Ravinia 2019, Issue 1, Week 2
30 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | MAY 31, 2019 – JUNE 16, 2019 What was it like to revisit these songs with an orchestra? We were looking for new ways to present the old songs. I was invited over to Germany to do a show called “Rock Meets Classic,” where they have a band and a 40-piece orchestra and they write the charts up for a couple of songs. It was a first for me, but it was a lot of fun. [German composer] Wolf Kerschek was the maestro. We came back here and did a couple of orchestral shows and Wolf wrote some more charts [for me], and then we decided to do the record because I liked the way it was sounding. You re-recorded all the vocals for the project. Why was that important to you? But I did make sure to match the original vocals. [ Laughs .] I get disap- pointed when I download something and I hear it’s re-recorded. Most artists are so sick of their songs that by the time they get to re-record, they’ve gone all over the place with the melody and the voice doesn’t sound the same anymore. And when you hear a song that you love and know very well, you want it to sound like you remember it. So I focused really hard on the [orig- inal] phrasing. We did them all in the original keys, too, which gets tougher and tougher as you get older. [ Laughs .] It was great. This is not the first time you’ve taken a symphonic approach to your songs, albeit not on this grand a scale. We’ve had strings on songs before. In the ’70s it was a big thing to have your songs arranged, but it went out of fashion; synthesizers came in, and that was all the rage for rock music. This album was a different approach. On some songs, it’s the whole orchestral section having solos. So it went a further than just adding strings to previously known tracks. [Combining] a 40- to 50-piece orchestra with a rock band, I didn’t want it to just sound like a rock band with strings. I wanted it to sound symphonic. So you have to make some space for the strings around the band and all the vocals and backgrounds. How did you decide on the final track list for the symphonic album? One of course was the popularity of the songs because it’s kind of a greatest-hits-with-symphony package. We didn’t put “Love Is Alright Tonite” on there because the chart just didn’t work. And I think songs like “What Kind of Fool Am I” would have worked really well, but instead we went with “World Start Turning,” one of my favorite songs but one that nobody really remembers because it was on the flip side [of Rock of Life ]. Then I wrote a new song. “Irreplaceable,” for my mom because we felt putting a new song on there would be a good idea. And we did “My Father’s Chair” with just strings because I think it makes the song come alive. When I record- ed it originally, there were lots of effects on the voice and piano and strings pad. This is a real different ap- proach, and I really prefer this new one. You’re obviously not one to avoid your hit songs. You play the full songs in concert, the way people re- member hearing them as originally released. Does it ever bother you to play them over and over again? No, I’m very proud of the songs. I started out my career wanting to write hits. So when they came— I’m very proud of them. But now you’re not really playing a song anymore. You’re playing an emotion, and you’re getting the vibe off the crowd. And it’s that energy that makes it new every night to me. I imagine that if I just sat there and did a re- cord-perfect version every time, it would get pretty boring. But I’m very audience-aware and understand it’s a kind of commu- nal thing with the fans. I’m proud of the old stuff, but we do quite a few new songs. And some hits we don’t do. There’s four or five or six new songs [in a concert], so it keeps it pretty fresh for us too. Why do you think “Jessie’s Girl” took on a life of its own? It just came along at the right time. I didn’t think it was a hit song when I wrote it, just that it would make a good album cut. ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
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