KEVIN SO

KEVIN SO RELEASES LIVE FOLK/BLUES ALBUM

"LiFe Solo AKouStic." Now based in Nashville, praised by notables Keb’ Mo’, Amos Lee, Billy Bragg, and Richie Havens, modern troubadour Kevin So displays his formidable creative gifts as songwriter, singer and guitarist on his newest disc, LiFe Solo AKouStic. The album comes packed with the potent, authoritative folk/blues music that Kevin performed in concert one special evening last spring at Club Passim, the famous subterranean Harvard Square folk club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [The enhanced disc also includes its predecessor Along the Way in MP3 format.] This compelling update in song of Kevin’s life journey in the past decade, covering the years since his father’s and best friend’s deaths, seamlessly weaves poignant spoken remembrances by his mother into the fabric of thirteen memorably melodic, well-crafted original songs that further benefit from his clever and insightful lyrics. Though mostly alone onstage, Kevin profits from guest appearances by three of his Boston-based friends – guitarist/pianist Paul Erlich, harmonica player/singer Harmonica Tom, and lap-steel specialist Jack Kingsley. The album is scheduled for its official launch party and release at Club Passim on October 10th. (“10/10/10”) His tour schedule is at www.KevinSo.com. LiFe Solo AKouStic represents a perfect bookend to So’s Along the Way (1999), also recorded at Club Passim and rendered fascinating by the wise words of his father and older brother. Affording closure to Kevin as a New England born-and-bred musician, this Passim show reflects his deep emotional reactions to a busy decade: a failed relationship, the Obama election, leaving home base New York City for Nashville (the Passim gig took place while he was in transit), and among other personal events including a totaled car wreck while on tour. With so much going on in his personal life at the time of this show, Kevin’s roots music holds a communicative immediacy that draws the Cambridge audience into his songs, as well as the encore, Stevie Wonder’s “Love’s In Need of Love Today.” The energy and power of the performance, provided in equal measures by performers and audience, illuminates LiFe Solo AKouStic for Kevin’s faithful fans around the country, and also newcomers who’ve recently seen Kevin on tour with Keb’ Mo’ or heard through the roots-music grapevine of his talent for illustrious storytelling. The SRO show at Passim was in fact a celebration of the release of Kevin’s Best Foot Forward CD (2009), his first truly solo acoustic disc and important marker of his return to folk/blues roots after several years engaged primarily in pop/R&B ventures. It is hard to single out any tracks. New compositions and old favorites alike are of considerable merit and full of life. Still, one might mention the warm, inviting cadences of his voice on “Forever Friend” or the honest confidence Kevin exudes in “The Ballad of Amy Xu,” a song framed in classic folk structure. Listen to the camaraderie of Kevin and Harmonica Tom on “A Brighter Day” (take special note of Tom’s jazz-spontaneous a cappella rap), and the articulate urgency of Kevin’s vocal and superbly played guitar on “Streets of Chinatown,” a declaration of ethnicity that cuts across cultures. The whole program is, indeed, an unalloyed delight of richly personal acoustic music, his strain of modern folk not shackled to any trend or style. Whether performing alone these days in Nashville, Chicago, Tampa, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, or anywhere else, Kevin projects volumes of passionate involvement with his music. He’s just as confident in the recording studio, with 8 well-received CDs in his discography. He’s also at ease in the world of theater, having composed songs for a musical called "Great Wall," presently in major development with Tony Award winning playwright David Henry Hwang. Kevin first earned a following in southern New England in 1995, branched out to Chicago and the Midwest, and then pursued a pop/R&B/folk direction upon moving to New York City in 2003 and releasing the fine double-disc Leaving The Lights On and A Brighter Day. The hybrid music he conjured so readily in the Big Apple was validated in 2007 when he was awarded the coveted “Best Music & Lyrics” award at the prestigious New York International Fringe Festival. The following year saw Kevin release Best Foot Forward, a full-length reconnection with folk and blues, its songs recorded in just three days with the assistance of producer Steve Rapson, who produced his very first CD Pendulum in 1996. Impressively, Kevin has cultivated a musical relationship with contemporary blues artist Keb’ Mo’, opening for him on recent tours, including a stop at Carnegie Hall, and more recently Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. As Keb’s sole accompanist at times, the versatile So contributes strikingly good piano and harmonica work in addition to his guitar and vocal artistry. Their affiliation dates back to 2007, when Kevin began opening shows for the popular bluesman. Kevin has also opened for Joe Cocker, Randy Newman, Little Richard, Billy Bragg, Richie Havens, Amos Lee and many other notable artists. Many great things are coming for Kevin. He’s back on the road playing solo folk/blues again, and his honest and thrilling music has grown creative wings of its own. Stay tuned.