Carlo Basile Melds Spanish Guitar, Stax Records With New Otis Redding Tribute

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 9, 2013 10:00PM

“I was in Memphis recently and took my wife to all the museums and attractions down there,” Carlo Basile said over lunch last week. “We visited Sun Studios and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and my wife, who considers herself pretty knowledgeable about music, didn’t realize Memphis’ place in American music history.”

Basile, best known as the force behind the local flamenco group Las Guitarras De Espana, was discussing his current project “King of Soul—The Music of Otis Redding,” an interpretation of songs popularized by the legendary soul shouter set to Spanish guitar and rhythms. Basile conceived the project as a tribute to Redding (the singer who helped put Stax on the map) and the Stax Records house band.

“That house band was an interracial house band in the South during the 1960s, which was unheard of at the time. And they drew from a variety of sources: country; blues; rock; gospel.” Along with the FAME Records house band in Muscle Shoals, Ala. Stax stood as an anomaly in popular music at the time with black and white musicians working together.

“Sure, everyone knows about Sun Records and Elvis Presley but Memphis music was so much more.”

Basile told Chicagoist he had been knocking around the idea of arranging some of Redding’s songs for Spanish guitar with his friend, soul singer Gerald McClendon. “During my travels to Spain I would go to clubs and the emcee would announce every act hitting the stage as the most explosive singer or greatest act ever. That reminded me of the hyping that happens in Chicago blues clubs. In the seedier clubs you have the emcee in the cheap suit doing the same thing. The difference was that everyone in the local blues clubs can sing.”

“There are a lot of parallels in the vibe between the musical styles,” Basile added. “Having accompanied flamenco singers over the years, I realized they share similar phrasings with soul singers. As Gerald and I began exploring this more I discovered other parallels between Spanish guitar melodies and the chords to songs like ‘Try a Little Tenderness.’ I would ask Gerald to sing the song like a gospel singer but I could accompany him like a flamenco guitarist. The fit was perfect.”

Another parallel between the two musical styles is in the call and response between singer and instrument. Basile noted one particular difference, however. “In soul and rock music you’ll hear the guitarist change the chord and have the singer follow suit with his phrasing. In flamenco the guitarist follows the lead of the singer, giving some improvisational passages a different dynamic.

Basile, McClendon and a band including a violinist and a caja player worked on a selection of popular and obscure Redding songs for the program. “Respect” and “Hard to Handle,” Basile said, are straight-up rockers with little in the way of change in his arrangements yet “they lend themselves nicely to nylon string guitar with a bit of echo.” The upfront Stax horns are replaced with violin, rhythmic supporting chords on guitar and syncopated clapping. Basile gives the Redding classic “(Sitting on the) Dock of the Bay” some added flourishes like tremolo and arpeggios that fit within the chord structures. “I’m not trying to play Steve Cropper note for note,” Basile said. “I am trying to fit little quirks into what is already working.”

But the star of the program, Basile said, is McClendon. “He interprets Otis Redding very well without sounding like a parody. Otis wasn’t a classic soul singer—you see performances where he runs out of breath and shouts lyrics. Gerald approximates that performance style very well.

“I’ve played our rehearsal tapes to friends and they were shocked to discover that the man singing in them wasn’t Otis Redding.”

”King of Soul—The Music of Otis Redding” plays 7:30 p.m. tonight at City Winery Chicago, 1200 W. Randolph St. Tickets are available online.