LITTLE STEVEN – Soulfire (2017)
Steven ‘Little Steven’ Van Zandt, the longtime guitarist of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, actor on the TV hit series The Sopranos playing the role of Silvio, and programmer of SiriusXM satellite radio’s acclaimed Underground Garage channel, debuts his first solo album in two decades. LITTLE STEVEN‘s “Soulfire” is comprised of 12 songs including the title track, ‘Saint Valentine’s Day’ and ‘Love On The Wrong Side Of Town’ written by Steven and his friend Bruce Springsteen.
Stevie Van Zandt has certainly had an interesting career.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a couple years ago, he’s rocked the world with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, co-producing the band’s core albums; he helped end apartheid in South Africa with his ‘Sun City’ single; portrayed mobster Silvio Dante on The Sopranos and reunited the Rascals on Broadway.
With all this, his music gets pushed off center stage, and that’s too bad.
“Soulfire,” the brand new album from Little Steven and his band Disciples Of Soul, is a gem, a work that’s at once gritty, beautiful, soulful and rocking.
Apart from the Springsteen co-writen tunes, the album comprises songs Van Zandt has written for others over the last four decades plus some new.
With a tight wrist figure flickering against an electric guitar neck, title track “Soulfire” kicks off Steven Van Zandt’s first solo project in almost 20 years with an exultant flurry of wide open vocals, horn section rising and the backbeat pushing forward.
Rocking and hot, this is a joyous invitation to live and love that breaks down to a rhythm track and an exhortative enjoinder.
Steven’s voice isn’t as bluesy as I expected, but more graveling, raspy, and this works much better with this material. The porous shaft of muscle n’ mean brings a passion that’s utterly lacking in self-consciousness.
In a world where prettified and production-enhanced voices are standard, this is a real man bringing every ounce to the table.
That commitment to the music – the sounds that made him, and that he’s intending to make – provides a deeper meaning to the Asbury Jukes’ ‘I’m Coming Back’. A pledge of commitment to a lover abandoned, the brass sliding and bass throbbing fat and muscular, he reinvents an already fervent love song as a manifesto to the music.
At a time when classic rock & roll could be deemed quaint for some music executives, feeling the vitality and need on the cascading, staccato-blasting, string-swept betrayal reckoning ‘Love On The Wrong Side of Town’ and the thundering pound down ‘Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre’ are their own urgency. Beyond memory lane, these forms, properly rendered, are as dynamic as ever.
‘I Don’t Want to Go Home’ is powered by an organ bed, electric piano and background harmonies for a sound approaching rock ‘n’ roll gospel. Great one.
As a songwriter and producer, Van Zandt’s genius is he’s able to unlock the secret to combining expert musicianship with a vibrant immediacy. Here, the songs jump out at you.
There are sharp guitar riffs, drum shuffles, real horns, background singers, percussive accents, rave ups, orchestral flourishes and more, all dazzling to the ear and motion-inducing to the hip and foot.
Little Steven’s “Soulfire” is a true homage to his roots, and at the same time to American classic rock from the last forty decades.
Highly Recommended
01 – Soulfire
02 – I’m Coming Back
03 – Blues Is My Business
04 – I Saw The Light
05 – Some Things Just Don’t Change
06 – Love On The Wrong Side Of Town
07 – The City Weeps Tonight
08 – Down And Out In New York City
09 – Standing In The Line Of Fire
10 – Saint Valentine’s Day
11 – I Don’t Want To Go Home
12 – Ride The Night Away
Stevie Van Zandt – vocals, guitar
Marc Ribler – guitars
Andy Burton – Hammond B3, piano, Wurlitzer
Clifford Carter – keyboards
Jack Daley – bass
Rich Mercurio – drums
Daniel Sadownick – Percussion
Steven Salcedo – sax
Stan Harrison – flute, sax (tenor)
Jonathan Dinklage – strings
Eddie Manion, S. Jankowski, J. Martin, I. Gray, M. Davis – horns
The Persuasions, Martha Redbone, Cindy Mizelle Vocals, Tawatha Agee – backing vocals
BUY IT !
www.amazon.com/Soulfire-Little-Steven/dp/B06XZ8XT98
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