Jackson, Stegall Going Step By Step On Next Album
Alan Jackson’s producer Keith Stegall reports that Jackson is approaching his next album “differently than all the ones before.”
“He wanted to (record) some things and then live with them a little bit, then go in and (record) some more and live with ‘em,” Stegall explains. “So it’s kind of an ongoing project. I don’t think we’ve got a delivery date until somewhere around September, so we’re just going to take our time and try to make a great album.
“Alan wants it to be his best so far.”
In addition to being a high-profile producer and the creative chief at Mercury Records, Stegall is a singer-songwriter who once was and now is again a recording artist, thanks to the current Mercury album “Passages.” Asked how he finds time to be artist-producer-record executive, Stegall indicates that that too is an ongoing project he is still developing.
For guidance, he is arranging to discuss the how-to question with Nashville’s venerable Chet Atkins, who for years at RCA Records “managed to be the most recorded instrumentalist in history and produced 30 acts and still managed to work the road some,” Stegall points out.
Gill says new album diverse
Vince Gill says people who find fault with his work tend to criticize the fact that his records don’t reflect the diversity of his live performances.
“Live,” he says, “there’s a lot of guitar playing and different feels that I never had on a record.”
Until now. In approaching his new album, “High Lonesome Sound,” Gill says he and producer Tony Brown “just wanted to shake the tree and see what fell out. I really wanted to try some new things, especially with some of the up-tempo songs.”
This time he does some R&B-influenced sounds, some New Orleans funk and even bluegrass, the form with which he began his career two decades ago.
The title song actually appears twice on the album. In addition to the bluegrass version of it that he performs with Alison Krauss & Union Station to close out the album, he does an earlier version that is hot and more mainstream country. The latter resulted when Gill and Brown had some extra studio time and decided to try it differently than the way they recorded it with Krauss.
“It got really good and funky real quick in a real neat way,” Gill says. “The way the keyboards work it’s almost like Stevie Wonder and Bill Monroe got together.”
Baby-face White gains stature
Bryan White, the baby-faced sex symbol who very quickly is attaining headline stature, first opened shows for Pam Tillis, Tracy Lawrence and Diamond Rio with just his acoustic guitar.
White has since gained enormous stage savvy, and he says it was honed via that experience opening shows alone.
“It was tough,” he recalls. “There was no one to hide behind and no one to catch me if something went wrong. I learned a lot.”