Layton’s groove is so good, we chose to go with what we had.”
DoWnLoAd
