HERE, HE GIVES US AN INSIGHT INTO THE MAKING OF THE ALBUM

I had the idea to do another collection of cover songs after going through some old tapes and finding all my original demos for "Reflections", my 1994 collection of cover songs. Together with those demos were a dozen or so songs that never made it to that CD. I had honestly forgotten that there were any outtakes from those days. "For The Love Of You" was one of those unused songs that sounded good to me, so I wondered if just maybe there was a whole other album waiting to be made - a sort of follow-up to the "Reflections" CD.

I started putting together tracks based on the arrangements on the tape but soon I had to leave to go on tour with "Jazz Attack" along with Richard Elliot, Rick Braun and Jonathan Butler. Not missing a beat, I packed up my laptop computer and a microphone and resolved to continue the recording process on the road. I soon realized that here was a perfect opportunity to record my friends in their natural habitat. I ambushed Richard Elliot backstage at the Carefree Theatre in West Palm Beach, Florida and had him play a verse of "You Are Everything" on my improvised laptop studio. He had never played the song before and I tried to reassure him by saying that it was just an experiment, to see what the sax would sound like on this song. I kept his second run through for the final mix - his uncertainty about how to play the melody fitting perfectly with the utter lack of confidence in the song lyric. Thanks Richard! I set up another session backstage at the Fraze Pavillion in Kettering Ohio, just half an hour before a Jazz Attack show. We were working away feverishly in the dressing room - my road manager kept coming in to tell us that the show was about to begin! Richard kept right on blowing until showtime...the sax intro and rousing solo on that song comes straight from that evening in Ohio. We tried to redo the second verse that we had originally recorded in West Palm Beach but the confidence that Richard now had was at odds with the tender, introspective way he had first played it, so we kept the original run through. I was backstage at the North Fork Theatre in Westbury, Long Island and seeing my friend Rick Braun with a flugelhorn In his hand, invited him into my makeshift dressing room studio. The song was "One On One" and what he played in a few moments was so hauntingly beautiful that I used it for the second verse of that song. We finished the rest of his solo in my hotel room a few days later in Milwaukee.

After the tour ended I called Paul Brown to help me finish the album and he came forward with a lot of great suggestions that took the whole album away from my rough arrangements into something far more polished. He suggested I record "What Does It Take", the Jr. Walker song enlisting Sam Riney on sax, who I had not seen since he had played on the Reflections CD twelve years earlier! ("What Does It Take" became the first single from the album, featuring an arrangement by Paul's old partner from the early Boney James days, Jeff Carruthers). Having been on tour with the irrepressible Jonathan Butler all last year in "Jazz Attack" it seemed natural to have him sing on the Bill Withers song "Happy Day", and he surely did get us into a happy spirit with his vocalising. Jeffrey Osborne had been working with Paul Brown and so Paul asked him to add vocals on  "You Are Everything", already featuring the sax of Richard Elliot (recorded on the road in Ohio), turning it into a romantic Tour de Force! (That means something of a high point, I think!). I had already finished the songs "Deja Vu" and "Mr. Magic" to my satisfaction when PB got hold of them, and when he added Boney James on the first and Bob James on the second, I realised that the songs were now really complete. Thanks, Paul for taking what I started and making it sparkle!

All these songs represent a feeling to me from way back in my adolescence. Romantic, exciting,  soothing - they have all stayed with me through the years (the exception being "One on One" which came out when I was already in my 20's). Who over the age of 30 can say that "The Look Of Love" hasn't touched them at some point? I hope my rendition does the song justice (with a beautiful horn arrangement by Jerry Hey). And the song that started this whole ball rolling, "For The Love Of You"? I eschewed the romanticism of the Isleys' version for a straight down-and-dirty groove. Funny thing is, I did the opposite on my version of "Who's That Lady", (from my Glow CD), substituting their frantic all-out rock and roll blitzkreig for a much gentler approach. This approach - to take a well-known song and do it in a different way - permeates the music on this album. The only exception is "What Does It Take", where we couldn't really find any other way to do it than to copy the original groove faithfully. Then again, the Jr. Walker saxophone lines on this song have never to my knowledge been played on acoustic guitar!

Finally, on looking for a title for this CD, Paul Brown came up with "Playing Favorites". I favoured the English spelling "Playing Favourites" but I was outvoted by the entire staff of Sony Music/ Legacy. Any way you spell it, it really does say everything about what this CD represents to me. These are some of my favourite things!

"PLAYIN' FAVORITES" IS OUT NOW ON THE SONY/LEGACY LABEL