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Editors Word: As printed in Residing Blues journal – Concern #283 Vol. 54 # 2, March 2023. Pg. 8-9. Frank Matheis
Adam Falcon isn’t your typical bluesman. In actual fact, there’s nothing typical in regards to the New York singer/songwriter. For starters, not many blues musicians can learn and write music. Falcon is a formally educated songwriter who transcribes his songs, in addition to a session guitarist. Nor does he copy typical blues riffs and licks, particularly not the usual 12-bar blues. There’s just about no emulation of others, though he can play within the fashion of George Benson or Jimmy Johnson, relying on what is required. His guitar approach is nearer to a jazz/soul musician than typical blues gamers, however the blues component is omnipresent and profound. He prefers understated chords and phrasing to overt solos and snazzy showmanship. But, one listening to his track Woke Up Crying, and most of the very typical blues gamers would want that they might write a deeply emotive, soulful blues track like that. It’s the blues if ever there was one. Lyrically, poetically, and emotionally he sings the blues his personal method. Even when masking others, like Robert Johnson’s Come On In My Kitchen, his association leans extra on jazzy chord adjustments than copying the track be aware for be aware.Falcon is unbiased, idiosyncratic, confident in his personal fashion and path and in his primarily natural fashion. He’s deeply passionate and grounded in emotive feeling – important for the blues. If that each one appears uncommon at this time, there was a time when the musical prowess to shift from jazz to blues was commonplace and even anticipated. Lonnie Johnson, Jay McShann, Amos Milburn, T-Bone Walker and even Robert Lockwood come to thoughts.
The dreadlocked bard is from the Bronx, New York, and now makes his residence in Suffern, New York, not removed from New Jersey. His mom was from Harlem and his father from New Orleans and the blues fashion of each locations is integral in Falcon’s fashion. He heard Louis Jordan, Fat Domino, T-Bone Walker, Snooks Eaglin, and Louis Armstrong data round the home as a child, in addition to a broad collection of African American music. As a teen of the baby-boomer technology he had his ears open to all of it: the Beatles, R&B, Motown, B.B. King, Dylan and all that music that fashioned sounds of the technology of the late ‘60s and ‘70s. He graduated from highschool within the Bronx and studied music on the Bronx Neighborhood Faculty and proper afterwards went on tour with the singing group ‘Revelation’.
In 1975 they even opened for the Bee Gees. For years he labored as session guitarist and road-dog backing the likes of Stephanie Mills and Phyllis Hyman. He even opening for Whitney Houston as soon as. In case you are from New York and wish to make a residing as a musician you have to have your abilities honed, to be versatile and prepared for each alternative, it doesn’t matter what fashion, the identical method the unique blues gamers needed to regulate numerous repertoires for enjoying to completely different audiences.
No surprise that his blues displays all that. Soul, with jazz chords, name it a “blues infused” amalgam. In any given set he’ll play Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson and Taj Mahal songs, alongside together with his personal robust blues compositions on his mahogany Martin and Nationwide resonator guitars. He described his music as “The temper … will take you on a trip from New Orleans to the Caribbean and drop you off someplace within the Delta, with stops alongside the best way.”
The musician instructed LB, “I play blues with a special beat and I like all the pieces from reggae to Brazilian music. Throughout my Brazilian part I performed a nylon string guitar. I switched to metal string guitar and went to a interval of loving Richie Havens, Invoice Withers and Ben Harper. I additionally love the deep blues of Robert Johnson and Taj Mahal. Blues to me is people music from a selected group of individuals, whereas outdated nation music is people music for an additional group of individuals. It’s all music for folks having time. I don’t label myself as a blues musician however I’m rooted within the blues with completely different influences. That’s why they name it “roots music” in spite of everything. I simply wish to unfold message. When folks hear me play, I would like them to really feel good at that second, to really feel like another person understands what they’re going by way of. You may really feel alienated on this world. Music needs to be uplifting.”
His personal compositions pack a punch and he wrote some fierce blues songs that may seize anybody’s coronary heart. His highly effective track Woke Up Cryin’ made Falcon a semi-finalist within the Worldwide Songwriters Competitors, in addition to touchdown him a nomination within the blues class of the Impartial Music Awards. The track True Blue that he wrote for the multi-Grammy winner George Benson, whose fashion is distinctly much like Falcon’s when he’s in a jazz temper, was observed by the Songwriters Corridor of Fame. They bestowed him the Abe Olman Scholarship Award for Songwriting in 2007. One other composition Like A Soldier was used within the nationwide tv sequence, the Injustice Information.
He performs largely across the New York area, with occasional journeys to New Orleans. He’s a daily at prime native Hudson Valley venues: The Falcon, Daryl’s Home in Pawling, The Turning Level and The Towne Crier Café in Beacon, New York. He continuously opens at large venues and he has opened reveals for the James Cotton Blues Band, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, The Wailers, Jim Lauderdale, Tower of Energy, Ruthie Foster and plenty of extra.
Presently, his track Coloured Man Singing the Blues, with a definite socio-critical view about injustice and inequality, is included within the album Black Lives – from Technology to Technology, an album on the European label ‘Jammin’ Colours.’ The file encompasses a collective of artists who’re persevering with to battle for equality and social justice by way of music, for the reason for preventing racism worldwide. The collective is participating in a 2022 European tour, and Falcon will be a part of the troupe of twelve musicians as guitarist.
Whereas he has made a residing with extra fashionable genres, his present path has transcended towards a extra roots-blues fashion. His distinctly blues oriented 2015 EP The Gentle Shines features a phenomenal model of Corinna, as ethereal and deep as any. The title minimize options the artist taking part in funky slide on this authentic blues, which options Keith Fluitt (Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson) and Martha Redbone on backing vocals. Falcon is at present recording a brand new album in Philadelphia. “It’s a blues-oriented album based mostly on my private life experiences, my youngsters, New Orleans, and so on.” His previous albums have been a stylistic blended bag. Bohemian 959, a file with a definite slick, uptown vibe,issued in 2009, is rooted in soul/funk. The album options Nona Hendryx on vocals. I, Too Am Coloured in Black and White, from 2000, is a mixture of city and roots blues. The album features a compelling cowl of Jimi Hendrix’s Up from the Skies, sluggish, jazzy andsophisticated. His track Love Strikes On straddles the pop-folk realm with a blues bent.
He reminisces a few quarter of a century as knowledgeable musician with an existentialist, pandemic period recognition, “I used to be in Europe, working with the artist Jonathan Butler and we opened for Eric Clapton. The event was an anniversary celebration, at the Royal Albert Corridor, commemorating Clapton’s 25 years within the music enterprise. I keep in mind eager about how that should really feel, doing one thing you love, for a prolonged quantity of time. It’s been over 25 years since that Clapton anniversary and now the feeling of doing what I like has turn into a actuality. I’m not certain how lengthy I’ve been making music, but it surely’s nicely previous 25 years with no signal of slowing down. I do know I’ve been blessed to do what I’ve all the time needed to do, however there comes a time when I take it without any consideration. Not too long ago, there have been memorable folks and buddies in my life who’ve handed on. Each turns into a wakeup name. Whereas attending a memorial for a musician buddy and seeing acquainted faces, I noticed the significance of each second… Currently, it’s been one thing I’ve tried to pay extra consideration to. If there’s one thing you’re keen on doing, do it, till it may well not be executed. Strive reconnecting with buddies.”
It’s positively time to tip the hat to the New York bluesman after 25 years of taking part in professionally. You may not know him but, however quickly come.
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Woke Up Crying
Sitting in Limbo
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