For all his soulfulness, Paul Carrack let an occasional country inflection into the songs he controbuted to ACE and MIKE + THE MECHANICS canons, yet nobody expected the British veteran to ever deliver a full-blown Appalachia-tinctured album. Only Paul has ever admired the likes of George Jones and Hank Williams, and they’re but two artists whose classics Carrack covers on his forthcoming platter, titled “The Country Side Of Paul Carrack – Volume 1” and scheduled for release on July 4th, right in time to celebrate such an important part of American culture.
The Country Side Of:
Volume 1
The idea of this record was born when Paul was contacted by North Carolinian musician named Steven Wood who intended to sing one of the Englishman’s numbers and asked Carrack to add a bit of organ and a few vocal lines. He obliged, and friendship got struck that, eventually, resulted in another collaboration, with Paul’s voice added to Steven’s basic tracks and a host of Nashville players the latter gathered overdubbing various instruments. However, the two co-conspirators didn’t stop at the perennials from the aforementioned country figureheads, as well as from Merle Haggard, Hank Snow song and Ray Charles; they also cut new versions of Carrack’s own pieces, “Love Will Keep Us Alive” which he co-penned for EAGLES, and “The Cold Light Of Day” which he co-wrote with former SQUEEZE colleague Chris Difford. Judging by the first single (below), the record should be great – and it’s only the initial volume of it.
1. Sea Of Heartbreak
2. Take Me
3. Love Will Keep Us Alive
4. Heartaches By The Number
5. Shelly’s Winter Love
6. Cold Light Of Day
7. It Don’t Hurt Anymore
8. Take These Chains From My Heart
9. I Saw The Light
10. My Baby’s Gone
