Reese Wynans - Let Loose

Reese Wynans – Let Loose

With his very own Sweet Release album being released on Provogue/Mascot Label Group, produced by Joe Bonamassa no less, it seems a good time to meet up with the veteran keyboard ace. It’s a bitterly cold morning in London, so I stop off to buy Reese a woolly hat for his stay and over tea we talk about his record…

JLTT: Welcome back to London!

Thanks, Pete – it’s great to be here

Enjoy wearing your hat, you’re gonna need it!

(Laughs) I think you’re right there! Whew…

The idea of this – and it’s great to meet you at last as I have watched you perform many times – is to talk about the new album you have made and maybe favourite piano players, I have several..this project likely rolls in on the back of the label’s relationship with Joe

(Warmly) Yes, very much so.

Joe told me, this ‘won’t sound like anything you’re expecting’..we have talked about it a couple of times..but it IS

Ah! Is that a fact ? For most sidemen like myself…and let me say it’s great to be talking to you and I appreciate you seeing me today .. I have been in the music business for some fifty years and I’ve made a stream of records but not tons of interviews. Now I thought if a journeyman like me put out an own record it would be mostly funky instrumentals and ditties and I would just be playing along..

Which would make it an obvious keyboard player’s record.

Absolutely! I did attempt that a couple of years ago and listening back to it, I found I wasn’t satisfied with it, overall. I ended up never putting anything out at all. I did tell Joe about it and that somehow I was disappointed with the way it turned out. And he just said ‘Well, you did it all wrong ‘ and had positive suggestions on what I might opt to do. To do some of the songs that you played on and bring in some of the people who played them. So that’s when I asked Joe to be my producer. And that’s how he got on board with it. It was pretty much his concept on how I should be heard.

To me, Reese it sounds like a tight band with coming-and-going members and a bloody good keyboard player!

Yeah!! And that was his idea, to go for that and make the songs rock. And it made perfect sense to me..just thinking about all the different bands that I have played with, over time. To put a CD out after all this time, I should include some of the people I have had the good fortune to play with.

You’ve included three very well-known to me tunes from SRV times – I was at the very first show he played here – so what made you include those? We’re talking Crossfire, Say What and Riviera Paradise…

Well on this record there are some songs that Joe picked out and others that I picked out. I wanted to do Riviera Paradise because I had always heard it as a movie soundtrack with strings, in my head and have the orchestra play along with it. And Joe wanted to do Crossfire, he said didn’t I write that? And yes I did write part of it.

When we were putting it together back when, someone had commented that it put them in mind of a Sam & Dave song. That kind of groove. And Joe said let’s get Sam Moore to sing it…

Yeah – ZZ Top did their I Thank You and it’s terrific…

They sure did and yes it was splendid!

You have access to all these fine singers…maybe Crossfire wouldn’t be the most familiar song to Sam, but it’s half a step away from the soulful feel he can summon up just like that..it has that immediate authority.

Well Crossfire has always had one of those grooves that just takes off, y’know. Reaches out and grabs you. The lyric is a good one that Ruth and Bill Carter wrote and I’ve always loved that song. Playing that with Chris and Tommy, it was so exciting..

Tommy on Second Winter – Johnny Winter – IS how to play rock-blues bass, it’s The Bible! Whether you play in a three or four piece – Edgar’s there – THAT’s how to do it

Interesting you mention the blues-rock trio, because I consider that one of my strong points musically is being that keyboard player to augument that and that’s how I made my living over the years, being that element, that guy.

A few days ago I was talking this very point with a friend of mine Kenney Jones and he said when Mac joined The Small Faces on keys, everyone in the group was liberated..like my band, that love of Booker T rolls in

I’ll tell you what Chris Layton told me when I joined Double Trouble and that’s the thing where they were playing a trio, when Stevie took off on a solo there wasn’t so much they could easily follow or flow with. My chords and stuff freed HIM up and helped the dynamic. Plus guitar players seem to like what I do..

I’ll tell you why – it’s the fact that you don’t blot out the guitar – or sax – frequencies all the time with heavy block chords, which some keyboard players do. The best at that was John Locke of Spirit. But that’s why.

(Ponders) I don’t know…I do appreciate you saying that ! for me when I’m playing with a trio I simply want the whole thing to be better, to flow. To help him get along to the place he’s going.

When I guest – whoever it is – I want to contribute, not dominate.

Exactly!

The horns are very crisp on Crossfire

Ah! I wanted to tell you, it’s the same guys who played on the original record. So we have all the same folk playing BUT with Kenny Wayne in for Stevie! Plus Joe.

I wish you’d done Change It, great number with that lope!

I love Change It as well. If we do a follow up I’ll remember you saying this…

Say What has the rolling wah and the vamping Hammond

It was fun AND Pete, that was the first song I played with Double Trouble. Chris said he’d been wanting to play it so that confirmed the choice. Joe thought the B3 sounded angry

One of my favourite players with that lighter touch is dear Rod Argent of The Zombies, never sounds sludgy..always springheeled.

I would love to meet Rod Argent some time, awesome player, inspiration.

That Driving Beat – I really like this. Michael Rhodes on the bass. Put me in mind of Jnr Walker…

Absolutely it does..that’s a song I picked out for the record. Every now and again I go through the Internet, searching for material and came across the song. Reminded me of a soul band I played in way back. A drummer friend of mine Greg Morrow was getting me to play Willie Mitchell songs. This is Mike Farris and Paulie singing this.

You’re Killing My Love features Doyle who I know..how do you get that flanged throaty sound?

Ha, it’s not just the organ here, the whole track is flanged. That was Joe’s idea.

The solo on this is really good – sounds like an Albert King outtake…

Hmm, we wanted a funky song. Joe found this one. I’d been after him to do some Otis Rush. I love those slow Rush songs.

I saw Otis once in London at The Dominion, a one-off and he didn’t play even one of his big hits, his Cobra side ! BUT it was still a brilliant show

When I played with him, we did all those songs..wow! He came down to Antones

Sweet Release – now this is where the album steps into a different mode, a country ballad with a whole queue of fine vocalists, even Vince Gill! Why does this remind me of Levon Helm?

(Considers) Well..it has that Southern gospel feel to it. It’s a song I did with Boz Scaggs. I wanted some of that vibe in the programme.

It’s a nice interlude and it kind of puts the other material into relief

I think so too ! I’ve always thought this is a great song..

Shape I’m In, great rocking piano. Kenny Wayne and Noah, that lad can sing!

That’s the ArcAngels song. I wish I could have played on the original .

Hard To Be has Jimmy Hall, Bonnie Bramlett and Joe on baritone guitar, something we’ve talked about…I got one a couple of years ago, due to Bill Kirchen.

Yeah I thought that just made it on there!

You have to play baritone on a tremelo setting, to get the full effect

Now that’s one of the songs that I brought to the session ..always wanted to get that D&B rocker sound down.

Riviera Paradise – I am very familiar with this, of course. Thanks to SRV I discovered Grant Green and his magic, so I’m grateful.

If he hadn’t died, don’t you think Stevie would have gone in that direction?

Because that fourth album – which I will ask you to sign! – In Step is such a brilliant varied set, by far his best…

I thought it was his best record, his best writing and he was more in control of what he was creating. He’d become clean and sober. He was then exactly what he wanted to be.

Jeff Bova – the string arrangements he does on this have huge echoes of Marty Paich..he did the strings for Spirit, the band who unwittingly taught me to play

Oh really?

Yes, his son David’s in Toto

Joe uses Jeff for his strings work.

Take The Time – Warren Haynes. There’s a little touch of Englishness about Warren – his thoughtfulness and his vocal phrasing. Huge early Fleetwood Mac fan.

He’s incredible and we just did his Christmas show. Yes, his voice is like The Angels.

So Much Trouble..SO powerful

Tampa Red. Joe killed it on this, a tremendous vocal! I asked whether he wanted to sing it so hard, he said Yeah let’s just do it…

I’ve Got A Right To Be Blue – very old timey, Keb Mo on there.

Well you know every once in a while he’ll put in a wacky chord..and it’s just right!

I like Josh Smith’s guitar with your keys on Soul Island. Is that inspired by Cedar Walton? Donald Byrd..the fresh air thing?

It was a sort of New Orleans feel, that’s what I was thinking…

Now! If someone said to me what about a Beatles tune for this…I would have gone for Fool On The Hill.

(Laughs) Oh, I love that song, too! But no we did Blackbird. Just me on my own

Pete Sargeant