Adam Schultz - Soulful Distancing (2021)

► The album

Cool funky first shot

Is it young Schultz first album or is it Spady's new one ? Should it have been titled as "from Clarence Spady and/with Adam Schultz" or the opposite ? These questions are not simple rhetoric : Spady has been Schultz's mentor for several years, taking him on tour with him, leaving the guitar to him on three tracks of his own last album "Surrender" (2021) while working at the same period on Schultz' debut one. He is more than a simple guest on his protege's first opus : though he didn't write a single track, he co-produced it with Doug Schultz, Adam's father, plays second guitar all along and sings on six tracks, while Schultz doesn't sing one single word, concentrating on his guitar work.

We have presented Clarence Spady previously (1), so let's talk a bit about Schultz. On his official Web site, he is presented as "a jazz and blues guitarist and composer". He could and should have added "funk". Born in 2002, he studied for six years in a New York high school that was offering an outstanding music studies program. At 14 he was remarked by Spady who took him under his wing. Spady recalls : “The kid could really play and had the whole package. I felt like I was listening to myself when I was 15. One night at a gig, Douglas Schultz approached me and asked if I would give his 14 year old a lesson. I ended up giving Adam a lesson and was so impressed I invited him to sit in with me that night at Terra Blues in New York City.”

The funky-jazzy soul sound of the album is totally in Spady's style, and Schultz guitar playing fits perfectly in. And as a song composer, he certainly has a gift too as proved by his original compositions, most of them funky soul numbers with cool laid back guitar : the mellow "Good Conversation", the swinging funky R'n'B "Harlem Tonight" and "Have Some Faith" (co signed by Aviva Verbitsky), the excellent "Cure For The Blues", and "Toxic Medicine", the least convincing one to my taste.

Spady (left) & Schultz (masked)

The remaining tracks are six revisits of songs popularized by such renowned artists as Johnny "Guitar" Watson (the pounding "A Real Mother For Ya"), Louis Jordan ("Early in The Mornin'", a swinging blues with sax and choir), Little Walter ("Who (Who Told You)", enlightened by Scott Brown piano and Schultz solo), Tyrone Davis (the excellent melancholy soul ballad "Can I Change My Mind"), Otis Rush ("Cut You Loose", a song written by Mel London, totally transformed into an organ driven piece of funk, featuring a great but short guitar solo from Schultz), and Howlin’ Wolf (".44 Blues", a Roosevelt Sykes piece, transformed by Schultz guitar hypnotic riff).

These tracks have all been revisited in a contemporary mix of cool bluesy, funky and jazzy swinging style, with the help of long experienced singers (let's salute Michael Angelo's vocals) and musicians from different soul, blues and jazz horizons (like the excellent Robert O'Connell on B3 organ). Including Spady on guitar, they build solid foundations on which Schultz can express himself on guitar. Fortunately the young guitarist (he was 17 or just 18 at the time of the first recording sessions) didn't fall in the guitar-slinger trap of over-technical demonstration and keeps it in total cool control. Smartly, he stays humbly at the service of the songs, sometimes amazingly discreet and even shy, an instrumentist conscious of his skills who already has not much to prove. ■

(1) About Clarence Spady's 2008 album "Just Between Us" :
 → https://jellyrollbaker.blogspot.com/2019/03/clarence-spady-just-between-us.html
→ https://onurblues.blogspot.com/search/label/Clarence%20Spady

Interview

● On Blues.Gr, June 2021 : https://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/q-a-with-nyc-based-adam-schultz-focuses-on-jazz-and-blues-guitar-

Videos

Spady & Schultz

● Most of the videos of Adam Schultz, alone or with Spady, are available either on his Web site and YT channel, or on his father Douglas Schultz YT channel :

→ https://www.adamschultzmusic.com/videos

→ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfCJtDKYcz6Rnolb68fX1rQ/videos

→ https://www.youtube.com/user/2dschultz/playlists

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Clarence Spady - Just Between Us (2008)

> The album

Funky King of Spades 

Warning ! If you dislike funk, keep going your way. If on the contrary, you appreciate funky rhythm'n'blues with a nice jazzy blues swinging guitar, this Clarence Spady excellent album might well be your treat.
Born in 1961 in Paterson, New Jersey, Spady grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, among parents who listened to soul and blues. His father played guitar as well as his uncle Fletchey who, Spady said once, “was a very good blues guitarist, in the manner of Otis Rush or Booba Barnes”, so that he began to play the instrument as early as… 5  !

After high school, Spady started his real musical education on the job, playing in several local bands, even accidentally getting involved in his first recording session as a sideman for the Jimmy Johnson's family band in the end of the seventies. The Johnsons' rhythm guitarist, Buddy Blackstone, probably saw Spady's potential and began to coached him.
Spady then joined touring local rhythm'n'blues bands, A Touch of Class then Greg Palmer’s band, for eight years, before leaving for Michigan where he played funk music in different bands for a couple of years. “I’ve always dug funk,” he comments. That, when listening to "Just Between Us", we've understood !
Back to Scranton, eager to find back his blues roots, he set up the West Third Street Blues Band, playing at night while working in the day as an excavator operator. He started to write songs for the group, that finally gave birth to his 1996 self-produced album “Nature Of The Beast”.
Despite a 1997 W. C. Handy Award nomination in the Best New Blues Artist category that brought him international attention and tour bookings, it took Spady another twelve years to put out "Just Between Us" in 2008.

Spady sings with a seducing soul voice. He's a gifted lyricist, a talented melodist and arranger, and a very elegant guitar master. Perfectly groovy on rhythm guitar, he is at the same time an elaborate subtle soloist putting out a very polished cool lightly jazzy playing. The presence of a Hammond B-3 organ (Benjie Porecki and Bob O’Connell) on every track colors the album with a tasteful churchy sound, and the whole structure of the album lays on the excellent funky bass work of Steve Gomes. More generally the production has been finely crafted in every detail.
Spady masters the art of composing groovy rhythms and hot funky riffs. Listen for example to "I'll Never Sell You Out", "King Of Hearts" or "Cut Them Loose", and you'll see (if I may use that verb in a musical matter).

This funky brand of impassioned, electrifying soul blues gathers strictly original Spady-penned songs. Some singularities deserve to be mentioned : the funky acid jazz sound of "I'll Never Sell You Out"; the melodic similarities between "Just Between Us" and Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry"; the great Hammond and guitar work on the excellent jazzy blues "Be Your Enough"; the killing bass lines on "King Of Hearts", "Cut Them Loose", "24/7 Luv" and "Candy"; the psychedelic folk-rock twist of "E-Mail" ("I ended up writing it in the studio", Spady recalls) which also reminds the early Allman Brothers' style. As for Spady's refined and swinging guitar style, as said earlier, it shines from beginning to end.
Such an original and sophisticated work was justly rewarded with a second nomination in 2009, this time for a Blues Music Award as Soul Blues Album of the Year.

Discography

1996, Nature of the Beast (Evidence Music)

2008, Just Between Us (Severn Records)

2021, Surrender (Nola Blue )

Videos

- Unluggged

> On the Blues Society Of Central Pennsylvania (BSCP) New Year's Eve Virtual Jam on December 31, 2020 (42mn): https://youtu.be/3Vhu8PAVoSw

> On the BSCP Virtual Jam, on December 10, 2020 (42mn): https://youtu.be/J6pCafAYNFA

- The technician

> "The sky is crying" live at Terra Blues in October 2019: https://youtu.be/d89NYGmfB0Y

- Live

> At the River Street Jazz Cafe, Plains, Pennsylvania:

- in June 11, 2010 (complete 2h20 show): https://youtu.be/oKvSWqMO3vQ

- in November 16, 2013 (complete 2h40 show): https://youtu.be/Zn-YVSZ5BtY & (4h18 version): https://youtu.be/MWp1Rq9oCzg

> At the Chameleon Club during the 2019 Lancaster Roots and Blues Fest. (1h27): https://youtu.be/13r_h6mg1Vk

 

> At The Recovery Bank in April 2021 (1h18): https://youtu.be/OXQMh25n0zU

> On The Exchange just days after Clarence's new album, "Surrender", was released, May 2021 (1h15): https://youtu.be/qNOc5RTiEAg

> In 2016 at Arlo's Tavern

- Part 1: https://youtu.be/sMRbzCTwjkg

- Part 2: https://youtu.be/HddS2fsKN_o

- Part 3: https://youtu.be/i1i5NhQzpPw

- Part 4 (with the incredible young Eamonn Hubert): https://youtu.be/RmHDHJfHNto

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