Artist: PHILIP SAYCE
Album: INNERREVOLUTION (CD)

Year: 2010
Media type: CD

Philip Sayce was born in Aberystwyth, Wales, and grew up in Toronto, Canada, where his family moved to when he was two years old. Growing up in a musical household and exposed to his parents’ eclectic record collection that included the likes of Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder and Dire Straits, he was particularly drawn to the guitar – being taken by his parents to an Eric Clapton concert left the young Sayce awestruck and in no doubt about which was the instrument for him – and also learned to play piano.

By the time he was 15 he was playing guitar in his first band; he was up and running. He soon became a regular fixture on the Toronto club scene, where his fluid soloing and mesmerising overall musicality turned heads an earned him many fans. With an insatiable appetite for jam sessions at the likes of Grossman’s Tavern in Toronto, Sayce began rapidly distilling his own singular guitar style and tonal palette from a melting pot of influences that included such greats as Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Cray, and in particular Stevie Ray Vaughan, to whom he is, understandably, probably most often compared.

While still a teenager, Sayce was held in such high regard that, after jamming on stage with one of his heroes, guitar player and fellow Canadian Jeff Healey, he was invited to join Healey’s band. Sayce was now living the dream. After three-and-a-half years with Healey’s band, playing with them at the Montreux Jazz Festival and at gigs around the world, Sayce, the apprentice having learned well from the master, felt it was time to move on.

Looking to further expand his musical horizons, in 2001 he moved to Los Angeles. He joined Uncle Kracker, and was with the band when they had their massive US No.1 Drift Away. He starred in and wrote the music for the short film Cockroach Blue, directed by the award-winning Robert Crossman, which received high acclaim when it was shown at the Woodstock Film Festival. Then, in 2003, Grammy and Oscar winner Melissa Etheridge came calling (“very talented – like Stevie Ray Vaughan,” she enthused), and he enjoyed an “awesome” time playing and recording with her band until 2008.

During his stint with Melissa, in 2005 Sayce released his debut solo album, Peace Machine, using what he describes as Etheridge’s “shit-hot” band. Recorded live in the studio in just a couple of days, it’s full of raw, high-energy, low-maintenance retro-blues delivered with startling punch and real style, and showcases Sayce as soulful, powerfully expressive vocalist as well as a supremely talented guitarist and all-round musician. The album also includes a crunching version of the Neil Young classic Cinnamon Girl, the song often a resonant inclusion in Sayce’s thrilling live shows.

With Peace Machine and INNEREVOLUTION, Philip Sayce continues to write his own chapter in the long and continuing history of popular music. And it’s clear that this gifted young musician has many more pages yet to write.

TRACKLIST:

1 Scars
2 Anymore
3 Bitter Monday
4 Changes
5 Daydream Tonight
6 Take You Away
7 My Pearl
8 Tennessee Girl
9 Are You Ready
10 Gimme Some More
11 Little Miss America