Gregg Stewart - Twenty Sixteen (2017)

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Written by Daniel Boyer, posted by blog admin

Gregg Stewart’s Twenty Sixteen might strike some listeners as a tribute album, but that isn’t Stewart’s avowed purpose. The unifying concept of the fourteen song album is that the performers who wrote or made these songs famous all died in 2016, a momentous year in terms of how many iconic musical figures passed away from the scene. Stewart selected songs from these artist’s catalogs and, refreshingly, doesn’t play to the obvious in regards to his choices. Some songs are rather famous, while others show Stewart’s familiarity with the artist by picking deep cuts instead. He thankfully isn’t content with duplicating the originals. Many of the covers on Twenty Sixteen are near total re-inventions with Stewart retaining the lyrics and changes, but little else. These are bold moves when they come. In the end, Twenty Sixteen is about something much more subtle than paying homage. This is a chronicle of influence and says just as much about Gregg Stewart as a feeling human being responsive to art as it does about the songwriters included on this release.

He couldn’t have picked a better song to open things with than “You Spin Me Round” from mid eighties English pop sensation Dead or Alive. The acoustic setting of the track dictates that Stewart can’t adopt the same stridency that propelled Pete Burns’ original vocal, but he’s wise to not ape Burns in any meaningful way. Stewart, instead, carves out his own individual niche for a vocal in this song and largely adheres to the basic structure of the original whilst coming off in a radically different way. He throws himself into the singing on George Michael’s “A Different Corner” with a total lack of inhibition and it helps him realize some of the blue-eyed soul emotiveness of Michael’s initial vocal. Once again, Stewart pursues an acoustic track with this song and, thus, it provides a very different listening experience from the original. It is clearly a cover, nonetheless, but Stewart wields his unique skill for transforming these songs just enough that they conclude with him owning some small but significant piece of their history. It seems improbable, but he succeeds doing that with Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” as well. The iconic singer/guitarist/songwriter scored many hits over his long career and “Raspberry Beret” likely ranks high among them, but it doesn’t intimidate Stewart at all. He manipulates and guides the familiar melody with skill and avoids attempting to mimic the trappings of Prince’s original in favor of something looser, uncluttered, and intimate.

Leon Russell’s “One More Love Song” gets a loving, knowing vocal treatment from Stewart and his take on the late Merle Haggard song “If I Could Only Fly”, written by Blaze Foley, should prompt Haggard fans to re-evaluate the unjustly ignored excellence defining the last half of his career. Stewart does an excellent job invoking Haggard’s original weathered soul while still imbuing his voice with an added wistfulness that’s all his own. "Sing a Song" is written by Maurice White from seminal act Earth, Wind, and Fire, but Stewart shows no misgivings attempting to interpret something from a style far removed from his own and infuses it with real energy. He covers Glen Frey’s “I Found Somebody” to gently rollicking effect and throws a vocal out that’s brimming over with grins and fueled by genuine zest. One of the best performances on the album comes with its penultimate track “Leaving the Table” as Stewart takes on a cut from Cohen’s recent and final album. It’s a relatively audacious move, but he’s chosen wisely as Stewart clearly puts everything of himself into delivering these oddly general but specific lyrics practically bursting with all manner of suggestiveness. There’s really nothing to not love about this jewel of a release. Gregg Stewart’s Twenty Sixteen is clearly motivated by something more important and personal than mere tribute and holds up under repeated listens.