Kal David & Miss Lauri Bono

2015 DamnGoodTunes Artist Of The Year

Photo by Tom Bombria

We don’t give away a lot of awards here at DGT. This is due to the fact that we talk to hundreds of artists every year and we try to remain un-biased even if we really dig someone’s work.  But each year a few are so outstanding that we just can’t ignore their contribution to music and to the arts. And for that reason, Kal David, with Miss Lauri Bono with their totally insane smash album, “Living The Dream” become our Top Artist(s) of the entire year! 

To say that Kal David is just a great Blues Guitarist would be a shame, although he is. But then again other Blues guitarists don’t even come close to the wide range of his styles, the colors on his palette if you will.  A short while after the fuzzy glow of the British Invasion had subsided a bit, and being a guitar player myself I immediately started listening to BB King, Muddy and one particular English fellow named John Mayall and his band, the Blues Breakers as I was seeking a higher meaning and more depth, feeling, and that elusive element known as “soul “.  The Blues Breakers were home to many great guitar players including Jimi Page and Eric Clapton and one very young and talented Kal David, who was with the band touring and making records for some three years.  Knowing that tidbit of history will make most reviewers pen a pretty convincing argument that Mr. David is indeed a fine and experienced Blues Guitarist, which as I said earlier –  he is. But they’d miss his depth and the mark by a mile!

Kal David is a singer. He is a true vocalist, a professional with way above average vocal chops to be called a Blues singer. Few of the known men and women in the Blues really have much of a great voice at all with certain exceptions. And if asked, they would probably never dispute that claim either. For example, the now very rich and famous icon of Blues-Pop, Sir Eric Clapton who came from the same school of knocks “across the pond “as most of the American Blues legends had done and had to fight his own long battle upward to stardom, but when you talk to people that you think should know their music, they just go on about the old days of Cream and Yardbirds with no talk of the great songs he wrote and sang and earned Grammys on. He too was passed over as a singer by the critics and the media but I’ve always disagreed with that nonsense. Same is true for Kal David, as when I talked to many of my Blues connections and they speak  about his guitar playing, saying how great he was on the guitar years back with little mention about his singing and original songs. Now though, I have re-discovered just what a total “all-around “musician he is and I feel he deserves all the same respect as Sir Eric is accustomed to. And I know that’s a big pill to swallow for some of you but it is this writers’ opinion that the world is about to wake up to a living legend of music, not just the Blues. And then, this is where the road starts to really divide and get interesting….

Miss Lauri Bono, music partner for many years to Mr. David is fully featured in this new record of theirs called “ Living The Dream “ and she is one of the most dynamic and amazing female vocalists I’ve heard in decades!  You know how it is, with all these reality Talent shows on TV these days, with  the seasonal new crop and even some old bloods who come on to compete with their trademark vocal “ gymnastics.  These are the girls who sing a hundred notes a measure just to show that they heard Aretha records and they have something to prove, never knowing that as in the guitar like Kal knows how to play, less is always more.  Lauri sings in a way that she can sound like soft velvet or turn on the gravel and guts – raising the old goose bumps on your arm and then, she pulls you right back into another soft passage of her angelic flute-like whispers of melody and you just say whoa…..and it’s like something spiritual just happened in front of the whole church-audience….yep, someone got saved! Now I don’t know a great deal about Miss Lauri and her own up-bringing or where she studied music but I know it is a gift. A gift that she has chosen to share with Kal David as they traverse the globe making records playing concerts, television shows and major VIP events.  Most acts that consist of two great singers will usually take turns in the spot light but rarely an act like Peaches and Herb, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, Barry Gibb and Barbara Streisand – all seventies legends I might add – comes along and makes music history together singing as a real duet. Music, at least Pop and Country music has for the most part missed this element of the male-female duets and the power of two to tell a story.  It worked well for Kenny and Dolly on “Islands In The Stream” and also Lionel and Diana with their “Endless Love “, but producers seem to focus differently these days on developing one icon at a time, one song of the week and one flavor of the month than to foster and market the passion and the power of a duet, as evidenced in this incredible new record by Kal David and Lauri Bono and released on Crytone Records.

We’ve been blessed with this(damngoodtunes.com) magazine because of all the amazing talent and rising stars we’ve been able to meet, interview and review. And there have been hundreds of talented bands and singer-songwriters!  There have been Blues artists who are really great at what they do and some of them were already major stars when we met them, and many were on their way to the top but not one of them were anywhere like or on the level of Kal David and Miss Lauri here on their brand new record, “ Living The Dream “ . There’s something so very special about the chemistry between the notes. You can’t just say “Oh Kal is the star here and write a review about him because they are a TEAM. And a team works synergistically toward the greater good of the total performance, the compete record. The members of the team don’t think they are better than the other; they co-exist because of and for each other. Perfect Harmony.

So we give this award whole-heartedly but not lightly. Kal David and Miss Lauri Bono are the  most deserving Artists of the year but if we gave awards for best male-female vocal performance, they would win that one too! Every track of Living The Dream is great and I’ve played it over and over for a month now in my car whenever I travel, so I don’t have a favorite because they are all, forgive the pun….damn good tunes !

Bruce J Maier

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND CD SALES PLEASE SEE
KALDAVID.COM 

CD also available on Crytone Records 

Nashville Independent Songwriter’s Festival

The  following article is an excerpt from the works of our very own  Nashville Editor , James Dean Fisher. James has been with our company for over three years now and he brings a warm light of experience and insights about the music business that only a veteran of Nashville for nearly forty years would be capable of delivering.

James Dean Fisher – Nashville DGT Editor and Journalist

 

 

Another year has come and gone, another Nashville Independent songwriters Festival has come and gone! ” Popcorn,” along with many people as volunteers, has brought about another historical event, of which focused solely on the independent songwriter. Songwriters, independents as well as writers that write as,” Signed writers,” for established publishing houses and record companies, gather in one area in the vicinity of” Music row” to allow the public, as well as the music industry, to see and hear the songs/product, they, as songwriters create.
The songwriter is the heart and soul of the songs that are recorded in today’s recorded music industry. Here in music city, it is a fact, thousands of people come to this great city thinking they are great song crafters. Just ask most anyone on the street, a club, bar or in general conversation, why they came to music city. Nine out of ten times, the answer will be; I am a songwriter/artist. Here in Music City, it is also a commonly known fact, eight out of ten are not writers or artists and will never even get a” Cut.”
The Nashville Independent songwriters Festival is put on each year here in Music City for the established songwriters as well as the struggling songwriters and it is a great event of which writers get to know each other and are able to network and perform with a variety of writers. With that being said, the Nashville Independent songwriters Festival of 2012 was a success, however, there were many, many changes in this year’s event and the event was very closely contained, scaled-back to fit into a small area. There were no main stages, there were no ” Headliners” or any featured artists.

As an artist/writer and entertainer, I personally look for venues that will benefit the songwriters and artist that are looking at the songwriter for products/songs that he or she could and would record. This year’s event mostly benefited the club owners in the area that allowed the songwriters to perform on their stages. There was not a” Main stage” or a main event to attract the people from around Nashville and middle Tennessee.

As the writer/editor for the music magazine, damngoodtunes.com, I have covered the Nashville songwriters Festival for the past three years. As a reporter, I sat and talked to many writers as well as people that came to Music city to attend the songwriters Festival, about the 2012 songwriters Festival and sadly, I received for too many negatives about this year’s festival! I found that many were disappointed and confused about where all the events were to take place. I also found that many of the attendees were unhappy about the stages being located in bars and clubs. As a writer/song-crafter, I was invited to perform on several stages and perform i did. I was able to meet and speak with several of my old friends and perform with some of them.

As a reporter, I found many people from all over the USA there to perform at the 2012 songwriters festival. Many were young and new with all the usual dreams of becoming the next “Big Thang!” I enjoyed the festival and hope to see the event grow and become the largest songwriters festival in the world! POPCORN, my friend, I’m with you all the way!!!
JAMES DEAN

 

New Music, staying ” open “

I can honestly say that It is my business to listen to new music all the time, every day. Though a song may not be my cup of tea I still love and respect what the new artists are expressing, and unlike when I was growing up in music when there were just a handful of ” rock ” genres, today there are dozens. Pop means something different than it did in 1970 ( thank God! ) and Country could now mean a ” New York City ” sort of way, for Country music is now appreciated in more urban areas on every continent than ever before. It’s all good!

Remembering back when I told everyone I didn’t like Hip-Hop it was mainly because I hadn’t listened with my mind all the way open. Now I listen to everything current and still find time for my ” old school ” styles which I will go down defending to the end but hey … I’m loving music more today than I did thirty years ago. There’s room for everyone in my head, how about you?