Larry Carlton 'Fire Wire' album

There are two reasons why Larry Carlton’s Fire Wire is a rebirth for one of the great guitarists of our time. The first, of course, is Carlton himself. His playing here is more direct, more raw and emotional than anything he’s laid down in recent years. The second reason is his producer, Csaba Petocz.

A veteran producer who has worked on 37 #1 hit songs and 32 platinum albums, Petocz has spent time in the studio with Ted Nugent and Lynyrd Skynyrd, Metallica and Etta James, Elvis Costello and Aaron Neville. He’s comfortable with hard-core, no-holds-barred, soulful blues and snarling rock & roll. And after attending one of Carlton’s concerts earlier this year, Petocz couldn’t wait to get into the studio and issue some marching orders.

“Look, Larry is one of the great rock players of all time,” he declares. “But when you mention his name now, people think of him as a smooth jazz player. That’s great, nothing at all wrong with that, but when you see him live it’s amazing how powerful he is when he just rocks out. So I began thinking: does the world really need another jazz record? Probably not; what it needs is to rediscover the rock & roll side of Larry Carlton.”

It happens that Carlton was on the same wavelength. After a long run in the world of major labels, he had been on his own for a little more than two years. In 2003 he self-released a solo album in Japan, Sapphire Blue, whose down-and-dirty blues testify to his escape from A&R meetings and marketing strategies. The album drew critical acclaim and won the “Album of the Year” award from Tokyo’s Jazz Life Magazine.

“Sapphire Blue was fun because my heart was in it,” he explains. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it before, because the record company’s view would have been, ‘We can’t get this on smooth jazz radio.’ But with that album, the music came first.”

Ironically, the album’s success in Japan drew the attention of RCA Victor, the label that records one of Carlton’s side projects, Fourplay. Being familiar with Carlton from his work with the smooth jazz super-group, the label signed the guitarist to a solo contract and released the album in the U.S. in early 2004.

Carlton’s return to the majors sped his rush for more personal performance and launched him into the most exciting phase of his career since he broke into the business back in the seventies, when he became the top-call guitarist to the stars practically overnight. He played with Joni Mitchell, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, and everybody who was anybody. He cut what Rolling Stone would hail as one of the three greatest rock guitar solos of all time (on Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne”), appeared on more than one hundred gold albums, won three Grammy Awards for Best Pop Instrumental Performance (“Theme From Hill Street Blues,” “Minute by Minute,” and “Live in Osaka”), (14 Grammy nominations) and otherwise carved out his space among the world’s great instrumentalists.

“RCA offered me a continuation of the freedom I experienced when I recorded Sapphire Blue,’ he says. “That’s why I called Csaba. I knew specifically that he is no fan of smooth jazz. He even told me that his favorite guitar players when he was growing up were Neil Young and Keith Richards. He relates to that approach. And frankly, that’s where I felt myself going too.”

In fact, Carlton took an extraordinary step in laying the groundwork for Fire Wire – something he’d never done on any previous project. “Basically,” he says, “I relinquished the vision for this album to him.”

As a result, Fire Wire was a collaboration at every preparatory level. Petocz put the band together. Studio veteran Michael Rhodes was the ideal bassist, especially given his history of working with Carlton. Matt Chamberlain, probably the top rock session drummer, brought a focused, direct energy to the groove. Jeff Babko, a relative newcomer and house keyboard player on Jimmy Kimmel Live, delivered extraordinarily subtle yet effective parts to the mix. “He’s the most special player I’ve heard since Matt Rollings,” Carlton asserts. “And that’s a high compliment.”

The songwriting for Fire Wire followed a similar process. “Larry has the best technique in the business,” Petocz states. “But that’s been explored forever. I wanted to hear what he could do in a more limited setting. So I asked him not to write fusion stuff, where he could seek refuge in technique. I wanted songs that were one or two chords, three at most, so that within those restrictions he could show me how soulful he could be. Obviously, he rose to the occasion.”

“Csaba wanted it to be aggressive,” Carlton adds. “So I started writing songs around ‘power lines’ or riffs that felt like they’d be fun to play over. He suggested on some of them that I tune down a half- or whole-step, or even a minor third. I’d never done that, at least not to this extent, and I found the sound really intriguing. That definitely inspired me.”

For several of the tracks on Fire Wire, Carlton recruited the horn section from his Sapphire Blue session – not to sweeten, as horns often do, but to add punch and muscle. “Csaba and I discussed how unique it would be to have a horn section with a power band,” Carlton says. “I did the charts with the idea of beefing up the power lines with unison parts; there aren’t that many chords added at all.”

The guitar sound itself, the most basic element of the record, was also the product of the push/pull energy between artist and producer. “I even let Csaba do the amp settings,” Carlton says. But Petocz is quick to interject: “Larry’s sound isn’t his amplifier. It’s not his guitar. It’s his fingers and what’s between his ears.”

Armed with new tunes, Carlton, Petocz, and the band descended on Western Recorders in Los Angeles. From the first downbeat it was clear they were onto something. “I remember Larry playing this solo over a very simple progression, and everybody’s jaws dropped,” Petocz laughs. “There were 15 or 16 young cats hanging outside the control room, just to hear this guy play. I knew at that point that we were on the right track.”

They followed that track through three days of blistering performance. More than that, they brought to life the sound and intensity they’d been pursuing. Over a galloping groove on “Inkblot,” Carlton plays a masterfully restrained solo, with a sweet but greasy tone that speaks louder than any flurry of fast licks. On the introspective “Naked Truth,” he begins with an unaccompanied figure that echoes Hendrix’s harmonic sensibility, with a sound that’s slightly overdriven yet irresistibly intimate. A seductive melody guides his solo through “Surrender,” a textbook lesson on wringing emotion from every bend and cry. Then it’s crunch time on “Big Trouble,” with a grunge-soaked, low-register hook and the kind of jamming any head-banger can appreciate.

As always, Carlton’s calendar is full. In the coming months he’ll be going back to the blues with a second Sapphire project. He continues to spend about a third of the year on the road and will tour in support of Fire Wire. In January he plans to join his friends Bob James, Nathan East, and Harvey Mason to record the next Fourplay CD.

Guided by Petocz, Carlton returns to the world of rock and roll with white hot zeal. Fire Wire is not just about great guitar; it is the product of the powerful collaboration of two musical legends.

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Tracklisting

Larry Carlton - Fire Wire