Aaron Neville Songs

Guitarist Quinn DeVeaux mixes musical genres

A few weeks ago, San Francisco jazz and blues singer Kim Nalley was raving about a new musical find.

"I just discovered this guy named Quinn DeVeaux," she said. "He is a black country guitar singer-songwriter. I heard him once at a private jam session and I attacked him asking where he has been hiding my whole life."

The Bay Area club fixture Lavay Smith is so much a fan she loaned DeVeaux her bandleader and boyfriend, piano player Chris Siebert. Meanwhile, the people over at the Berkeley independent concert production firm Another Planet Entertainment tapped the singer and his six-piece band, Blue Beat Review, to play at last year's Outside Lands festival in Golden Gate Park, sharing a bill with the Strokes and Al Green.

DeVeaux doesn't quite know what to make of all the adulation.

"I just sit in my room and write songs," he said the other day, killing time at the wondrous Valencia Street antique emporium and music venue Viracocha. "It's just what I do."

The 34-year-old, Gary, Ind., native has lived in Oakland for a good chunk of the past decade, playing regularly at local venues like the Starry Plough, Cafe Du Nord and Club Deluxe. But it seems like things have really picked up in the last year, as word has spread about his dynamic live performances and the band's fascinating meld of vintage American music styles such as country, blues, gospel, swing and soul.

"I call it blue beat just because you have to call it something," DeVeaux said. "But it's really about joy and having a good time."

Siebert attempted to explain DeVeaux's sound in another interview. "He's tapping into this stream of American music that needs to be preserved, but he's a not a preservationist," he said. "He's checked out a lot of really cool music and captured the spirit and put his own self into it."

Better to figure it out for yourself. Next Saturday, DeVeaux and the Blue Beat Review play a headlining show at the Independent to celebrate the release of their new album, "Under Covers." Can't make it? Next month, they open for Aaron Neville at the Stern Grove festival.

As the new record's title implies, DeVeaux and the band are taking other peoples' compositions out for a spin on the new release - not that you would ever guess. With his crisp voice and scratchy guitar tones, propelled by the deep swing rhythms and rolls of the musicians, he owns the material.

"We were trying to make another record but we ended up with this one," DeVeaux said, tapping his feet on the dark hardwood floors. "As we were working on the originals we decided to record all the songs that are the seeds of the originals and that will be a nice sort of base for the band.

Wendy Tyler Ryan - Author: Song Inspired

Sometimes I hear a song and it takes me to a whole other place and time.  I'm not just talking about catchy songs you like - the ones that you listen to over and over again - I'm talking about songs where both the melody and the words scream out because you want to know more or, because you want to immerse yourself in that world a little longer.  Songs that grip your gut - even if you don't know why, where you can swear you can smell what it would be like to be there.  No, I'm not crazy, or maybe I am, but I think that's a good crazy. For some reason I thought to myself, if he asked me what song I would like to hear, what would I choose?  Now, while Aaron Neville has many, many songs I'd love to hear at any given time, including the obvious ones like Bird on a Wire, there was one song that stood out to me because of what it does to all my senses as well as my need to know more about the story that may be there.  That song is La Vie Dansante.  A beautiful melody and images that get in your head and stay there.  What all good writing should do if we are lucky. Another song that I have felt compelled to write the story for is a song by Richard Marx called Hazard.  Ever since this song came out - and that's a long time ago - I have wanted to write the book for it. A much different feel than La Vie Dansante by a country mile.  Dark, ominous - you just want to know more - write more.  I've even pictured a few actors in my head who would play the movie roles!

Aaron Neville Songs, I Fall to Pieces, Tell It Like It Is, the Grand Tour, Don't Know Much, Everybody Plays the Fool

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