“Melody” captures a nostalgic fiery feeling that never burns out, not even at the end. An entanglement of horns, gospel riffs, and melodic ideas crescendo like an evergreen that caught a spark…
Big Yard is a multi-genre collective of musicians. From smooth jazz to country, rock and roll, and hints of chill R&B, this band is known for making anthemic songs that have unexpected twists. The group is now back with their fourth original single- “Melody”.
Early on in the tune, a heavy emphasis on the backbeat is established, resulting in a nostalgic grooving vibe from the get-go. Percussion stick clicks and an in-your-face kick drum meet bright guitars and an assured bass line: We are off to a running start.
Finally, the horns enter, immediately followed by a contagious, gravely voice.
The combination of sounds crescendo, culminating into….
As the soulful backing vocals meet the wailing slide guitar everything comes together in an impenetrable wall of bold sound. The lead singer continues, his voice making sweet love to the idea of a melody. In this section, the guitars switch to the backburner of the musical stove and provide a bit of rhythmic tension by playing on the off-beats (while the horn section offers legato counter melodies). A spicy innuendo is peppered in, and then we’re off to the races and back to the catchy chorus.
As we reach the contrasting bridge section, we wonder how we could be so close to the end already. The singer shouts, and a trombone and heavy-handed drums offer their reply, and then we find ourselves swimming in new melodies…
“Melody” harkens back to old-school rock and blues, but also has a rich tinge of R&B. Between the ultra-crisp modern production value to the tune’s blossoming energetic feel, who knew that a 2:55 song could be so full of flavor and joy?
Even when the vox fades out and we are left with a single flame: a swung bari sax statement.
Check out our other features with Big Yard HERE.
Q&A
When did the idea of personifying the idea of a melody as a woman come to you guys?
First off thanks again for all the great support we get from Jammerzine. We truly appreciate you guys. Melody was one of those songs that developed in a songwriting session I did with Chuck Hall, a legendary Blues Artist and Musician living in Carefree, AZ.
I met Chuck through Ed Heisler, the owner of Black Mountain Guitar Company where Chuck gives private lessons. We hit it off, started doing some local gigs together and soon began co-writing. Melody was a concept I had lyrically about giving a song a female name and turning it into a love song over a twelve bar blues riff. You know… a Songwriters love song to a song!!! Chuck came up with the opening riff and we went from there.
Here’s an interesting factoid. Chuck’s slide solo was a first take performance using one of the guitars he picked up randomly in my studio, a late model Godin 5th Avenue that was recorded direct to tape through an interface. The truth is it was only meant as a scratch track… but it was simply magical. When he came back to my studio to re-cut it, with his own guitar, a 55 Strat and a mic’d up Twin Reverb in an ISO booth, we couldn’t quite capture that same magic as the original scratch performance so we re-amped the direct track in the DAW, added some processing and kept it. Now you know the whole story!!!!
You seem to use a lot of live horns in your singles. Is this instrumentation something you planned to incorporate since the beginning?
We had Horns in mind for several of the tracks on this EP, ‘54th St our debut. ‘Melody’ was one we knew would be featuring a horn section because I wrote that line into her lyrics… ’Saxophones and a Slide Trombone blowing out the back of her beat’. Kinda stuck when you write something like that, right?
How did you meet your horn players?
The Arranger and Saxophonist is Jerry Donato, a local Phoenix player and music teacher. I met Jerry through Chuck Hall. Jerry brought in his trumpet and trombone partner, Greg Varlotta and cut the parts I had written when we were laying down the basic tracks for ‘Melody’. Jerry took those parts and arranged them for the session. The session went so well with these two guys we decided to add their horns to ‘State of Mind’ and ‘Happy Day’. So glad we did, they make a huge difference to the sonic value of these three tracks and in my opinion make ‘State Of Mind’ the song it is.
“Melody” feels like both a love song to a girl, and a love song to music-making. What was the first lyrical line you came up with?
Thanks, indeed it is. It started off with the first verse: Broke out some words, put ’em tween a rhyme or two and I laid’ em down over eight bars of Rhythm and Blues. Chuck Hall playin slide like a bad out of hell stick around for the sound of a brick wall hitting the ground.
Like I said, Chuck is a local legend and international blues artist that toured internationally with his own band, Chuck Hall and The Brick Wall …. hence the ‘Brick Wall hitting the ground’ reference.
“Melody” feels like a momentous wall of sound. How does one achieve such an impenetrable brick house of music?
Thank you, this was to become the signature sound of the ‘54th St. EP in its diverse collection of six songs. The wall of sound you reference is achieved by building multi layers of Horns and Vocal tracks, mixing them at the appropriate levels to support the drum and bass tracks and when mastering the mix making sure the wav files are set at the highest levels without clipping. The wav files end up looking like a wall, hence the wall of sound.
How do you get so much power and gravel in your voice?
Man, thank you so much for asking but I really can’t take credit for it. It’s just the way my vocal box and cords are built. All vocalists are built in their unique way and each vocalist offers their own sonic quality. I’ve always been a singer since I was a kid, in bands, choirs and recording. Some of my main influences growing up were the grittier soulful vocalist both male and female. I’ve always loved Dylan, Joe Cocker, Springsteen, Robert Plant, Billie Holiday, Bonnie Raitt, Amy Winehouse and Stevie Nicks.
In regard to power, when needed it’s all about breath control and using your diaphragm. You can belt it out or lay it back depending on the emotion you feel is needed for the performance and lyric.
For grit or gravel as you put it, when needed you try to lay your vocal cords together about half way down your larynx and just rasp it out with some control. I don’t really try to overdo it since my voice kind of naturally has that quality but for a vocalist wanting to achieve grit or gravel there are methods you can use after finding it and practicing on it a bit.
Do you have routines you do during rehearsal? (If so) what happens during them?
I do some pretty basic and traditional vocal warm ups before I perform or record that help keep me loosened up. But in terms of rehearsing I just try to stay relaxed, have fun and thank God for the chance to do what we do musically. Not much I can add to that.
Best wishes to all your readers, we hope you enjoy our releases with Big Yard and keep an eye out for the new releases we have coming up into the following year with our next project ‘Poet’s and Heroes’ featuring the artistry of Larry Antonino (Bassist for Pablo Cruise) and Aaron Howard (singer songwriter and producer) due out this fall. Stay well and keep supporting your favorite artists.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/bigyardlive
https://www.instagram.com/bigyardnation/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4FKPTZotGinVRRRehiYQhe
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEdYYK8lX89cqbzNfVJQ1pw
