Damon Fowler – Devil Got His Way

Grazie a casa Blind Pig, ritorna questo chitarrista di Tampa, Florida, che ha lasciato un segno quanto nel pubblico del rock quanto in quello del blues. Una conferma a livello nazionale ed internazionale per un’autentica promessa dello slide-guitar sound di matrice rock-blues accostato dalla stampa specializzata a personaggi del calibro di Johnny Winter, Jeff Beck e Duane Allman ossia puro Southern rock, swamp blues and lightning slide

Fowler's guitar work has been compared to Johnny Winter and Jeff Beck, while his slide guitar has a hint of the late Duane Allman. He can play fiery guitar runs with the best of them, but it's his lyrical work on lap steel and Dobro that makes him stand out among the legions of guitar heroes.
On Devil Got His Way, Damon fulfills the tremendous potential that his acclaimed Blind Pig debut, Sugar Shack, promised. His remarkable songwriting skills and vocal expressiveness are maturing, and his instrumental voice, by turns incendiary and deeply lyrical, is even stronger. Damon and his band have been touring extensively since the release of Sugar Shack, and there is quite a buzz already about this release.

"Make way for the next big-time guitar slinger, wire-walking Tampa, Fla., native Damon Fowler. This kid can play... Even better, he shows no need to kill you with pyrotechnics on his major-label debut for San Francisco's Blind Pig." -Chicago Sun Times

"After three self-released albums, Florida native Damon Fowler makes his Blind Pig debut with this notable project. Fowler oscillates between country, electric blues and Americana. He's a formidable slide guitar player... He has also mastered lap steel and dobro as well as electric guitar, and his playing throughout the album is deft. Indeed, Fowler may be so skillful that he prefers pickin' tasty to larger-than-life guitar heroics. Fowler wrote nine of the 12 tunes on the album, and his original material is solid. Billboard

"Sugar Shack is lean and slinky, powered by Fowler's exceptional work on electric guitar, slide, Dobro and lap steel...On Sugar Shack, Fowler is first-rate all the way." - Orlando Sentinel

"In the Blues world - or any other genre, for that matter--the complete package is hard to come by...to combine facile fervor on a Tele, a lap-steel, and a flattop with a truly compelling vocal style and soulful songwriting -- that's something rare in an artist of any age. It's even more impressive when such maturity and authenticity come from a 25-year-old like Damon Fowler." - Guitar Player

Aaron Neville - I Know I've Been Changed

When the storm of life is raging Lord

Stand by me

When this old world is tossing me like a ship on a raging sea

Will thou, Mary’s baby…Shelter in the time of storm…

Stand by me.

—–Charles A. Tindley




In his opening notes on I Know I’ve Been Changed, the artist known to millions of devoted fans worldwide as Aaron Neville stands before the microphone not as a musical legend, but as an ordinary man appealing to an eternal God. His signature vibrato rises and dips in a musical prayer full of passion, utterly sincere.

It is perhaps the most powerful moment on a uniquely moving album—his first gospel recording since Hurricane Katrina ripped through the city he cherished, destroying his personal home, and forever altering so much of the life he knew.

Despite that tragic backdrop, the project plays not as a mournful reflection, but rather as a hopeful celebration of the three things that have shaped Aaron Neville most of all—his hometown, his music and his faith.

In grand New Orleans style, I Know I’ve Been Changed celebrates Aaron Neville’s 50th year in recorded music. The album brings the artist’s career full circle, returning him to the music he loved first—gospel music—and reuniting him with Allen Toussaint, the legendary songwriter, musician and producer who produced Aaron’s first recording session in 1960.

Toussaint, who grew up in a nearby New Orleans neighborhood and attended the same school as the Neville brothers, has been a frequent collaborator with Aaron over the years. “Aaron gives the song, the arts, the fullness of his heart and soul every time,” Toussaint says. “He has always been that way. It’s good to know that when something is that good, it’s good forever—the velvet voice of Aaron Neville.”

Producer Joe Henry and Neville recorded I Know I’ve Been Changed over a period of five days, using a stripped-down production approach to showcase the strength of the twelve handpicked songs, as well as the beauty of Neville’s unmistakable vocals.

In true old-school fashion, the musicians played along with Neville’s vocals in-studio to capture the feel of a live set. Arranging and recording such a large amount of material over such a short period, required masterful focus and teamwork. “When I go to the gym, I go to work out. When I go to church, I go to pray.When I go to the studio, I go to sing,” Neville explains.

To handle the challenge of that level of performance, the producer assembled some of the top players. “I call them hard hitters at the bat,” Neville says. “With them playing, there weren’t too many mistakes.”

After four days of working on the instrumentation and lead vocals, Neville pulled together a group of singers who had worked with him on tour and in-studio for many years. They followed Aaron’s vibe, creating classic background arrangements to match the era in which most of the songs were originally recorded.

“It was like a labor of love for everybody. They loved all the songs and they put their all into it,” Neville explains. “It was a fun album, working with those guys.”

Over the past five decades, the indelible spirit of New Orleans has been synonymous with the musical dynasty known as the Neville Brothers. For Aaron Neville the solo artist, there is an equally intimate connection between his music and the faith that has sustained him for his entire life. Through challenge and tragedy, he’s managed to thrive, protecting both his heart and his voice. Ask him how and he says simply this: “He who sings once, prays twice.”

“My Momma, Amelia Landry Neville, always taught the golden rule to us—to treat others as we would like to be treated,” he shares. “One of her favorite sayings was this: ‘I’ll only pass this way once.Therefore any goodness or kindness I can show let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.’”

That perspective served him well in the months after Hurricane Katrina. “Right after the storm we’d go places to perform and run into displaced people from New Orleans everywhere,” Neville reflects. “So when we go sing we’re singing for them and letting them know they’re not by themselves. There’s hope.”

The spirit of New Orleans is marked by an undying hope. On this project Aaron Neville captures that spirit—reflecting the hope of his hometown, drawing hope from his faith, spreading hope through his music.