Comments on: Greetings from Happy-Clappyville

By: Rabbit

Rabbit — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:45:23 +0000

Spot on Phil. Best concert I’d been to in years.
Crop,Duck and Guy.
Brilliant all of them! Hope they get to do more together.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:18:03 +0000

I went to see my idols, Steve and Duck. I don’t know what I expected with Guy. I’m not anti-Idol and good luck to them if they get a break off that show, but I’d never given them that much thought. What I saw was a singer who belonged right where he was. This baby-faced kid commanded that stage like he’d been doing it at top level for years. He was in control, sings like a dream and it sure felt like soul to me.

By: Meg

Meg — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:06:36 +0000

Shaun wrote:

As a guitarist, I’d love to play with the space and timing of Steve Cropper. I dig Amanda’s spiritualism but having them in you backing band does not a soul singer make.

Here are some excerpts from a review for The Memphis Album(Guy’s vocal stylings which will destroy your ears)from Laurie Mercer, who wites for AllMusic.com, a very big international music site:

The Memphis Album is a superbly skillful record, less interpretative than evocative, with all the ingredients perfectly balanced to win an international audience for the Australian Idol winner.

Kicking off with the Sam & Dave classic ‘Soul Man’, Sebastian immediately shows his intentions are sincere, respectful, as he fills the song with grace, power, and dignity.

What Sebastian brings to the table is a wonderful voice, heartfelt respect and skillful presentation. His range, style and tone are all remarkable, and his technique so polished that it could be argued (at the risk of being blasphemous) that he occasionally improves on the original recordings, sweetly gliding through parts shouted by the originals. The selections are top-notch, adeptly produced, excellently performed, with Sebastian pouring himself whole-heartedly into the material.

Oh and what Steve Cropper(the legendary soul guitarist you admire so much) said about him on a Memphis radio station a few months ago:

this kid came into Memphis, and just blew everybody’s socks off. He had the grit and the grime and the soul of Otis Redding, and he had the sweet soul of Al Green, he had the wonderful sweet church sound of Sam Cooke. He just took us by storm, and it was like every song we did, we just looked at each other and like all said “we can’t believe this kid can sing this good”.

And how he felt performing on stage with Guy:

hearing him singing our music, which was born and raised and produced and recorded in Memphis Tennessee. It was just something I, its hard to explain the excitement coming from being on stage and that excitement coming out of the audience. It just filled our hearts.Its just pretty much overwhelming experience that we will probably never ever get over. I hope some way we can do it again.

I guess Steve Cropper considers him a soul singer even if Mr Zuel and you don’t. And as Steve just happens to be in 3 American Halls Of Fame(Rock, Songwriter’s and most recently the Musician’s Hall Of Fame), I reckon he may know a tad more about soul than either of you.

The Memphis Album had outstanding reviews from almost every Aussie music writer who reviewed it, including a couple of very tough music critics from The Weekend Australian and The Adelaide Sunday Mail. Guy has been nominated for a Helpman Award for Best Performance In An Australian Contemporary Concert for The Memphis Tour.

Shaun, perhaps you should at least research a teeny tiny bit before making assumptions and bagging a singer and his cd because of a little mention by one sour graped music snob reviewer.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:52:34 +0000

I did a WYD themed muxtape. http://flopearedmule.muxtape.com/ No happy clapping.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:33:35 +0000

As a guitarist, I’d love to play with the space and timing of Steve Cropper. I dig Amanda’s spiritualism but having them in you backing band does not a soul singer make.

SMH hack Bernard Zuel in a moment of lucidity wrote:

R&B, it comes down to sex. Having it, wanting it, missing it. If you have that sexual undercurrent, you prickle the skin, pop the sweat glands and move the body; if you don’t have it, you’ve got pop music. It’s why Otis Redding had it and Jimmy Barnes doesn’t, why Renee Geyer can live R&B and why the sweet-voiced Guy Sebastian can’t, no matter how many Stax classics he covers

So Guy singing soul covers would turn my ears to mush if not totally destroy them. Go listen to some Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed instead. He doesn’t need to apply unneeded retreads to time-worn classics to stir up a storm.

As for good religions music, The Blind Boys of Alamaba will make you want to believe and Blind Willie Johnson will scare you the bejeebus out of you if a heathen.

By: David

David — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:32:35 +0000

Guy’s not quite Hillsong, it was the snake-handler’s church at Paradise (Adelaide).

By: Tyro Rex

Tyro Rex — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:17:51 +0000

Guy Sebastian.

Now isn’t HE a right proper happy clapper … Hillsong and all that???

Speaking of bad religous music … at my niece’s baptist wedding, they sang these “hymns”, like … bad plod-along A.O.R … nearly at a Nickleback level of dull. With God lyrics. Also the preacher said there were three people in a marriage - husband wife and jesus - which set a lot of my rather irreligious family a-twittering as to just what sort of pervert jesus is anyway. But the music. Blech. For Christ’s sake just play Bach, Handel, maybe a bit of Mozart if you’re kinky then everyone sing ‘Jerusalem’.

By: David

David — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:07:41 +0000

I don’t think I would have gone to see Guy Sebastian, but if Cropper and Dunn toured with Booker T or Dan Ackroyd, that’d be another matter entirely …

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:39:55 +0000

Yeah, Guy’s last album actually had Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn on it. Toured here with him too, if I’d known in time I would’ve actually gone to his gig just to see them. That’s my kinda religious experience.

By: Darlene

Darlene — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:32:00 +0000

He’s got a great voice, but that’s hardly the point.

By: David

David — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:28:05 +0000

Actually, don’t be too hard on Guy Sebastian. Despite his reliious affiliations (or at least his former one - don’t the snake-handlers regard Papists as being the spawn of Satan, btw?) he’s got a reasonable voice. I inadvertantly heard some stuff off an album of soul covers he did recently, and it was OK. He was helped out by a kick-arse Muscle Shoals band, from the sound of it. I wouldn’t buy it, but I wouldn’t reflexively turn the radio off, either.

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:57:29 +0000

Anybody know whether Guy Sebastian’s pregancy “crisis” (i.e. anti-abortion) “counselling” centre is still in existence? I can only find reports from 2005.

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:54:34 +0000

The “official” WYD song features the vocal stylings (!) of Guy Sebastian.

*Shudder*

By: Benedictus

Benedictus — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:22:57 +0000

Lefty E. Ouch!

By: Lefty E

Lefty E — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:09:17 +0000

“KRudd outdoes even JHo in his celebration of the wonders of Christianity!”

Thats probably because Rudd is an actual Christian - whereas JHo was just politically aligned to the Christian right.

Ex-Methodist goes Anglican for upward mobility in 1960s Australia. That’s all you need to know about Howard and Religion.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:03:17 +0000

Here’s the text of what Rudd had to say:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24024781-601,00.html

By: joe2

joe2 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:31:51 +0000

“KRudd outdoes even JHo in his celebration of the wonders of Christianity!”

Where are the hardline secularists ready to fight?
Probably wishing it will all go away.
And hoping that Turkey is more about xmas tucker than war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/15/turkey

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:58:38 +0000

The “official” WYD song features the vocal stylings (!) of Guy Sebastian. Though I don’t know if that answers your question, Chookie!

By: Chookie

Chookie — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:48:29 +0000

Alas, I have not found the roads empty of traffic, though yesterday’s run to work was a bit quicker. But I live “out” near Olympic Park, Suz. Actually, that’s “in” — the geographic centre of Sydney is only slightly further west. YOU live out on the fringe! Of course, the reasons for using Randwick are (a) because it has an excellent bus service and (b) all the Catholics know where it is.
I am also an ex-Catholic but even in the ’70s the folk songs were coming in; it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to hear happy-clappy hymns from today’s yoof. Are they the same ghastly white-soul style I hear Anglican teenagers listening to? Blergh.

By: Darlene

Darlene — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:05:16 +0000

Let the kids have their spiritual fun, as long as they don’t try and force others to adopt their lifestyle. As Rev Lovejoy said, “Ned, have you thought about one
of the other major religions, there all pretty much the same…” That quote doesn’t mean much of anything. Anyway, here’s the faces of Catholicism we all know and love: the drunk, the spunk, the quirky and the cute.