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Describing his approach to recording Delilah Blue, Joshua Kadison's new album on EMI Records, Joshua says, "I wanted to take the new collection of songs I'd written and record them live with all the musicians and singers together... everybody at the same time, listening and responding musically to each other." Working with some of rock's finest musicians, (legendary bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Mike Baird, and singers, including Myrna Smith, Alex Brown, Marva Hicks and Carmen Twilly), he was able to finish the basic tracks in two weeks with minor sweetening done a few weeks later.
To complete the sessions, Paul Buckmaster flew in from London to arrange and conduct the string orchestra on the title track, and David Campbell arranged and conducted his string treatments for "Amsterdam" and "The Gospel According To My Ol' Man." Delilah Blue, the self-produced follow-up to his two-and-a-half million selling debut, Painted Desert Serenade, is a stunning album of grace and intensity, grounded in the roots of American gospel and soul.
The church organ swells as Kadison's warm gravel-tinged voice pleads, "Baby, can you help me find a soul station on this old radio? And we can steal us a little salvation if you got no place else to go." The song, "Jus' Like Brigitte Bardot," is just one of the ten stellar offerings on Joshua's sophomore album in which each of the characters reaches for some kind of transcendence, the essence of the human condition: The father in "The Gospel According To My Ol' Man" explains to his son his view of religion and the way one should live life, "Believe what you want to, believe what you can, 'cause all I ever really learned from this life of mine, love's the only thing worth a damn;" one of the aging heroines of the title track asks her friend, "Does the year 2000 ever scare you 'cause it's comin' up so fast? "
"This getting older thing seems to be more about just learnin' how to last. Flipping through my old phone book, Delilah, all our mad, mad friends... we were such a cast. What do I keep this old dog-eared thing for? Most our friends ain't even here no more. I'm feeling lonely as a ghost town whore left standin' up somehow. Oh, Delilah Blue, what do we do now?"
It becomes clear that what Kadison is really doing is singing short novels set to music, weaving lyrics rich in detail, yet universal at the same time, with soaring melodies and masterful harmonic textures. He chooses to open the set with his modal a capella arrangement for the spiritual "Listen To The Lambs," setting us up for what's to follow, including the Memphis soul sound of "The Song On Neffertiti's Radio," complete with jump-stomp horn section; the New Orleans piano groove of "Rosie and Pauly;" the innovative juxtapositioning of gospel and 60's psychedelia in "Waiting In Green Velvet" about a lost girl waiting for that spaceship "coming down to fly us all away;" and the powerful simplicity of the tracks like "Amsterdam" and "Take It On Faith," proving Kadison's mastery of the stripped-down piano-vocal.
The unaffected production choices and Joshua's earthy vocals give Delilah Blue a sound more timeless than trendy. No stranger to swimming against the tides, Joshua talks about his personal history. "I dropped out of high school (his freshman year) to travel the States and play the music I love. Disco was just beginning to phase out and New Wave was taking over. You know... synthesizers and drum machines. And there I was, this kid, at the acoustic piano, doing Tom Waits, Leon Russell, Hank Williams, Dylan and my songs too."
His maverick ways paid off in '93 when EMI Records released his self- penned debut Painted Desert Serenade, a collection of introspective story songs including the break-through single "Jessie" and "When A Woman Cries," already covered by legends Joe Cocker and Smokey Robinson. "I was so used to being outside of whatever was going on that I didn't even think I'd get a record deal, much less have my songs played on the radio." This, from the young man who received the BMI Award for one of the most played songs of 1994.
With platinum records in the US and Germany, and multi-platinum awards in Australia and New Zealand (and gold in a handful of other countries), Joshua shrugs off any theory of why his music struck a worldwide chord. "It doesn't matter. You have to play the music inside of you, the music you hear in your head no matter what's going on around you."
These days he tours with a full band: bass, drums, Hammond organ, guitar and singers. Not a firm believer in the school of 'recorded versions are the only definitive versions,' Joshua's live shows are spontaneous celebrations of the music at hand. "A song wants to go different places on different nights with different crowds. I follow it. It's all about the song."
And the magnificent Delilah Blue is a powerful testimony to that. The art of the song, these days, sometimes seems a dying one. In Joshua, however, it has a fine and fierce disciple.
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