Crossover — The Other Side
Eight songs, eight crossovers. Blues meeting soul, country, jazz, bossa nova, rock and pop — not as an experiment but as a demonstration that blues was always the common ground.
Eight songs, eight crossovers. Blues meeting soul, country, jazz, bossa nova, rock and pop — not as an experiment but as a demonstration that blues was always the common ground.
The idea behind Crossover is simple and slightly mad: what if every song on the album crossed into a different genre? Not tentatively, not as a novelty, but fully. Blues-country. Blues-jazz. Blues-rock. Blues-bossa nova. Eight songs, eight different conversations between the blues and everything it has always been in dialogue with.
The results are not always what you expect. The bossa nova track is not particularly gentle. The rock track is not particularly loud. What the album demonstrates is that blues is less a genre than a language — one that translates into almost anything and changes the flavour of everything it touches.
Track Listing
Blues meets soul. The first crossover and perhaps the most natural — soul and blues have never been far apart. Also appears on Live & Unspoken Vol. I with the Okoro Sisters on backing vocals.
Blues meets rock. The right note played wrong is a mistake. The wrong note played right is character. Also on Live & Unspoken Vol. I.
Blues meets country. Loneliness as a landscape, the way country music has always understood it. On Live & Unspoken Vol. II and Plain & True.
Blues meets talking blues. The most conversational song on the album — almost spoken word, almost argument, almost love song.
Blues meets jazz. Late night insomnia as jazz standard. Also on Live & Unspoken Vol. II and Plain & True.
Blues meets pop. The pop structure carries a blues feeling into territory that pop rarely goes.
Blues meets bossa nova. The album's whole premise stated outright — the same note landing differently depending on the room it's played in. Also on Live & Unspoken Vol. I.
Blues meets acoustic pop. The closing track. A funeral day that felt like it would never end while it was happening — and, looking back, impossibly short. Also on Live & Unspoken Vol. II and Plain & True.