Chris Isaak - Beyond the Sun

Chris Isaak - In a 2000 interview, the legendary Sam Phillips commented "I don't keep up with the business like I used to, but I love to listen to Chris Isaak. He’s very talented, and his music is so damned honest. It’s incredible". Now Isaak repays the compliment with a self-produced 25-track tribute to Phillips and the music of the Sun Studio (including a few of his own newly penned songs)  // Release: Beyond the Sun (October 18, Vanguard) // Sounds like: Recording mostly at the original Sun Studio, Isaak and his band recreate the Sun sound while subtly putting his own indelible stamp on these classic tunes...Isaak says "it's the most fun I ever had making a record" -- and you can feel that in the finished tracks...

Quote: "I do strongly believe (Sam Phillips) is a bonafide genius, one of those guys who looks and sees how things are going to be, only he is fifty or a hundred years ahead of his time.  He found Elvis.  He found Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Orbison, and Jerry Lee.  He recorded Howlin’ Wolf and BB King!" // What we like: the fact that Isaak doesn't try to try to simply recreate the tracks note for note but instead looks to capture the loose energy that must have been in those rooms decades ago...his own three-chord boogie "Live It Up" stand up well amidst the vintage tracks...the mellow croon on "Can't Help Falling In Love" and "Now Or Never" makes you understand why Phillips was enamored with Isaak's neo-rockabilly style...

 

Chris Isaak - "Livin' It Up" (from Beyond the Sun)

Chris Isaak - Beyond the Sun Sampler

(Can't Help Falling in Love, Ring of Fire, Now or Never, I Walk the Line)

Beyond The Sun (Standard)

1. Ring of Fire
2. Trying To Get To You
3. I Forgot To Remember To Forget
4. Great Balls of Fire
5. Can’t Help Falling In Love
6. Dixie Fried
7. How’s The World Treating You
8. It’s Now or Never
9. Miss Pearl
10. Live It Up
11. I Walk The Line
12. So Long I’m Gone
13. She’s Not You
14. My Happiness

Beyond The Sun (Deluxe Edition)

1. My Baby Left Me
2. Oh, Pretty Woman
3. Doin' The Best I Can
4. Your True Love
5. Crazy Arms
6. Lovely Loretta
7. Everybody's In The Mood
8. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry
9. Love Me
10. Doncha' Think It's Time
11. That Lucky Old Sun