Blues-Rock Guitarist Steve Hill Releases Official Music Video for "Don't Let the Truth Get in the Way (of a Good Story)" and Limited-Edition Comic Book Hot on the Heels of His New Album, "Dear Illusion "
Steve Hill, the acclaimed guitarist-singer-songwriter recently celebrated his 25th year as a recording artist with his 12th album Dear Illusion, released by No Label Records on November 11. Three years in the making, the new album is available from https://ffm.to/dearillusion.
“It took me a long time to finish ‘Don’t Let The Truth Get In The Way (Of A Good Story),’ recollects Steve. “I started working on it six years ago after the Trump election. It’s about alternate truth, but it’s also about social media and our addiction to it. It’s also about pretending that everything is alright when it’s not. It’s about choosing to pretend because it’s easier than facing the truth when the truth doesn’t matter anymore.”
But that’s not all. To make the new album an even bigger means for celebration, Steve is releasing the limited edition Dear Illusion comic book.
“Steve Hill is back with his most personal and reflective album of his career.” – Powerplay
“Steve Hill’s Dear Illusion is the best album he’s released to date.” – Fireworks
“With rampant sincerity and melodic finesse, Hill has made an outstanding record.” – R’N’R“Dear Illusion makes a very fine Christmas gift for blues lovers who like their blues full-throttled, loud & proud.” - Blues Matters
Physical copies of the comic are available from https://nolabelrecords.store/products/copy-of-dear-illusion-comic-book-physical
The digital edition of the comic is available from https://nolabelrecords.store/products/dear-illusion-comic-book-digital.
“I’ve been dreaming doing a comic book for a long time,” reflects Steve.
“Before I got into music, drawing was my passion. I wanted to write comics. I’ve collected them sporadically all my life until five years ago when it became an obsession. I think that comics are a great artform. It’s like song writing, in that they tell a story in a short period of time. I get feelings out of some comics the same way that I get feelings from music. If you’ve read Alan Moore, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, or Ed Brubaker, you know what I’m talking about.
“I got in touch with comic book artist Rob Cannon through a mutual connection. He seemed like a good candidate to draw the cover of my previous album, Desert Trip. He did a fantastic job. I love that album cover. When the time came for Dear Illusion, it was obvious he was the go-to guy. What he did was even better than the one before. From there, the next logical step was the comic. He took the themes from the album, the visual landscape from Desert Trip and made it a metaphoric science fiction story that I could never have thought of, while retaining the essence and the meaning of the songs. That’s art.”
Known over the last ten years as a one-man band, on Dear Illusion, the multi-instrumentalist shares the spotlight with a horn section, The Devil Horns, as well as seven-time UK Blues Awards Drummer of the Year, Wayne Proctor (A.A. Williams, Oli Brown, King King, Ben Poole). Proctor also mixed and mastered the upcoming record.
"I had a version finished right before the pandemic started,” says Steve. “It was slated for release in April, 2020. There was no point in releasing it then, so I decided to wait. The sad context of the pandemic resulted in additional time for me to offer my fans the album I’m sure will meet their expectations for my 25th anniversary as a recording artist. I am proud of the work. Ultimately, the results that we collectively achieved with the album ended up reflecting both maturity and introspection. Overall, I feel like the album is telling that no matter what happens, you should give it everything you got and move on, be the best person you can be, and no matter what, the sun will rise again. Don’t dwell on suffering, and don’t forget about it, either. Even treat misfortune as a friend, slap it on the back and say, Thanks for teaching me.”
Dear Illusion Album Track List
- 1 - All About The Love (3:53)
- 2 - Keep It Together (4:11)
- 3 - Everything You Got (3:22)
- 4 - Dear Illusion (4:15)
- 5 - Steal The Light From You (4:09)
- 6 - Don't Let The Truth Get In The Way (Of A Good Story) (5:03)
- 7 - Follow Your Heart (3:22)
- 8 - So It Goes (2:49)
- 9 - She Gives Lessons In Blues (3:51)
- 10 - Until The Next Time (3:04)
About Steve Hill
Widely considered as one of Canada’s most prolific guitarists, Steve Hill has consistently delivered wildly ambitious performances and albums. Heralded wherever he goes, the guitarist, singer, drummer, harmonica player, songwriter and accomplished producer is a musical force to be reckoned with.
Already playing the bar circuit at the age of 16, Steve turned pro two years later when he joined the Bob Harrison Blues Band. He left after two years to pursue a solo career. His first album was released in 1997, and lead to Real Blues magazine proclaiming: "Steve Hill is for my money the best young Blues guitarist on the North American Scene today.”
He spent the next 15 years touring across Canada and Europe, releasing albums with different line-ups, until he became a one-man band in 2012. Following the success of his JUNO-nominated Solo Recordings Volume 1, which also won at the International Blues Challenge in 2013, Solo Recordings Volume 2 won the Juno Award and seven Maple Blues Awards in 2014-2015. It was followed by Solo Recordings Volume 3 in 2016 which has had close to six million streams on Spotify so far. In 2018, he released The One-Man Blues Rock Band. The live album shows an artist at the top of his game. It comes to no surprise that the Montreal Gazette has referred to Steve Hill as “the meanest guitar player in Canada.”
A guitar stylist with a wide musical vocabulary, he has performed over 2,500 concerts in many configurations. For the past 10 years, he has toured extensively throughout Canada and Europe supporting his critically acclaimed Solo Recordings albums trilogy and his one-man band show. When it comes to one-man bands, Steve Hill has no limits. Anything goes. He is the true exponent of a one-man band. Steve performs standing up while singing and playing guitar, his feet playing bass drum, snare drum and with a drumstick fused to the head of his trusty guitar to hit the hi-hats and a cymbal. Germany’s Guitar Magazine proclaimed Steve as being "the most spectacular one-man band on the planet."
Over the years, Steve has shared the stage with many of his heroes, including Ray Charles, B.B. King, Hubert Sumlin, Jimmie Vaughan, and ZZ Top, to name a few, and has played at some of Canada’s biggest music festivals. With 12 albums of original songs to his name, he has explored everything from Rock, Country, Folk, Metal, Jazz, while continuing to fuse it all with his first love, the Blues.
STEVE HILL AWARDS
Juno Award, Blues Album of the Year (2015)
Memphis International Blues Challenge
Best self-produced CD (2013)
8 Maple Blues Awards
Electric Act of the Year (2000 - 2014 - 2015)
Entertainer of the Year (2014 - 2015)
Guitarist of the Year (2014 - 2015)
Album of the Year (2014)
21 Lys Blues Awards
USA Publicity Contact: Mark Pucci Media – mpmedia@bellsouth.net
UK: Peter Noble - peter@noblepr.co.uk
Europe: Jennifer Smits – jennifer.smits@gmail.com
Canada: Sarah French – sarah@sarahfrenchpublicity.com
Quebec: Nathalie Corbeil – nat@natcorbeil.com
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