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LaViRoSa
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Review 004
« Thread Started on Mar 16, 2005, 4:33am »

Going it alone, Costello finds his voice
By Daniel Gewertz/ Folk/Blues
Friday, March 4, 2005

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Blues fans who know Sean Costello from his teenage stint as Bay State favorite Susan Tedeschi's guitarist might not recognize the current Sean Costello.

His new self-titled CD (on Tone-Cool/Artemis) is largely a vocal album, with a strong r & b/soul slant. It is a stylish, confident accomplishment. But both the blues and Costello's guitar take a back seat.

Now 25, Costello may have come into the public eye with Tedeschi, but it was leaving her band that changed his life forever.

``My band and I joined Susan right after I graduated high school in 1997. I had met her at the international blues competition in Memphis in 1994, when I was 15. She came in second, I came in fourth. I toured with Susan and the band for about 18 months. She was just becoming a big hit when I left,'' said Costello, an Atlanta boy.

Tedeschi's first CD, ``Just Won't Burn,'' recorded with Costello aboard, went gold and gained a Grammy nomination.

Why did the guitarist leave such a flourishing enterprise? It was a matter of blues aesthetics.

``I was very young, I was hotheaded and I had high ideals about the blues. I was like a hard-core blues policeman, and we were doing a lot of shows with people like Jonny Lang, who I felt wasn't blues at all,''
he said.

``I realized I just didn't belong. My band stayed with Susan, and I went back to Atlanta.''

The move brought about a moment of crisis for the 19-year-old. ``I didn't even know if I wanted to play
music anymore. Then I thought maybe I'd get away from `the music biz,' and just play blues in bars. I started all over again. And I've gradually found my own voice,'' said Costello, who plays Johnny D's in Somerville tonight with his band (www.johnnydsuptown.com or 617-776-2004).

Rebuilding his sound led Costello as far away as possible from what he calls the ``screaming guitar monotony'' of the flashy, rockinspired playing he felt was bastardizing the blues. He also studied the voices of his idols, the masterful soul and r & b singers of the '60s and early '70s. Most of the new CDis reminiscent of that era's classic style. Al Green's ``I'm a Ram'' gets a jubilant revival. Most surprisingly, Bob Dylan's ``Simple Twist of Fate'' is turned into a soul mover.

Half of the album features Costello compositions, and his best songs live up to the soul chestnuts. With help from Ollabelle, Levon Helm, the brass section from Conan O'Brien's house band and the sparkling production work of Steve Rosenthal, a lot of the album creates an emotionally expressive sound you can party to.

The guitarist is still a scholar at heart, and there's even a bit of the blues policeman left in him.

``A lot of (modern blues) lack the fundamentals that were taught to me by the older players: Don't overplay, take your time, build a solo, don't play over the singer, don't play too loud or long,'' he said.

``In the old days, each blues performer had a very personal style. Now you hear people play the exact same notes and licks,'' said Costello, whose guitar playing is surprisingly spare on the new album.

Just as he did at 14, Costello still worships the guitar artistry of Hubert Sumlin (who, coincidentally, is playing the Regattabar in Cambridge tonight.) Yet despite his love of tradition, Costello knows that being a blues preservationist is no way to carry on the legacy of this idiosyncratic music.

Has Costello found his own voice? Like a parlor trick, the album contains a strange left turn toward jazz singing. Even the tone and range is different: You'd guess it's another singer entirely. So Costello is still busy trying on styles, yet it's deeper than a mere change of musical costumes. ``This record is so varied, there's no strategy to it at all,'' he said. Costello is glad he waited a few years before focusing on singing. ``Age is irrelevant in music. Singing has to come from the heart and the emotions. You do feel life's emotions very intensely when you're young, but I can understand that anyone over 21 doesn't want to hear a teenager sing the blues,'' he said with a laugh.

Http://www.seancostello.com

« Last Edit: Mar 16, 2005, 4:42am by LaViRoSa »

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