Artist: Sheehan, Billy
Label: Magna Carta
Release: 2006
Rating: 4/5
I’ve always thought that Magna Carta’s move to put out the “Prime Cuts” series of compilations is a great way to quickly showcase the musicians under the label’s wing. Plenty of other labels had already tried something similar before, but I still think Magna Carta pulls it off best. All their compilations let the artists shine at their brightest, while giving the listener the best possible retrospective cross-section of a musician’s work.
This time Magna Carta presents a truly one-of-a-kind, world-class bassist: Billy Sheehan. The album has 9 tracks, so picking the songs from Mr. Sheehan’s catalog can’t have been easy. Five tracks cover his solo work, while the remaining four come from collaborations: the “monster progression fusion” band Niacin and the Rush tribute album “Working Man”, featuring the excellent Terry Bozzio on drums… To my ears, this selection is the high point of the “Prime Cuts” compilations, and a great chance to get to know Billy’s work better if you’re not that familiar with it yet. You’ve probably all heard him in one lineup or another, you just didn’t know who it was. Well, that’s how it goes: the most respected musicians are most often the most underrated.
Looking at the album itself, it’s basically a “who’s who” kind of record. Besides Billy, you’ll recognize Jordan Rudess, Steve Morse, Mike Portnoy and Steve Howe. Surprisingly, this time there’s no commercially sugarcoated David Lee Roth or solo Mr. Big. In a word, you could call this a gourmet fan album for the musician’s fans. The album kicks off with the Niacin track “Elbow Grease”, which shows off Billy’s grasp of the jazz side, and leads us into another Niacin track, “Sugar Blues”. For anyone who hasn’t heard of Niacin yet: it’s a project worth mentioning, a mix of blues and jazz with a touch of classic rock. Next comes a standout Rush classic, “The Trees” with the unmistakable Mike Portnoy on drums. The track originally appears on the Rush tribute album “Working Man” and is Billy’s homage to yet another prog-rock legend. In short, a great performance of a great song. For my taste, the best track on the album is “Crack The Meter”, originally from Jordan Rudess’s solo project “Feeding The Wheel”, with super-guitarist Steve Morse as guest and drum maniac Terry Bozzio. On this one the tight, bombastic Sheehan-Bozzio rhythm section really lights up, and I hope we get to hear them together on another project, along with Steve Morse, who you can recognize from the first few notes he plays. It makes you wonder if there’s another guitarist in the “rock” world who can play a “chromatic” scale with that kind of feel and finesse, and at the same time with mathematically measured precision, like Mr. Morse does.
If other projects like this don’t convince you enough and get you fired up, Mr. Sheehan’s “Prime Cuts” definitely will. And if you play an instrument yourself, listening to a compilation like this will surely get you so pumped that you’ll grab your instrument and at least partly scratch that musical itch.
From Niacin to the Rush tribute, where the regular studio part wraps up, and all the way to the bootleg, a 1994 live excerpt of Mr. Sheehan’s bass solo played into a hand-held mic, from what I’d call his wildest, most rockin’ era, the album closes by showing the true worth of this musician, who among other things pushes past and smashes the boundaries of the classic bass guitar, much like you could say about his buddy from the guitar rock world, Steve Vai.
In short, the album in one word: a thumbs up!
Track List
1) Elbow Grease
2) Sugar Blues
3) Sub Continent
4) The Trees
5) Clean Up Crew/Do A Little Dirty Work
6) Crack The Meter
7) Time Enough (More Than Enough Mix)
8) Super Grande
9) Bass Solo (Buffalo 1994)
