What do you do as an artist/musician who loves as many genres you can imagine and wants to cover as many of those as possible?
Well, one way is to go across the board in every one of your releases, or you can work within one genre at a time, in various musical surroundings. California artist Stevie Cornell seems to have decided to take that second route.
During almost fifty years on the scene, Cornell has worked in a number of band settings, covering everything from punk and rockabilly to jazz, blues, and Americana.
Working in a number of band settings, he took a hiatus from music to concentrate on raising a family, something that influenced the fact that his new release, Some Sweet Dream is only his second solo album under his own name.
This time round, Cornell concentrated on his vision of roots/Americana music that points to his key influences – from the more traditional stuff like Johnny Cash/Willie Nelson influenced “Dark Are The Windows,” to ‘70s California soft rock and Beach Boys harmonies of the title track, to some other places that point to his California background.
Yet, Cornell’s wide musical interests and his even wider musical experience enable him to tie all these elements so neatly together, even covering practically all the instrumentation on the album.
It is an easy-flowing, natural music, that doesn’t reinvent the wheel but presents a very shiny, easy-running one that brings musical enjoyment along with it.
