{"id":21945,"date":"2021-11-08T05:30:40","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T10:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21945"},"modified":"2021-11-08T07:25:19","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T12:25:19","slug":"album-review-wesley-stace-late-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/08\/album-review-wesley-stace-late-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Wesley Stace — Late Style"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"For most of his professional career Wesley Stace has worked using the stage name\/sobriquet John Wesley Harding. The singer-songwriter\u2019s love (and command) of wordplay is second to none; leave it to him to have titled a collection of odds and sods Dynablob<\/i> (an anagram of the stage name of another composer, the one who released an album using Stace\u2019s stage name as a title, sort of). He\u2019s also a raconteur par excellence<\/em>, as I witnessed firsthand nearly a decade ago when he served as master of ceremonies for Yep Roc\u2019s 15th<\/sup> anniversary concerts.<\/p>\n

These days, he\u2019s less likely to use the JWH name, having decided for reasons of his own to revert to his given name. His wit and musical skills remain intact, but for his latest release he has steered his career in a slightly different direction. Stace\u2019s primary instrument is acoustic guitar, but on Late Style<\/i>, he\u2019s taken a new approach. The songs were written on piano.<\/p>\n

As many a serious student of music can attest, there\u2019s a difference. Speaking for myself, when I hear certain albums, I can often identify which songs were composed on a keyboard rather than a guitar. The two instruments have a different musical vocabulary, if you will. Certain chord progressions just seem to make more sense when executed on piano instead of guitar. It\u2019s not simply a question of how difficult or challenging the chords and melodic progression are; it\u2019s more a case of certain sequences of notes or chords flowing more on one instrument than the other.<\/p>\n

As it happens, Stace\u2019s warm vocals lend themselves to piano accompaniment. And not to diminish even a bit his body of work prior to this release \u2013 I\u2019m on record as being a fan \u2013 but the new approach showcases his command of music\u2019s stylistic landscape in a way that guitar-based music couldn\u2019t always do. You\u2019ll hear jazz, classic country and other influences in Late Style<\/em>\u2019s dozen tracks.<\/p>\n

And because of Stace\u2019s inimitable approach to music \u2013 part storyteller, part troubadour, part keen and wry observer of the human condition, part consummate musician and entertainer \u2013 it all hangs together coherently. His lyrics and delivery conjure the spirits of George Gershwin and Noel Coward, though he sounds not at all like either of those.<\/p>\n

If Late Style<\/i> is reminiscent of any other contemporary artist, it\u2019s perhaps Bill Pritchard. But comparisons are largely futile, because Wes sounds truly like no one but himself. He\u2019s a superb crooner on tunes like the opening \u201cWhere the Bands Are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prairie Prince is a drummer who\u2019s capable of most anything. An early member of Journey (no, really) he\u2019s perhaps best known as the longtime drummer for The Tubes, and for his extensive work (in the studio and on tours) with Todd Rundgren. And fans of any of those acts may recall Rundgren\u2019s With a Twist<\/em> and Half Twisted<\/em> tours; on which Prince played bossa nova style, standing up. If you dug his work then, you\u2019ll love<\/em> it here; Stace seems even more natural in the context than Todd did.<\/p>\n

Nora O\u2019Connor\u2019s subtle and beautifully executed backing vocals on cuts like \u201cEverything All the Time\u201d may remind some listeners of Prefab Sprout (or Pritchard, again). Stace himself focuses on vocals only, leaving the instrumentation to Prince and a select assemblage of other musicians. Late Style<\/i> features piano, yes, but there\u2019s also plenty of buttery Rhodes electric piano, vibes, saxophones, trumpets and the like, all presented in a manner that as tasteful as it is delightful. \u201cHey! Director\u201d follows on from classics like \u201cThere\u2019s a Starbucks (Where the Starbucks Used to Be),\u201d musically channeling Herb Alpert\u2019s Tijuana Brass.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome Back Yesterday\u201d conjures warm memories of the Left Banke. Stace easily brings forth wit, but he\u2019s not mean-spirited about it; there\u2019s an underlying sense of compassion and simpatico that shines through his lyrics. With Late Style<\/i>, he reveals that he\u2019s a crooner for the ages. It\u2019s unclear if this latest release represents a one-off (like Rundgren\u2019s With a Twist<\/i> LP) or an introduction to a new direction. The former would be a shame, it\u2019s clear that Stace\u2019s mastery of this approach yields superb results, and more in a similar vein will be most welcome. In the meantime, Late Style<\/i> is a strong contender for Musoscribe\u2019s Best of 2021.<\/p>\n

Postscript: And don\u2019t miss Barry Gifford\u2019s liner note essay. Not the excerpt on the back of the package, but the full essay printed on the back of the disc\u2019s enclosed poster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of his professional career Wesley Stace has worked using the stage name\/sobriquet John Wesley Harding. The singer-songwriter\u2019s love (and command) of wordplay is second to none; leave it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,51,65],"tags":[1195,4136],"class_list":["post-21945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-pop","category-review","tag-john-wesley-harding","tag-wesley-stace","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21945","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=21945"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21962,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21945\/revisions\/21962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}