Watch Aaron Neville, Eric Krasno, & The Shady Horns Perform On The Today Show

This morning, beloved New Orleans soul icon Aaron Neville performed on the fourth hour of The Today Show, and he brought some very special guests to play with him. Performing Neville’s new track “Hard to Believe”, album producer Eric Krasno joined the singer on guitar, while Eric “Benny” Bloom and Ryan Zoidis–aka the Shady Horns–also tagged along to make up the singer’s horn section.

Neville showcased his smooth-as-butter vocals against the funky, bouncing music created by his ace band. The track was a selection from Neville’s recently released Apache album (read the review here), easily one of the most soulful records of 2016. At age 75, Aaron Neville is just unstoppable!

The performance itself is a memorable one, as Krasno takes a slick solo towards the end, and the Shady Horns look as cool as ever under the television studio lights. Watch the magic yourself, and enjoy this soulful music by some of our favorite artists!

Eric Krasno Makes ‘Blood From a Stone’ Look Easy on His Inspired Solo Debut

via Observer.com

For nearly 25 years now, Eric Krasno has built a repertoire as one of the most talented and in-demand guitarists in professional music, be it as a session man or as a member of such influential groups as Soulive and Lettuce. But in 2016, this most unique and innovative guitar hero aims to put his official stamp on the world as a pop artist himself with the release of his stellar solo debut Blood From A Stone.

Produced in Maine with Dave Gutter, onetime frontman for the massively overlooked Portland funk-rock group Rustic Overtones, the album finds Krasno not only playing some of the best guitar he’s ever displayed on record, but revealing major skills as a singer/songwriter as well. It’s funny, for a guy who has played with some of the best vocalists in the world including Susan Tedeschi and Norah Jones, earning Grammys for his roles on Tedeschi Trucks Band‘s Revelator and Derek Trucks Band‘s Already Free, it’s a sin to think he’s been hiding this great voice all these years. But better late than never.

The soulful husk he possesses definitely gives the music on Blood a vibe on par with such Clapton solo classics as There’s One In Every Crowd  and No Reason To Cry as well as Stevie Ray Vaughan, especially circa In Step, albeit with a more contemporary R&B flavor. And there’s guests to speak of as well, namely fellow six-string samurai Derek Trucks who appears on the Santana-esque instrumental “Curse Lifter” as well as his homeboys from Lettuce, Soulive, and The London Souls, a promising group signed to Krasno’s label Feel Records (who released singer Nigel Hall’s amazing soul manifesto Ladies and Gentlemen…Nigel Hall! last year).

Additionally, Krasno has a new album with Lettuce called Crush, played a bunch of shows with the Grateful Dead spinoff group Billy and the Kids (led by percussionist Bill Kreutzmann) earlier this year and continued to espouse his production prowess through the release of New Orleans legend Aaron Neville’s incredible new album Apache.

The Observer recently caught up with Krasno to talk about what inspired him to release his first-ever solo album, what it was like working with Aaron Neville and how it feels to celebrate Lettuce’s 25th anniversary this year.

What took you so long to start singing?

I was always kinda singing demos and writing songs all along. When I started with Soulive, that wasn’t really the direction I was headed in. Alan and Neal [Evans, both formerly of Moon Boot Lover] had a concept of this real futuristic soul jazz trio. And I had been in the studio making songs and producing. My roommate at the time, Jeff Basker who is now a huge producer, he and I were always making tracks and writing songs and doing Lettuce.

It was just one of those things where I jumped on the train with Soulive and rode that where really my focus before that was very different. But it was a blessing, because I got to go out and play and focus on becoming a guitar player for 20 years. I met so many people, so many amazing musicians, along the way that I got to work with and all of this fed into what I am doing now. I’m very thankful for those experiences.

How was the transition for you?

Well, for me I’m kinda finding all these new things that I can do. I’ve always done singing in the studio doing background but never singing lead. So now being on tour with the solo band and stuff, it’s been fun seeing what I can do. I have a great singer in the band named Mary Corso, who is a badass at doing really high harmonies. I made the record on my own and not really with a band, per se. Now I’m going out with a band and it’s really cool watching it evolve and take on a shape of its own.

Listening to the record, I hear a heavy solo Eric Clapton vibe on it.

Yeah, yeah, totally. I love that shit. Actually, part of the inspiration was—and it’s really random—that I read the Clapton book when I was in Japan and about his transition from being in bands to going solo. It was cool to read about that. He wasn’t really a singer before that. He did sing a bit, but it just became a thing for him, and he worked on it and he got really good at it. Just like anything else, really.

Some people just have this natural voice that just turns on instantly, like Nigel Hall, who has always been a great singer. For me, I had to work on it a little bit. I’m not trying to be an acrobatic singer. I’m just trying to sing my songs and play the guitar. I’m always writing songs, but prior to this record I would try to place these songs with other people. It’s great.

I’ve written for Aaron Neville and the Tedeschi-Trucks Band and a lot of other people. But the thing is you always have to wait for that moment, which is what I did with this album. I mean, I already have half of a new album written in the can, plus a bunch of songs that didn’t make this one. I’m just excited to be putting stuff out more frequently.

I’ve actually been revisiting some of Clapton’s ’80s albums like Behind the Sun and August, both of which were produced by Phil Collins. It’s interesting to hear, now, the R&B vibe they were trying to go for with those records.

Maybe I need to revisit those. Literally the ’80s Clapton stuff I’d know it because it was in the background as a kid, but I never had those records. I knew Journeyman because it had such massive hits on it. That might be his biggest record. I went to see Clapton about four years ago. Doyle Bramhall II is a good friend of mine, and he played with him on that tour and got me passes to the show and whatever.

I was blown away, man. I thought he sang his ass off. His guitar playing was really great, but I was really impressed by his vocals at this point. His vocals seemed to have gotten better and better and better. And the band he had for that tour, Willie Weeks on bass, Steve Jordan on drums and Doyle on second guitar, they were killing.

Willie Weeks is the man! He’s on all those underrated George Harrison solo albums on Dark Horse, David Bowie’s Young Americans, Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys…

Oh yeah, man. Willie Weeks played with a ton of people. He was in the Doobie Brothers for a while. He is on my favorite soul album of all time, which is Donny Hathaway Live, and he was like 18 during that recording. I got to work with him a few times; he’s just the coolest guy ever. He plays his butt off, man. And he played on everything.

I also hear a little Stevie Ray Vaughan in your sound on this record as well. Are you a big fan?

Oh yeah, huge huge Stevie Ray fan. His singing is amazing. When I first saw that video Live at the El Mocambo, it changed my life, man; the intensity by which he plays was like nothing else I’ve ever seen. I remember I was supposed to go see him on the In Step tour with Jeff Beck, but I got in trouble and was grounded. I had tickets and me and my dad were going to go, but I got in trouble in school.

Another interesting thing I get from Blood from a Stone is that it feels separate from the other stuff you’ve done in the past. Was that a conscious decision?

I jump around, man. It’s funny, I was talking about that to someone the other day. The jam scene and the fans of that scene, they want to see us do different things and evolve and change. They want to come see a different show every time, which is kind of a challenge to us in both Lettuce and Soulive.

I think, genre-wise, it’s kind of blown in every direction. It’s kinda to the point where you don’t have to sound like The Grateful Dead to be a jam band. There’s hip-hop and then there’s reggae and there’s EDM now. It’s really just an alternative to radio in a lot of ways.

But what makes Blood from the Stone, in my opinion, stand out is because it’s a more song-oriented collection than much of what is available in that jam-band scene.

This is a huge thing for me. And I think that’s honestly what is lacking with the modern jam bands. It’s too much noodling and not enough songwriting. For example, I started playing with Phil Lesh and some of the Grateful Dead guys in the last few years and going through that songbook and learning those songs made me really love The Dead again; and mostly because of the songwriting. They have so many great songs and really interesting songs.

They’re not just 1-4-5. There are all sorts of amazing changes and Robert Hunter was such a great lyricist. I’ve really become such a huge Dead fan again through this experience. I loved them when I was really young, they opened my mind to a lot of new music. And now I’ve come full circle.

How did you connect with Aaron Neville to produce his new album Apache?

That was a real blessing to be able to do that. I got the job through his manager. I’ve been friends with the Neville family for a while, through Ivan Neville and Dumpstaphunk. His manager knew me through producing some other stuff that he heard and thought I would be a good match.

When I met up with Aaron, I gave him my spiel and told him, “Man, I’d love to make a real gritty, soulful, funky album that really showcases what you do best.”

And he says, “Well, I got all these poems I’m trying to turn into songs.” So once he decided to work with me, he gave me like 50 poems and myself and Dave Gutter went up to Vermont and sat up there with these poems to try and make them into songs so we could begin recording them. And I got some of the Lettuce guys and some of the Dap-Kings guys to be on it. It really turned into an awesome project.

Was it a little intimidating considering the last Aaron Neville album was produced by Keith Richards and Don Was?

Yeah, that was a pretty big seat to fill. He didn’t talk to me really about those sessions. However, a lot of his previous records he wasn’t really that involved, whereas this one he had a hand in the songwriting, he stuck around for the mixes, he was there when the band was tracking. It’s funny, someone who has been in the business for 55, 60 years or whatever, he’d never been so involved. And he was really excited about that.

It stirred something in him. That was a really cool part to that process is seeing his excitement about being so directly involved in this album.

Next year is going to be the 25th anniversary of Lettuce, is that correct?

Yeah, wow. Well, we met in 1992, but we didn’t start playing shows until 1994. But we were a band, at least in the loose sense of the term. We were rehearsing and stuff. It’s pretty amazing, man. I don’t tour with them consistently anymore because I’ve got a lot of stuff going on and they book a lot of shows now, but I’m still part of the band. I’m in the studio with them and I will do the bigger shows they put together.

You guys were really young when you started Lettuce, yeah?

We were I think sophomores in high school, and we went to this summer program kinda thing at Berklee College of Music. We all were into funk music and improvisation so we were all like, “O.K., when we’re in college we’re all going to come here and start a band.” And we actually did. We’re all best friends. We all make music together in various other ways outside of Lettuce. It’s just kind of this band of brothers and we have a blast, you know?

Eric Krasno plays Central Park Summerstage on September 7. Blood From A Stone is available on iTunes and at better record stores in your neighborhood.

Eric Krasno: Aaron Neville's Poetry

via OffBeat Magazine

It might take a scorecard to keep track of how Brooklynite Eric Krasno, as well as his many cohorts, became and remain involved with the New Orleans music scene. The guitarist, bassist, record producer, composer, label owner and singer says that the connection goes back some 15­plus years, when he came to New Orleans with Soulive, one of the bands he co-founded, as the opening act for the Blues Brothers Tour at the House of Blues.

“I immediately fell in love with the city,” says Krasno, who hit Vaughan’s his first night in town to catch trumpeter/vocalist Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers. After the HOB gig, Jim Belushi, the brother of the late John Belushi, who was an original member of the Blues Brothers, took Krasno uptown to the Maple Leaf Bar. Soulive also played the Mermaid Lounge during that trip, so Krasno got a big and diverse helping of New Orleans’ musical menu. He was hooked.

Krasno also met Ivan Neville during the same era (around 1999–2000), when Neville was playing organ with guitarist Robben Ford. Soulive was touring as the opening act for Ford’s band. “He just fit right in with us,” Krasno remembers of Ivan. “He was in Ford’s band but he was hanging out with our band.”

Fast forward some dozen years. Aaron Neville’s manager, Marc Allan, a friend of Krasno’s who was aware of his producing talents, suggested that he produce the renowned New Orleans vocalist’s next album. Krasno was assigned to re-­envision Neville’s poetry as songs. “My songwriting partner David Gutter, he and I had imagined doing that gig, even before we got the gig,” remembers Krasno. “We actually had a couple of tunes already that we were like, ‘Oh this is perfect for Aaron.’ We kind of put it into the universe.”

“Be Your Man,” the impressive, soulful opening cut of Neville’s new album, Apache, is one of those songs that Krasno and Gutter, a guitarist and singer with the group Rustic Overtones, wrote with Neville in mind prior to the start of their collaboration.

The majority of the selections on the disc, however, were inspired by Neville’s poetry with Krasno and Gutter, revamping the words into lyrics and setting them into music. “The coolest thing was us imagining him singing a song and then hearing him singing it,” Krasno exclaims, the excitement of the moment still apparent in his voice. “It was literally like running through a finish line like, ‘Yes!’ The songs were based on the poems but sometimes they took on a life of their own.”

The New York, well really Brooklyn/New Orleans connections continue on Neville’s album and beyond. The musicians called in for the session include many members of Soulive as well as its “brother band” Lettuce, which Krasno also co­founded.

They include Krasno on bass and background vocals, Lettuce’s guitarist Adam Smirnoff, drummer Adam Deitch, saxophonist Ryan Zoidis and two members who are now New Orleans residents, trumpeter Eric “Benny” Bloom and singer/keyboardist Nigel Hall, who works as a background vocalist on Apache.

Krasno, who produced Hall’s outstanding debut recording, Ladies & Gentlemen… Nigel Hall, which was released on Krasno’s Feel Music label, remembers bringing Hall down to New Orleans for the first time and “dragging him” all over town.

Though he says that an overwhelmed Hall expressed his doubts about being up to all the action in the city, the vocalist and keyboardist soon made New Orleans his home. Lots of Lettuce/Soulive musicians appear on Hall’s album as well and besides leading his own group, Hall often performs with keyboardist/vocalist and New Orleans transplant Jon Cleary.

Krasno, who goes back and forth regularly between his home in Brooklyn and his place in New Orleans, appreciates the vibe of playing in the Crescent City. “In New Orleans you could be swinging or playing funk and the crowd would be dancing or be a part of it. They’d be contributing to the show. That was something we needed more of in New York so we have rallied our own scene.”

Both Soulive and Lettuce will be performing at the Bear Creek Bayou Music Festival, an event previously held in Florida that makes its New Orleans debut on Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1 at Mardi Gras World. Krasno, who’s played the event most years since its inception, calls the festival “a family kind of thing,” with a focus on musicians that are mixing it up on the evolving funk/soul scene. Soulive is among other musically like­minded groups performing the pre­-festival event on Thursday, September 29 at the Joy Theater.

Krasno also plays with another highly linked­up band, Dr. Klaw, which includes guitarist Ian Neville, the son of keyboardist/vocalist Art “Papa Funk” Neville, and bassist/vocalist Nick Daniels, both of Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk. He recently released an album under his own name, Blood from a Stone (Feel Music). Perhaps the big news on the disc is that Krasno, who’s renowned for writing music to be sung by other vocalists, takes the lead singer’s spot himself.

“I was always writing for and producing other singers and I originally thought other people would sing on my record,” says Krasno, whose primary role has been as a guitarist and sometime bassist and helping out as a background vocalist. “I sang as a kid. I sang in a choir. The guitar was just way cooler.” His friends and fellow musicians encouraged him to step out and take the lead on vocals. “They said, ‘Hey man, these songs sound like you. You should just put this out.’ So I started performing more and booking little shows.”

Those who prodded Krasno were right. The resulting product does sound like him, even if his voice isn’t necessarily familiar. It holds all the other elements of why his sound has been so successful. It contains that certain blend of old­-school meets the here­-and­-now as it incorporates and extends the roots of soul, funk and blues—and even a touch of country on the ballad “Please Ya”—while giving everything the benefit of technology and a modern edge.

That’s exactly why Krasno was the right man for the job to produce and co­write tunes for Aaron Neville’s Apache. Neville, after all, will always musically embrace his old-­school and New Orleans roots whatever the genre—rhythm and blues, doo-wop, gospel—and, says Krasno, he was up for a new direction.

“I really wanted to hear Aaron sing over some soul tracks, some funk tracks,” Krasno continues. “When I explained that to him he got it. I told him I wanted to make a record as good as [Neville’s] Hercules and bring it into the future.” Krasno thinks that the tune “Hard to Believe,” written by himself, Neville and Gutter, came closest of Apache’s eleven cuts to capturing the feeling of Hercules. It’s old­-school, yet refreshed.

“I kind of love all kinds of music,” Krasno declares. “That’s why being a producer is so appealing to me. I can go into different modes. I love jumping into the head of Aaron Neville and then the next month jumping into the London Souls and making a rock record.”

Krasno was surprised to learn that previously Neville hadn’t really been involved in post-recording production of his products. “He wasn’t really around during the tracking and mixing. He loved being in the studio and offered input in the creative process. He was really excited about what was going on and we were already excited.”

“First off, he’s the nicest guy in the world. He treated everyone so well and knew everyone on a first name basis. Everyone in the studio was his friend.”

It’s amusing to consider that Krasno had to sing the songs that, during a sleep­-deprived retreat in Vermont, he and Gutter had transformed from Neville’s poems for the man who is considered by many as one of the greatest vocalists of all time. “It was nerve wracking to sing in front of him,” Krasno clearly remembers. In Brooklyn’s Studio G with Neville, the group “massaged” the material, in part, to bring them “into his world.”

Krasno calls Gutter, who he first teamed with for Blood from a Stone, an amazing lyricist. “He’s the verse man,” Krasno declares, saying that he often focuses on the music. “A lot of times we jump back and forth. The best thing is that we push each other to make a song better. While Krasno started his album before his work on Apache, it was put on a back burner as Neville’s project took precedence. Meanwhile Krasno also went out to play bass with slide guitar master Derek Trucks, who is featured on a fine cut, “Curse Lifter” on Blood from a Stone.

Krasno will feel right at home performing at the Bear Creek Bayou festival. He’s played at Mardi Gras World many times before, including at the Fiya Fest. Not only will the guitarist have his bros from New York with him for the Soulive and Lettuce shows, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk—filled with friends and fellow Dr. Klaw members—will be there too. The guitarist has also long been a regular at Jazz Fest, performing with the bands with which he’s affiliated.

Eric Krasno credits the brilliant jazz saxophonist and multi­-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef, with whom he studied in college, for his diverse musical path. Lateef advised: “Find your voice and speak that voice.”

“He helped push me into being an artist rather than just a player.”