{"id":20804,"date":"2021-04-08T05:30:04","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T09:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20804"},"modified":"2021-04-09T14:31:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T18:31:04","slug":"kirk-fletchers-pathway-to-and-through-the-blues-part-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/08\/kirk-fletchers-pathway-to-and-through-the-blues-part-four\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirk Fletcher’s Pathway to (and Through) the Blues, Part Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part Three<\/a> …<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019m Here & I\u2019m Gone<\/i> was Fletcher\u2019s attempt at making what he calls \u201ca sort of business card, so I could get gigs.\u201d Looking back on that record, he believes that he wasn\u2019t quite ready to make an album. \u201cI can hear my youth and my love for blues, but I didn\u2019t have that much experience.\u201d Still, he has fond memories of making the album. \u201cIt was like, \u2018Wow, I\u2019m making a record!\u2019 And in that regard, it was fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Featuring Kim Wilson and Janiva Magness, Kirk Fletcher\u2019s Shades of Blue<\/i> from 2003 was another calling card, he says. \u201cI asked some of my favorite singers to come and sing. It\u2019s me playing guitar with singers. We were just picking a bunch of covers. I\u2019m proud of it, though. It was all I could do at that time.\u201d Shades of Blue<\/i> was the first record released on Delta Groove, Fletcher says. \u201cRandy Chortkoff started the label to put it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Shades of Blue<\/i>, Fletcher wouldn’t make another solo album for seven years, but he was certainly busy. He was an in-demand hired gun, working with and for a dazzling array of artists in and beyond the blues world. His first major gig as a sideman was as a member of Kim Wilson\u2019s Blues Revue. He went on to work with Musselwhite and then briefly with Doyle Bramhall II. He also took part in occasional appearances with pop stars like Michelle Branch and Cyndi Lauper.<\/p>\n

From 2005 to 2008 he played lead guitar for the Fabulous Thunderbirds alongside friend and fellow axeman Nick Curran. In 2013 he lent his guitar skills to Eros Ramazzotti\u2019s tour in support of the Italian pop star\u2019s album, Noi<\/i>. For Joe Bonamassa\u2019s 2016 tour, Fletcher was part of the band, and is featured on Bonamassa\u2019s Live at the Greek Theater<\/i>. And he emphasizes that he\u2019s extremely proud to have backed up that impressive list of artists. \u201cThey\u2019ve all shaped me into being who I am now,\u201d he says. In the space of just over 15 years, Fletcher appeared on more than 20 albums credited to other recording artists.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Fletcher continued to record and release albums under his own name. Each represented a move forward, ongoing growth on the part of Fletcher as a musician. And after making two albums on which he only played guitar, Fletcher is a featured vocalist on his third album, 2010\u2019s My Turn<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that Fletcher didn\u2019t know how to sing before 2010; he just didn\u2019t do it on his records. \u201cI was lazy \u2026 and scared,\u201d he admits. \u201cGrowing up in the church and being around fantastic singers who are like seven years old, you always think, \u2018Oh my goodness, singing? I could never do that!\u2019\u201d But time spent alongside friends, guitarists who could and did sing \u2013 like Nick Curran and Gary Clark Jr. \u2013 encouraged Fletcher to take the leap.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing these younger guys be their own man, singing and fronting the band, expressing themselves in a different way than just the guitar can do, singing songs, I felt like there was more freedom in that,\u201d he says. Today, Fletcher\u2019s vocals are fully integrated into what he does on stage and on record. \u201cNow,\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s like, \u2018Man, it\u2019d be weird to just play guitar!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Fletcher\u2019s third album \u201cwas the first time I was playing with people my own age,\u201d he says. \u201cI had left the T-Birds, and I wanted to just play guitar a lot.\u201d The album was made against the backdrop of the Great Recession. \u201cThere were not a lot of gigs,\u201d Fletcher says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even afford to pay attention! But making My Turn<\/i> was a lot of fun because I made it with my friends. Once again, it was all I could do at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between 2004 and 2014, Fletcher was a member of the West Coast blues collective The Mannish Boys; he\u2019s featured on all six of the group\u2019s studio albums, alongside other hotshot modern-day blues artists. Led by Finis Tasby (who would guest on Fletcher\u2019s own Shades of Blue<\/i>) the group also variously featured Kid Ramos, Franck Goldwasser and Bob Corritore.<\/p>\n

A 2014 live set, Burning Blues (Live at the Baked Potato)<\/i> captured the fire and soulful intensity of a Kirk Fletcher live performance. Burning Blues<\/i> was released shortly after Fletcher wrapped up his tour of duty with Ramazzotti. He says the album is the sound of him \u201cletting [my] hair down, still not singing every song, still finding material. But I tried to do my best. It was just blowing off some steam and wanting to do a live record.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the liner notes for 2018\u2019s Hold On<\/i>, Fletcher describes his fifth album as his first real solo record. \u201cI wrote all the songs, arranged all the music, and sang,\u201d he says. \u201cTo me, Hold On<\/i> is my first real statement as an artist. I really knew what I wanted, the sounds I wanted to hear. I stripped it down: I only had an organ player, a drummer and me playing the guitar,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m really, really proud of that record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Burning Blues<\/i> and Hold On<\/i> were self-released. \u201cI\u2019m a control freak,\u201d Fletcher admits with a laugh. \u201cI like to control everything. And self-releasing can be really good and more profitable, in a way.\u201d But he cautions that it\u2019s not as simple as it might seem. \u201cYou have to [financially] invest in yourself. If you just put [a record] out, eight million other people are putting out stuff, you know? And it\u2019s hard to get heard over all of the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he\u2019s pleased with the results of that approach, Fletcher recently inked a deal with Cleopatra Blues to release his latest record. \u201cI was at the point where I wanted to try to get some help,\u201d he says, \u201cwith distribution, promotion, and all those things. I figured if I could put my stuff with somebody else, maybe we would share the weight. And that\u2019s exactly what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a> \u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Three … I\u2019m Here & I\u2019m Gone was Fletcher\u2019s attempt at making what he calls \u201ca sort of business card, so I could get gigs.\u201d Looking back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41,49],"tags":[4493],"class_list":["post-20804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-interview","category-new-release","tag-kirk-fletcher","cat-9-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20804"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20836,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20804\/revisions\/20836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}