This year marks the 25th Anniversary of Basile’s Sweetspot label, and B’s Time is its 20th release. B’s Time is a career retrospective, featuring 17 songs from Al’s solo CDs, remastered using the most up-to-date technology by Glenn Halverson at his Sonic Hill Studio in Tennessee. The songs have never sounded so good, and many are from releases early in Al’s career, before he became much better known following his Blues Awards nominations starting in 2010. Though they originate from a 25 year span, they sound completely contemporary, showing that Al’s work is timeless, and that his output has been remarkably consistent since the beginning.
“I have well over 200 songs to choose from, and these are not my only favorites, but these are the ones I feel closest to, for many different reasons,” says Basile. “They show me working with my closest musical friends, like Duke Robillard and his band members over the years, and my favorite guests, like Sista Monica Parker and the Blind Boys of Alabama. They show how broad my range is as a songwriter and arranger, how many different styles I work in, from Swing to Gospel to R&B to soul to acoustic blues and electric blues, even to psychedelic rock. They show how I write in different characters and situations, and how I use my voice like an actor in different styles. They show that my cornet tone is personal, and how my solos always tell a story; I sound like no other jazz or blues trumpet or cornet player. And finally, they show how the teacher in me is always concealing a lesson in my lyrics, for those who listen closely. You can study my songs, or just listen to them while you’re making dinner – there’s something for every level of listener here.”
“Al Basile is one of the great musical storytellers,” writes UK-based music journalist Colin Clarke in the B’s Time liner notes. “That holds whether he is working over the span of a whole album (his astonishing Last Hand and its full, ‘radio/verse play’ version, Last Hand 2.0), or within the confines of a single song – each of the 17 songs on this retrospective is a microcosmic magical entity in its own right. This celebration of 25 years of Basile’s Sweetspot record label, and the positively protean nature of his output, is timely, even if a mere 17 songs can only provide the tip of the Basile iceberg.
“No two songs of Basile’s are alike, yet all contain the stamp of his endless invention. No other writer, surely, traverses musical genres, or even whole fields of art, like Al Basile, and this retrospective is the perfect place to appreciate this unique diversity.
“The sheer variety of expression here is astonishing; a conspectus of this nature allows for us to appreciate Basile’s many, many achievements; what we hear is just the tip of the iceberg. But it also asks: where next? Watch this space!”
B’s Time Track Listing and Original Album Placement
- You Showed Me Something 2009 Soul Blue 7
- I Really Miss You 1998 Down on Providence Plantation
- Lie Down in Darkness 2010 The Goods
- Tickle My Mule 2016 Mid-Century Modern
- Jimmy & Johnny 2014 Woke Up in Memphis
- Drive Me Darling 2001 Shaking the Soul Tree
- Hooray For Me (and to Hell with You) 2004 Blue Ink
- B.D 2003 Red Breath
- Can I Trust You With a Kiss? 2007 The Tinge
- Don’t Wait Too Long 2014 Swing n’ Strings
- Losing My Cool 2007 The Tinge
- Causing Joy 2009 Soul Blue 7
- Make a Little Heaven 2014 Woke Up in Memphis
- Sleeping Beauty 2001 Shaking the Soul Tree
- While We’re Dancing 2007 The Tinge
- You Don’t Know Lonesome 2019 B’s Hot House
- 1.843 Million 2010 The Goods
Musician Credits by Tracks
Al Basile - vocals – all but 8; cornet – all but 2 &10
Duke Robillard - guitar all but 8 &10
“Monster” Mike Welch – guitar 4
Fred Bates – lead guitar 10
Bob Zuck – guitar 10
Marty Richards – drums 2 & 8
Mark Teixeira – drums 1,3,4,5,7,9,11,12,13,15,16 &17
Jeff McAllister – drums 6 &14
Dave Limina – keyboards 2
Bruce Bears – keyboards 3,4,5,13,16 &17
Matt McCabe – piano 7
Tom West – keyboards 6 &14
Paul Odeh – piano 8
Bruce Katz – keyboards 1,9,11,12 &15
John Packer – bass 6 &14
Marty Ballou – bass 1,2,7,8,9,10,11,12 &15
Brad Hallen – bass 3,4,5,13,16 &17
Doug James – saxes 1,3,4,5,6,9,11,12,13,14,15,16 &17
“Sax” Gordon Beadle – sax 6 &14
Rich Lataille – sax 1,3,4,5,9,10,11,13 &15
Jeff “Doc” Chanonhouse – trumpet 16
Carl Querfurth – trombone 1 & 12
Jerry Portnoy – harp 7
The Blind Boys of Alabama – vocals 3
Sista Monica Parker – vocals 13
About Al Basile:
Al Basile’s previous album releases have consistently made the top 20 on the Living Blues charts. He’s been nominated eight times for a BMA as Best Horn Player, and his 2016 release, Mid-Century Modern, was nominated as Best Contemporary Blues Album. His songs have been covered by Ruth Brown, Johnny Rawls, and the Knickerbocker All Stars. Guests on his own releases have included the Blind Boys of Alabama, Sista Monica Parker, Sugar Ray Norcia, Jerry Portnoy, and jazz great Scott Hamilton.
Celebrated for his mastery of lyric writing as well as music, Al's skill with words extends to his other career as a poet: he is published regularly in leading journals, has won prizes, and has three books in print collecting his work from the Seventies until the present day. For the last four years he has taught lyric writing, led panels, and performed at poetry conferences. In recent years Al has begun writing and producing audio plays in verse; his two most recent plays have won Gold and Platinum Awards at the HEARnow national audio theater festival.
Born in Haverhill, Mass., on the north shore of Boston, Al was the first to receive a Master's degree from Brown University's writing program. He was the first trumpet player for Roomful of Blues in the mid-Seventies, and he's enjoyed a long relationship as a co-writer and sideman during Robillard's solo career since the Eighties, garnering credits as songwriter and trumpet player on a dozen of Duke's CDs and DVDs. He also taught English, music, and physics in a private Rhode Island high school for 25 years before devoting himself to music and poetry full time in 2005.
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