FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 4, 2009
SONNY LANDRETH’S LEVEE TOWN ALBUM TO BE REISSUED WITH FIVE PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TRACKS ON LANDFALL RECORDS
Originally released in 2000, the album features guests John Hiatt, Bonnie Raitt and Michael Doucet of BeauSoleil
BREAUX BRIDGE, La. — Sonny Landreth’s 2000 release Levee Town, originally issued on Sugar Hill Records, will be reissued on April 21, 2009 on Landreth’s own Landfall Records, distributed by Ryko through Virtual Label. The re-mastered reissue will contain five previously unreleased tracks from the original sessions (“Pedal To Metal,” “Road A Plenty,” “Old Flame,” “Fare You Well” and a co-write with Will Jennings, “For Who We Are (The Nightbird Sings),” with guest Jennifer Warnes. This album is a poetic tale of life in Lousiana, mixing myth and mojo to conjure up music that rocks hard and runs deep. The album features such guests as Bonnie Raitt, John Hiatt and BeauSoliel’s Michael Doucet.
“Along with the two records that preceded it (Outward Bound, 1992; and South of I-10, 1995), I feel like Levee Town was part of a three–album trilogy,” Landreth says. “I wanted to dig even deeper into the built-in mythology and mystery of the Deep South. It’s really inspirational to live here. And the deeper I go, the more inspired I get.”
The reissue follows From the Reach, the 2008 release that is arguably Landreth’s most critically acclaimed album to date. That effort featured such guests as Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Dr. John and Jimmy Buffett, among others. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Joel Selvin called From the Reach “another great, hard-rocking Landreth record, fresh as a crisp twenty and ready to kill for half the price. What are you waiting for?” The Washington Post echoed: “Landreth has found the perfect vehicle to express his southern Louisiana roots (and has) found a way to make his songwriting as important as the jamming.”
Levee Town was co-produced by TV music kingpin Mike Post, a rather odd pick for a roots record — but the pairing worked. “I had played for Mike’s wedding and he ended up inviting me out to L.A. to work on a show he was writing,” Landreth says. “Then, he called me and said he wanted to get me in a studio and get this record off the ground. He was a tremendous help.”
Landreth then took the tracks he’d co-produced with Post and headed back to Lafayette, La., adding guitars before moving to nearby Dockside Studio and bringing in producer R.S. Field to help complete the project. “For me, working with both those guys was a real creative experience, and I’m thrilled with the results,” he says.
Landreth throws down the musical gauntlet in the first few bars of “Levee Town,” the album’s epic lead track. The song chronicles a time back in the early ‘70s when the government decided to ease the Mississippi River’s high levels by opening the Morganza Spillway above New Orleans. Background vocals on the track are handled by John Hiatt, who hired Landreth and his band — renamed the Goners — to tour for two years and record 1988’s Slow Turning, which paved the way for Landreth’s 1992 solo debut album.
“With Levee Town, I really felt like I’d come full circle. Here it was ten years after my early years with Hiatt, and I was back playing with him, having more fun than ever. I also enjoyed working with my old friend Michael Doucet of BeauSoliel. We grew up playing music and learned a lot from each other. The album has a little bit of everything, and I think that’s what made the whole thing work.”
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 21, 2008
SONNY LANDRETH’S NINTH ALBUM FROM THE REACH RECEIVES SOME HELP FROM SLIDE GUITAR WIZARD’S PEERS
New CD, out May 20 on Landfall Records, features Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Dr. John, Jimmy Buffett, Vince Gill, Robben Ford and Eric Johnson
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Louisiana-based singer/songwriter/slide-guitar monster Sonny Landreth will release his ninth album, titled From The Reach and his first on his own Landfall Records label (distributed by Ryko Distribution), on May 20. On it, Landreth does something unprecedented in his body of work as he collaborates with five of the greatest guitar players on the planet — Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson and Vince Gill — in some jaw-dropping performances. Also making appearances are the legendary New Orleans pianist and singer Dr. John and Margaritaville’s iconic troubadour Jimmy Buffett.
“I’ve been wanting to make this kind of record for a long time —– to do an entire album that would feature some of my favorite players as special guests,” says Landreth. “The other thing was how to do it without being yet another clichéd ‘duets’ album. Then I got the idea to write the songs specifically for each of the artists and that was the real hook for me, as a writer as well as a guitar player.”
On the opener, “Blue Tarp Blues,’ Sonny exchanges solos with Knopfler, and the aural contrast between Sonny’s shimmering slide and the Dire Straits leader’s biting Strat is a textural treat. Clapton appears to cut loose on “When I Still had You,” adding his soulful voice to the choruses as well. Slowhand then wails on “Storm of Worry,” a spooky slow blues reminiscent of his Bluesbreakers era.
“The Milky Way Home” is a powerful instrumental rocker that features Eric Johnson on delectably distorted guitar passages that morph into his trademark cello-like sound. “The Goin’ On” shifts into a country-rock groove, with Vince Gill and Sonny alternating between guitar solos and lead vocals. Robben Ford brings his extraordinary tone and phrasing to “Way Past Long” and “Blue Angel” (the latter with Gill on backing vocals), as Landreth swaps his trusty Strat for a Les Paul. Each of these performances is an extraordinary showcase of brilliant players reacting to each other in supremely inspired fashion.
In one of two delightful changes of pace to the album’s six-string focus, Dr. John brings the requisite gris-gris to “Howlin’ Moon” with his trademark rollicking piano and harmonies, and he’s joined on the track by Jimmy Buffett. “Although the idea of the record was playing with my guitar heroes, I wanted to open to the unexpected as well,” Landreth explains. “I’d written ‘Howlin’ Moon’ a long time ago and I’d always had Dr. John in mind for it. Then we took it a step further with Jimmy’s vocal and the vibe was perfect.”
As for the intriguing album title, “I thought about it a lot,” he says. “One of the most interesting things to me in the songwriting process is letting it cook and bubble and see what comes up to the top. As I was writing these songs, the word ‘reach’ kept coming up and ‘reach’ is a pretty powerful word. Aside from the obvious meaning, it can refer to a body of water. And the water imagery kept coming throughout the writing of these songs as well, so it’s like this is what came up out of this whole project for me. What would happen if I invited all these people: where would this take me. I literally reached out to them, and they graciously came on board. Then there was the impact locally of Katrina. So the title is the result of all of the above. It’s coming from an honest place.”
The same could be said of everything this one-of-a-kind artist has done in his single-minded career.
This spring and summer, Landreth will perform at the following festivals: Houston International Festival, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Festival Internationale de Louisiana, Metro Fountain Blues Festival in San Jose, Tropical Heatwave in Tampa, Blues Brews and BBQ Festival in Charleston WV, Cisco Systems Blues Festival Ottawa, Montreal Jazz Festival. Belleville American Music Festival in Wisconsin, Calgary Folk Festival, Blues On The Green in Austin and the Chenango (NY) Blues Festival.
For more information, please visit http://www.sonnylandreth.com.
