Conn's remastered disc, "River of Madness," will flow straight to your heart

When Pineville native Steve Conn performs in the Coughlin-Saunders Performing Arts Center next month, the odds are pretty good that he will be performing a lot of songs featured on his 1995 album, "River of Madness," which he just remastered.

Listening to this diverse collection of songs, it's not hard to make mental comparisons of other artists of the same genre -- Dr. John and Randy Newman, for instance. There's that piano, the witty turns of phrase, the classy arrangements and a love of humanity and the quirky and fun sides of life. Conn is definitely his own man and is unique when it comes to singing about specific places, particularly those of his native Louisiana.

The title track, "River of Madness," reminds me a little bit of Dr. John in its seductive, brassy sassiness.

The smooth jazzy stylings of "Midnight on the Delta" capture what Conn is about.

"I'd just about forgotten how hard it can rain / when the old heavy wetness sneaks up from the Gulf of Mexico / Lord it feels so good to be home / Midnight on the Delta."

Then there's the Red River -- described in the Civil War ballad "In An Angel's Arms" as "that dirty river." This song being Conn's tragic tune about the burning of Alexandria by "them Yankee dogs." This is the strongest track on the album by far.

And then there is Conn's social conscience, which pops up on the jaunty, accordion-driven "Good Intentions." -- "I was born a mile from here - right beside the river / The water used to run so clear, we thought it would forever / But nowadays the river's quiet, the fish are all dying / And all I can hear at night, is an old man crying."

And while he can be serious, Conn balances things out with a bit of fun as evidenced on the Bourbon Street-fueled "Mardi Gras Morning." Of course Conn sings that while he's "seen the Seven Wonders of the world" there's nothing quite like waking up on "Mardi Gras morning down in New Orleans."

And for folks familiar with Spirits restaurant in Alexandria, they'll be pleased to know that Conn included a live track there in November 2003 titled "I've Got Your Dog." This song features Conn backed up by guitarist Sonny Landreth, bassist H.B. Smith and drummer Jamey Bell. Landreth's tasty solo is a sonic delight.

"River of Madness" is a terrific album and I'm glad Conn decided to re-release it and get it back in print. We're lucky to be able to call him one of our own.

- Andrew Griffin
The Town Talk (August 2005)

Steve Conn and Sonny Landreth: Playing in Tongues

On one night a year Alexandria has music which rivals the best found anywhere in the world: that's when favorite son Steve Conn and Sonny Landreth hook up at Spirits and continue a musical collaboration which has lasted over thirty years.

Watching Sonny Landreth play guitar must feel a bit like it felt watching Mozart caress the keys of the harpsichord. Sonny's preternaturally long fingers flit along the guitar, the glass slide flashes, and the resulting undulating blues causes the hair on the back of your neck to stand up. Steve is virtuosic is well--sometimes playing a call and response between his B-3 organ and the keyboard stacked atop it--a case where the left hand definitely knows what the right hand is doing. Jamey Bell on drums and H.B. Smith on bass cement the band with a formidable rhythm section. But it is the chemistry which exists between Steve and Sonny that has made the Friday night after Thanksgiving at Spirits such an unforgettable experience for the last ten years.

On Thinking in Tongues, a tune to be found on Steve's upcoming album, he and Sonny demonstrated the musical equivalent of finishing each other's sentences--Steve's powerful singing and rollicking piano fills intertwined with Sonny's blistering guitar solos. On Sonny's Blues Attack, Steve eschewed the keyboards and played accordion as he channeled Clifton Chenier, and Sonny conjured Muddy Waters.

Steve's lyrical sensibilities are southern to the core and seem to owe as much to Faulkner and Flannery O' Connor as to Randy Newman and Lowell George. In his song Down on Rigolette he shows he is the master of the telling detail--"Daddy leaned his shovel on a tombstone, took Billy by the hand and disappeared." In the Gothic romance song--I've Got Your Dog, he swirled a finger around a slightly graying temple as he sang a line which was an audience favorite, "Sometimes I feel like I got snakes inside my head. Can't tell whether I'm flying or lying in my bed."

Another virtue of this longtime musical friendship, begun, according to Steve's tongue-in-cheek aside, when he was a precocious seven-year-old and Sonny was a grizzled nineteen, is that these two give each other plenty of room to stretch out their considerable music skills. (Steve and Sonny have been collaborators ever since they started a band in Estes Park, Colorado in 1975, but Sonny is only Steve's senior by a year.) Sonny did some stretching on Key to the Highway; his soulful South Louisiana power blues shook the rafters of Spirits like a Zydeco incarnation of Cream. The music reached the pinnacle with an incendiary but hypnotic version of Congo Square, the singing infused with shared anguish at the destruction of mutual stomping grounds. The two friends polished off the evening with a searing version of The One and Only Truth as Steve took up the accordion again and ended the evening shoulder to shoulder with Sonny.

There are some folks who wish Cream had never broken up: they feel like Jack Bruce was the perfect foil for Clapton (or maybe the other way around.) There may be others who wish Steve and Sonny would form a South Louisiana super group or at least play together more often than Thanksgiving and the occasional recording. As it is now though, everybody has to be from somewhere, and Steve Conn is from Cenla. So keep coming home for the holidays, Steve, and bring your friend.

- H. W. Phillips
Cenla Focus (Fall 2005)

Steve Conn reminds me of the Penny Arcade game where the woodchuck pops up from the hole and just as you are about to take aim so that you can whack him with your mallet, he disappears. But then he pops up again, from a different hole. Steve Conn is like that woodchuck. When you think you have him figured out, he vanishes, then reappears, totally reinvented. I suppose that is why so many reviewers in the past have had a tough time pigeonholing Conn's music. That is, unquestionably, their first mistake. The only way to categorize Conn's music is to say that it has no category. His music is all over the musical landscape: Blues, R&B, Cajun, Pop, Southern Rock, and down-home, back-porch, tear-jerking, gut-wrenching, "My heart aches so bad I shot myself in the foot to relieve the pain," mournful sad songs. First and foremost, though, Conn is a storyteller in the deepest Southern tradition. Much like the smell of apple pie baking reminds you of your mother's cooking, Conn's songs cue the memory of things seemingly lost, but not forgotten. "If I Were King," is Conn's political, philosophical, "If I don't say it soon, I'm gonna scream," answer to the narrow-mindedness in the current entertainment/political landscape. "Somebody Gotta Make a Move," is a groove pocket, slow burn, funky grind that rolls into Memphis like the midnight blues express. "All The King's Horses," tells a story of modern heartbreak wrapped in medieval images. "Down on Rigolette," is a gothic tale of family skeletons and dire consequences. "Comfort Me," evokes a haunting, bluesy, heart-achy, been there before one too many times, feeling. "I've Got Your Dog," and "Polishing Chrome" are life lesson stories put to music, and "Beautiful," is the superbly recanted story about one woman's dark struggle against her brutal relationship. All of Conn's songs are well-crafted, intelligent and derived from a maturity and artistry that few writers attain. It is abundantly obvious that Conn is passionate about his craft. The backing musicians are some of Nashville's finest: Kenny Vaughn (guitar), Dave Francis (bass), Bryan Owings (drums), and the lovely Carmella Ramsey (backing vocals). Longtime friend and guitar virtuoso Sonny Landreth adds his own style of soulful, burning slide guitar to round out the musical circle. Conn himself plays anything and everything with keys: Hammond B-3 organ, accordion, acoustic and a variety of electric pianos, Mini Moog, and melodica. What makes Steve Conn a great listen is the intelligence, power and sly humor of his writing. It's a great CD illustrating Conn's authenticity and depth of talent.

- William Thames III
Shake! Magazine (Spring 2004)

It's been nearly a decade since Steve Conn released his solo album, years that the pianist, arranger, and accordion player has spent backing up artists such as Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, Sheena Easton, and Nanci Griffith, both live and in the studio. In this self-titled collection, he lets his own Louisiana pop, soul, and funk style shine on 11 tunes that infuse intriguing stories and characters with a depth of melody and musicianship that makes clear why Conn is in such demand. There's fun, but there are thoughtful pieces, too, as well as broken-hearted longing set in a Southern landscape and a love song with depth and vulnerability. Noteworthy tracks include "If I Were King" and "Down on Rigolette." Bryan Owings' drums and Sonny Landreth's slide guitar add to the mix; Darrell Scott and Carmella Ramsey are among those who sit in on background vocals.

- Kerry Dexter
Dirty Linen (February/March 2004)

Steve Conn's self-titled album is a bluesy, soulful, mature offering from an artist who's performed with Bonnie Raitt and garnered Grammy nominations for piano, harmonica, and sax work with Beausoleil and accordion work with Arlo Guthrie. Joining Conn on these 12 self-produced, original tracks are guitarist Sonny Landreth and Nashville giant Kenny Vaughn. Conn's warm vocals possess an endearing edge. His influences, which range from Dr. John to the Beatles and Bob Dylan, are apparent yet never overshadow his own laid-back musical voice. He's equally at home on the gospel-influenced "Comfort Me," the James Taylor-style singer/songwriter number "Polishing Chrome," and funky tracks such as the Cajun-tinged "If I Were King" and the dark story-song "Down On Rigolette," Conn's most striking and memorable lyric.

His love for literature is reflected in the tortured, reverent, occasionally joyful points of view of the characters that inhabit Conn's landscapes. At times he's wry, at others, downright funny. In "I've Got Your Dog," a song of lost love, schizophrenia, and dognapping, Conn sings, "Sometimes I feel like I've got snakes inside my head/I can't tell if I'm in my car or lying in my bed." And in a swampy admonition for brotherly love titled "Love Everybody," he rhymes "Muslims and Jews" with "Episcopalians, too." Can you say "Episcopalians" in a song? Steve Conn can.

Tasty solos are frequent; Landreth tears it up on "Love Everybody." The rhythm section, composed of Dave Francis and Bryan Owings, simmers like Bourbon Street on a hot summer night. Whether riffing on a Cajun beat or singing a lyric about the corrosive effects of adultery, Conn convinces.

- Chip O' Brien
Blues Revue (December/January 2004)

Steve Conn, a Louisiana-bred musician who lives near Nashville these days, recorded two albums prior to this self-titled gem but earned his keep primarily as a keyboard-playing accompanist for Bonnie Raitt, the Dixie Chicks, and others. This CD showcases him as a songwriter and singer worthy of mention in the same breath with his far more famous peers.

Nearly all of these 12 original songs would fit snugly into a radio playlist or record collection built around the likes of such accessibly funky artists as Raitt or Boz Scaggs. Indeed, Conn's gentle, philosophical love songs "Eliana" and "Comfort Me" would be perfect vehicles for Raitt. But Conn delivers those tunes -- as well as the simultaneously smooth and snarling blues track "Somebody Gotta Make a Move" and the New Orleans-flavored R&B-rock of the political opener, "If I Were King" ("I'd be Newt's nightmare and Martin's dream") -- quite memorably in his own gospel-inflected voice.

His rolling piano (acoustic and electric) and sweeping Hammond B-3 organ establish the instrumental foundation for a tight band that features Kenny Vaughan on electric guitar and is augmented by artists like Darrell Scott on mandolin and Sonny Landreth, an ace on slide guitar. Such honest and deeply rooted music is becoming relatively marginal to the mainstream nowadays, which makes a treasure like Conn that much more delightful to discover.

- Derk Richardson
Yoga Journal (December 2003)

Tools of the Trade: Keyboards

Louisiana-born, Nashville-based keyboardist and accordion whiz Steve Conn has worked as a session musician and sideman for Tim O'Brien, Sonny Landreth, Rodney Crowell, Bonnie Raitt and Mark Knopfler. Conn earned a Grammy nomination for his work with BeauSoleil and Arlo Guthrie, and now spends most of his time writing and performing his own material.

Music critic Robert Doerschuk recently wrote that songwriter/keyboardist Steve Conn's self-titled solo album "stands on a foundation of vintage keys." If so, the foundation of that foundation, so to speak, would have to be Conn's Yamaha C3 Conservatory Grand Piano. "I've had it for 20 years now," Conn says from his rural Tennessee home. "I bought it from the Amazing Rhythm Aces, so it already had a history when I got it."

Conn's Hammond B-3 organ also appears on virtually every song on his latest record. And accordion and Wurlitzer electric piano -- Conn owns many of each -- fall third in line on the album, a tasteful blend of soul and bayou blues.

"I bought my original blonde Wurlitzer in 1971 for 90 bucks," Conn recalls. "I played it on about 1,000 gigs and sold it in 1986. But I started having seller's remorse end bought it back a few years later. Another one of my Wurlitzers belonged to a band called the Fabulous Uglies and they painted all their equipment purple. I used to play a Wurlitzer through a Leslie 145. That was my rig for many years."

Conn currently uses one of three stage setups, all of which include his Hammond XK-2 drawbar organ paired with a Motion Sound KBR-3D amplifier. "I call them stovetop Leslies," Conn says of the Motion Sound line. "It's the treble horn from a Leslie, basically, with an electronically simulated bass. You're moving air -- that Leslie is spinning -- that's the crucial element for me."

Conn also carries a Yamaha KX88 keyboard, a Kurzweil PC88 digital piano and one of his 12 accordions to each gig. "I don't use it on a lot of songs but it's absolutely crucial," he says of the accordion. "It's fun to play and it's really fun for the audience." Though he usually brings only the essentials on stage (unless there's a road crew involved, he admits), Conn's arsenal expands tenfold when working in his home studio.

Conn says he's used and is impressed with the latest virtual synths and various plug-ins, but prefers to use the original for his own work. "The Native Instruments B4 plug-in sounds so much like the Hammond organ, but for me, it's not the same as when you're kicking that Leslie in and out."

Conn did use MOTU's Digital Performer to overdub certain keyboard parts at his home studio, along with a spartan assortment of reverbs and compressors, an Eventide H910 Harmonizer and a few Rane pieces. He also uses an ART Pro Channel mic preamp/ compressor on the Wurlitzer, and mikes his Hammond B3 with a pair of Audio Technica 4033s and a Shure SM57. "On the piano, I've tried all the usual mics, but went back to my original old Oktava MK-219s," Conn adds, "They sound better than any other mic on my piano in this room."

Conn writes most of his songs on that same Yamaha acoustic piano, in his home studio. "I'm so moved by the piano," he says. "I'm driven by melody. I can sit down at the piano and most of the time come up with a melody. Nothing does that like the sound of an acoustic piano."

Conn says he sits at the piano "every day of his life" and devotes most of his time these days to his own music. Conn moved to Nashville in 1993 to focus more heavily on writing and performing his own songs. His initial vision took a backseat, however, as his calendar continued to fill with lucrative studio and sideman gigs. One decade later, Conn says he's right where he wants to be, maintaining a nice balance between his solo career and select dates with other artists. He's currently touring with rock-country diva Shelby Lynne, serving as both her keyboardist and opening act.

Right now is the happiest I've ever been," Conn says. "I have a really nice mix of playing with people whose music I respect and playing my own material. It's hard to make a living doing what you love. And what I love is to get up every day and write songs, and then go out and sing them. It takes an inordinate amount of dedication to your own thing to keep it alive."

- Heather Johnson
Performing Songwriter (December 2003)

Pieces of Time: Nashville session ace and road warrior Steve Conn brings his own tunes to the table

To understand the music of Steve Conn, you need look no further than his living room. In a house at the end of a dirt road in brushy countryside east of Nashville, he's filled this space with artifacts: a Hamilton timepiece from the forties, a Kellogg Red Bar dial phone unveiled at the World's Fair of 1933; several black-and-white TVs from the Honeymooners era . . . and keyboards too, almost all of them older than this magazine.

"Look at this," Conn says, leading the way past piles of dusty books and journals. "This is my Wurlitzer Model 120; my understanding is that Ray Charles used this model on 'What'd I Say.' I've also got a 145 Wurlitzer with Model 200 guts -- the 145 had a tube power amp that was notoriously not that good. I've got my original Model 200 Student, a 200A that I use for sessions. I've got a beautiful Farfisa Duo Compact, which has a killer tube preamp. I've got a Rhodes suitcase 73 and the shorter Rhodes 54 too; I read somewhere that they only made a couple hundred of them, but this is the second one I've owned . . ."

After a while, despite the dozens of old clocks on the shelves and walls, time here seems to slow down. There's something of that in his music too: The songs on Steve Conn, his third solo album, all seem drawn from deep, still waters, even those whose lyrics project indignation ("If I Were King") or impart dark irony ("I've Got Your Dog").

But most of them convey a kind of timelessness, mainly through old-fashioned craftsmanship and retro instrumentation. The newest hotrod on Steve Conn is a Minimoog, whose cameo on "Great Big Beautiful World" blows by fast, like some urban punk who stumbled into and then fled from a backwoods barn dance. The rest of the time, all you hear on the keyboard side is Conn's Yamaha C3 grand (which he rescued from captivity as tour piano for the Amazing Rhythm Aces), Hammond B-3, Wurlitzer electric piano, an accordion hauled down from a closet overflowing with squeezeboxes, and a Melodeon pump organ that Conn pulled out of a dumpster behind the offices of Bug Music on Music Row.

"Somebody had thrown it away," he explains. "I didn't know what it was, so I thought, 'Hell, it's a keyboard. I can hang it on the wall.' It was in about twenty pieces, so I put it in my truck, hoping nobody from the session would see me, brought it home, and started putting it together."

Conn talks about his keyboards the way someone with a big family talks about the relatives. Each one comes with a story -- and in the case of this pump organ, a lesson. "I tuned it meticulously," he says, "one reed at a time. What I didn't know is that you're supposed to rough-tune it first, then put it back in the case and fine-tune it. So this one came out perfect -- each note exactly 23 cents sharp. The first time I tried to use it was on a session that Vince Gill was producing on Sonya Isaacs. I really wanted to impress him with this pump organ, but as soon as I started playing it I realized it was way out of tune. I couldn't see Vince, but I could sense him and Steve Marcantonio, the engineer, in the booth. God, it sucked."

Chastened, Conn has since tamed this wheezy beast, so when it comes in on the second chorus of "All the King's Horses" it's not only in tune, it's downright poetic. The same is true of his piano work on practically every cut, and particularly in his Leslie phrasing for organ parts. Conn has learned not to kick those horns into high gear every time a crescendo comes along. In fact, he eases into these episodes with the rotors slow, letting the music build on its own momentum. Then and only then, he'll accelerate the Leslie sparingly, to underscore individual phrases, then let it go for a few bars, and then hit it again if that's what the next line needs. It's almost an orchestrational approach, never flashy yet always effective.

"I'm not really a virtuoso," he demurs. "I haven't honed my chops like Bruce Hornsby. Whatever ability I have as a player is the result of writing songs and accompanying myself as I sing them. I almost always write at the piano -- and I say 'almost' in case I find out later that I'm lying -- so maybe it's the heart of what I do and the B-3 is the soul. I don't ever use synthesizers for pads because I only hear that in terms of the organ."

The Wurlitzer plays nearly as important a role on Steve Conn as the piano and organ. On songs like "I've Got Your Dog" and "Somebody Gotta Make a Move" its timbre alone functions as a leitmotif snaking through the smoke of the blues, "I've done thousands of gigs on the Wurly," he says, "and for me it's always seemed like a blues or an R&B instrument, I mean, I used to listen to Supertramp and think, 'God, I wish they wouldn't use a Wurly on these tunes!'"

In fact, the Wurlitzer sound was so critical to "Somebody Gotta Make a Move" that Conn wound up working overtime on Kenny Vaughn's guitar sound to make sure it matched. "This always sounded like a Wurly song to me," he says, "and when we started recording the guitars, they just didn't sound grungy enough for that feel. I've got a lot of old amplifiers here, so we just started going through them. We put Kenny through my father's old Fender Deluxe, and we went through an old Silvertone. Nothing worked until we got to one of those five-watt Airline amps that Montgomery Ward used to distribute in the fifties, and that turned out to be the perfect complement."

This trudge through the keyboard graveyard might create an impression that Conn is a technophobe. Not true, he insists: "I love my MIDI rig. Man, I can spend days editing stuff; that's as much fun as anything I do. I did all the overdubs and editing on my record in [Mark of the Unicorn] Digital Performer, right here. The point, though, is that the song is the main thing with me. What's going to get the song across? If you start putting bright string pads or Rhodes patches or synthesizer things into the mix, then we're into a production thing, and that takes away from the song. The strongest thing I've ever heard in music has been one person at a piano, singing. It doesn't get any better than Randy Newman. I've always wanted to get as close as I could to that idea." Conn has benefited in this mission from apprenticeships with artists who know how to write and perform songs that have something to say. He was a hotshot kid, buzzed on "pseudo jazz/funk," when he landed his gig with Gatemouth Brown back in the mid-'70s. That experience changed him overnight: "I played everything real big," he laughs. "I wanted all ten fingers on the keys as much as possible. Then Gatemouth said, 'Man, just drop chords.'" Conn jabs a few staccato comps on his Yamaha to illustrate. "At the time I was thinking, 'Man, what does he know?' But then not too long after that I heard Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, and I said, 'Oh!' That turned out to be probably my most profound learning experience."

His other epiphany hit him during a stretch with Albert King. "With Albert, it was all about the tremolo, which he called the tribble." Now Conn plays a slow blues, with the right hand rippling a nonstop, five-finger shake through the chord changes. "He wanted me to do that through the whole song -- on a Rhodes! In fact, he threatened to fire me in the middle of a concert at Hammersmith Odeon in London. 'Piano man,' he said, right into the mic, 'you can't give me no tribble, you can just pack your bags and go home.' After that I started listening to blues piano players, and that changed the way I played too."

These elements enriched the feel for zydeco, Cajun, and New Orleans piano music that Conn had picked up as a kid in Pineville, Louisiana. The result was a style rich in roots music, with a broad enough base to eventually land him gigs with artists as diverse as Bonnie Raitt, Allison Moorer, Kenny Loggins, and Sheena Easton, who hired him to replace her outgoing music director and another young man on the way up, Bruce Hornsby. Eventually settled in Nashville, Conn mixed session work with a slow-motion approach to establishing a solo career, releasing his first album, Heart Full of Blues in 1985, his second, River of Madness, ten years later, and Steve Conn eight years after that, in August of this year.

"I'm notoriously slow because I'm picky about my lyrics," he admits. "It may not show, but I am. Meaningful lyrics are very difficult to write, especially when you've got an interesting melody. With folk music there's more latitude, because the melodies as a rule are not as sophisticated. Now, I love sophisticated melodies, but at the same time I really want to say something in my songs, so it takes me forever."

Once the material was ready, Conn assembled a group of musicians that included slide guitar wizard Sonny Landreth, a close friend since they met in a band called Juke nearly 30 years back, and took them into Nashville's Hum Depot to cut live rhythm tracks to two-inch tape. "I didn't change those tracks at all -- not a single note on the drums or the bass," Conn says. "But I had to redo all my keyboards and vocals because we weren't able to get complete isolation, except on 'Don't Ask Me'; that's the only one where we kept the first take on piano."

Arrangements were largely improvised, which leads to some intriguing results as everyone settled into playing together. On Conn's solo in "If I Were King" and especially on "Don't Ask Me," the rhythm slips in and out of a Professor Longhair shuffle and a straight-eighth feel; it's an organic shift far less likely to have come from prerecorded drum tracks or written charts, with an effect that parallels the impact of Conn's Leslie manipulations on texture.

"We never talked about it, but it was another way to build up the tension," Conn says. "You play a little bit straight, or you go way on the backside. I guess I'm starting to see a theme here: tension and release, which is kind of a microcosm of my life. The difference is that in the music everybody hits it at the same time now and then, and that's something I really love."

- Robert L. Doerschuk
Keyboard Magazine (October 2003)

Steve Conn may have taken his time turning his latest CD loose on the world, but he wasn't shy about leading it off with a big statement.

Eight years after his last solo CD, the favorably received River Of Madness, Conn kicks off his new, eponymous-titled release with a blatantly political tune called "If I Were King," centering the neocon political gestalt squarely in his sights. "If I were king some things would change, let there be no doubt/heads would roll and fur would fly and I'd kick all the scoundrels out," he croons over a broad, loping Bourbon Street stomp, tweaked along the sides by a zesty Sonny Landreth slide solo.

The tune makes a promise the rest of the CD keeps: Conn's deeply textured bayou soul piano and detail-rich, irony-flavored lyricism make this CD a rare gem. But Conn's been relatively quiet these days, and kicking off a rare solo release with an obvious political tune seems a little risky. Who wants to get Dixie Chicked, anyway?

"I'll tell you what," says Conn. "That song was the next to last one to actually make the CD at all. I decided to add it at the last minute, then it was buried way down in the program and then I thought, at the last minute, I gotta make a statement.

"It was easy, back in the day, when I was playing at the Mezzanine. I was preaching to the choir," he continues. "But being a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, living out here in the hinterlands (rural Tennessee, outside Nashville), you're a little more reluctant. But, I thought, this is me. I gotta make a stand."

You get the sense that Conn has grown impatient working at the fringes of big music stardom. His years in Boulder, divided between working the nightclubs as bandleader for Gris-Gris and playing solo sets for martini hour at the Boulderado, gave way to an unexpected career as a sideman in Los Angeles, where he escaped after the Boulder music scene euphoria started to change around the mid-'80s. Beginning with a gig playing keys for Sheena Easton, Conn started getting studio and tour work and earning a rep as a solid backup singer and keyboardist. Reading a resume that includes gigs with James Taylor, Mark Knopfler and Bonnie Raitt might make you think that Conn's one of those session-guy aces, $700/hr and can play anything.

"The funny thing about all that was that look, I'm just not that great a piano player. I do what I do, and I do it well, but I'm not one of those guys that can just peel anything off in a moment," says Conn. "I guess I started to realize this when I'd be in the studio and the leader would say something like, 'Okay, let's try this in D-flat, a thirty second piano opening into the main tune, and a-one and two,' and I'd be saying, 'D-flat?'

"What I realized is that I needed to be writing and performing my own songs," he continues. "That's why I got into the music business in the first place, to write songs. I've been writing songs since second grade. This is what I do."

After returning to Colorado and working as etown musical director for a couple of years, Conn moved to Tennessee in 1993 and released River Of Madness. After that, he says, everything just stopped.

"I'm probably the slowest songwriter in history. I spent something like the last six years completely paralyzed. Couldn't do a thing," says Conn. "But finally I just said to myself, this is what I do; I can't complain about the industry anymore, I just have to do it."

So Conn is surfing a mild, mostly Nashville-region buzz these days, and picking his supporting roles carefully. He's been opening for Shelby Lynne, as well as doing some session and tour work for Allison Moorer as time permits. Conn's also recently worked with former Boulder singer Gretchen Peters, who's enjoying healthy career success as a Nashville tunesmith.

"I like playing with Shelby and Allison, because I think I fit in well with what they're doing," says Conn. "But I'm a songwriter and that's what I'm going to really concentrate on from now on."

- David Kirby
Boulder Weekly (September 25, 2003)

Ex-sideman Steve Conn takes a solo leap

Steve Conn knew it was time to get off the road when, in 1997, he found his boss, a prominent country singer who may remain nameless, asleep in Conn's bus bunk.

"Anybody who's ever been on the road knows that the one sacred space you have is your bunk," Conn said recently, still disbelieving after all these years. "He had the whole back of the bus for him and his girlfriend, and he wants my bunk. He did me a favor. I went up and told the road manager, 'When we get done, I'm off.'"

The truth is that Conn, 51, a player of keyboards and a singer of songs, has been deeply ambivalent about the whole sideman thing since he came of age in Louisiana steeped in music and wanting very badly to be a featured singer-songwriter. As everyone knows, that's a tough climb, but when you're a really fine instrumentalist, you get offered jobs, and those pay the rent and sometimes let you work with legends.

In Conn's case, it's been a long string of greats. First it was Texas guitar wizard Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. Then blues icon Albert King. You could stop there and be proud of what you'd done in music. But as the years unfolded and the offers came in, he lent piano, organ and accordion support to Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson, Nanci Griffith and a couple of dozen other standouts. A two-year stint working for 1980s hit-making pop-tart Sheena Easton was a strange detour, but, hey, it's been a long career.

Every one of those jobs, some as cool as they sound and some more tedious than you'd expect, came with an opportunity cost for his own career. "People perceive you as either a sideman or an artist," Conn says. "And then in my case, having chronically low self-esteem, I started believing that. So I had to just quit all of that before I could get back to doing my own stuff again."

Conn squeaked out two albums in his career, one in 1985 and one in 1995. But his newest opus -- painstakingly crafted in a home studio over several years through a marriage break-up and unremitting financial pressure -- feels like his real debut. The self-titled Steve Conn contains heart-on-sleeve candor, strident Louisiana beats and magnificent singing.

After more than three decades in the business, Conn is realistic about his chances of being embraced by the community that's supporting similar artists such as Delbert McClinton, John Hiatt and old Conn friend and collaborator Sonny Landreth. But he's finally ready to do what he's never done before: take a full-on leap of faith at a solo career.

"I believe in it so much," he says today, "that there's really no option."

- Craig Havighurst
The Tennessean (August 16, 2003)

Nashville singer/songwriter Steve Conn recently made a decision some might deem strange or risky. Despite being a prolific session contributor and Grammy-nominated artist whose list of credits range from Bonnie Raitt and Albert King to Sheena Easton, Kenny Loggins and Kris Kristofferson, Conn decided it was time to spotlight his own band and compositions. His newest CD Steve Conn was released Aug. 5, and his Sunday night concert at 3rd and Lindsley will also feature several songs from that current release.

"The greatest lesson that I've learned from people like Bonnie Raitt, Kenny Loggins and especially Sonny Landreth is that they know what they want in their music and they're very passionate about it," said Conn. "Working with them, seeing how much they're a champion of their own music, convinced me that it was time to put my emphasis squarely on my own songs. I decided to just make a stand, and only work on other gigs where I really believed in what they were doing and enjoyed it, as opposed to being a session player strictly for hire."

Of course, Conn was a lot more than just someone willing to take any available job. A tremendous organist, pianist and accordion soloist, music has been a vital part of Conn's life since childhood. The son of a top jazz and Western swing violinist, Conn's been immersed in a wealth of sounds his entire life. "My father was into Dave Brubeck and Bob Wills, and he also liked Hank Williams and the early country guys," Conn said. "I heard some Cajun, Zydeco and New Orleans R&B as a teen, but the album that changed my life was Bobby "Blue" Bland's Two Steps From The Blues. From that I really got hooked on Otis Redding, James Brown, and real soul music. Motown was a little tame to me. People with genuine soul, that's what's always hooked me, and that's also what I've tried to communicate in my songwriting."

Conn's first LP was the 1980 releaseHeart Full of Blues, which also featured longtime friend Landreth and another celebrated guitarist Elliot Randall. His second solo date didn't come until 14 years later, River of Madness. But in the meantime, between numerous sessions and concerts with a host of artists, Conn also received two Grammy nominations, one with the Cajun group BeauSoliel and the other with Arlo Guthrie. He served for two years as the musical director for National Public Radio's E-Town, an outstanding program that highlighted roots and folk music along with environmental issues.

Steve Conn brings the artist full circle, showing his ability to write and deliver soothing ballads, surging rockers, even an occasional message track like "You've Got To Love Everybody." The disc also features solid guest contributions from Landreth and Darrell Scott among others. "I'm the most energized right now that I've ever been in my life," said Conn. "Certainly, you're taking a risk when you decide to cut back on the session work, but I just felt now was the perfect time. You've got to work a lot harder when everything is riding on your efforts, but then the payoff is a lot more rewarding."

- Ron Wynn
The City Paper (August 15, 2003)

"Steve Conn is one of those players you rarely see in the spotlight but whose music has been heard and felt nearly everywhere.  As a backing player for Bonnie Raitt, Sonny Landreth, Kenny Loggins, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver and a host of others, Conn is constantly in demand for his piano, organ and accordion skills.  But [it is] with his own albums that he can really relish his roots.

Hailing from Louisiana, his bayou roots are immediately obvious in such songs as the philosophical opening track 'If I Were King' (where Conn's barrelhouse piano conjures up the influence of Dr. John) and 'I've Got Your Dog,' a plodding blues tune full of sexual innuendo.  Conn's music is the real deal, a down home mix of funk and blues -- 'Don't Ask Me,' 'Somebody Gotta Make a Move,' 'Love Everybody' -- and emotional heartfelt ballads that Elton John and Billy Joel would no doubt be proud to claim as their own -- 'Great Big Beautiful World,' 'Eliana,' 'All the King's Horses,' and the aptly-named 'Beautiful.'  He even adds some gospel to the mix, via the pleading 'Comfort Me,' a song that makes Conn's soulful sensibilities even more obvious.

Steve Conn may not make its namesake as big a star as those who have benefited from his talents. Nevertheless, it's comforting assurance that authenticity and tradition still have a place in today's musical mainstream."

- Lee Zimmerman
South Florida's Entertainment News and Views (July 25, 2003)

"Conn's another Louisiana native who headed to Tennessee, but works in the fringe singer/songwriter community that still produces honest music. (Credit his past stints with Gatemouth Brown, BeauSoleil and Albert King.) Professor Longhair is still an influence on Conn's piano playing, evidenced in the rolling rhythms of opener 'If I Were King,' which knights James Brown and exiles Newt Gingrich and Jerry Springer. Conn's a soulful singer whose voice recalls '70s-era Boz Scaggs, a perfect complement to Conn's multi-talented work on Hammond B-3, Wurlitzer and accordion. His diverse range shows in the bluesy slow-burn 'Somebody Gotta Make a Move,' the touching parent's anthem 'Eliana' and the pastoral medieval imagery of 'All the King's Horses.' Note to guitar aficionados: longtime Conn associate Sonny Landreth plays understated slide guitar on three tracks. This is a smart, mature album that's tastefully produced; if Conn could land an opening touring slot for someone like James Taylor or Natalie Merchant, he'd earn an instant, sizeable fanbase."

- Scott Jordan
Gambit Weekly (June 24, 2003)

"Few sidemen have blossomed into solo artistry as fully as Nashville stalwart Steve Conn on this self-titled release. Crisply produced, with a degree of clarity that in no way subverts the album's rustic ambience, Steve Conn stands on a foundation of vintage keyboards; there's only one synthesizer cameo, and even that was played on a stone-age Minimoog. This gives each song a spacious, solid feel, which serves the narrative quality of the lyrics well. Conn's vocal delivery, unaffected and almost conversational, brings these stories into focus, like a rugged frame around an old family portrait. On 'Down On Rigolette' it's a country Gothic tale told in stark, poetic detail; 'Comfort Me,' the plaintive 'Beautiful,' and the easy-rolling, Professor Longhair-flavored 'Don't Ask Me,' are more personal recitations, haunted by mystery and glimpses of salvation; and his humor, in full view on 'I've Got Your Dog,' has a wicked twist. Extra flavor is added throughout each track by the band, whose most stellar member, Sonny Landreth, plays just as exquisitely as you'd expect; Conn's solos are somewhat less pointed but just as drenched in homespun soul. Though not as sophisticated as the songs of Bruce Hornsby, this material draws from the same well and quenches that same thirst for something cool, dark, and Southern."

- Robert L. Doerschuk
All Music Guide (June 18, 2003)

"In a world of pretenders, virtuosity is a pleasure. When it will bare its very soul, that's a treasure.

The artist is one of Nashville's jewels, and favorite pianist and organist of many a famous act. But he's also a great songwriter and entertaining front man, and has many fans here and beyond. Conn is a fluid motherfunker in the New Orleans style and related swampy grooves, but has it all at his fingertips, especially if it has anything remotely to do with the blues.

Hold the artifice and pass the tone, please. Steve has always run in fast, deep musical company, and the gang's all here. Sonny Landreth and Kenny Vaughan are burnin the frickin house down on guitars, first of all. Dave Francis on bass and occasional acoustic and Bryan Owings on drums are the rock solid rhythm dogs. Owings is everywhere these days -- when he's not out with Buddy and Julie Miller, he's playing on a lot of records (including Pieta Brown's new EP, clips from that also in this issue).

As a person, Conn is a major dude. Self effacing, extremely present, intelligent, and passionate about what he does. When someone with his chops brings all that to the table in addition, it's small wonder that he's asked by so many greats to share the stage or studio: Bonnie Raitt, Sonny Landreth, Kenny Loggins, Nanci Griffith, Kris Kristofferson, Allison Moorer, Billy Joe Shaver, Mark Knopfler, Dixie Chicks, Albert King ... the list goes on and on.

My favorite songs combine funky groove and personal politics, like Mose Allison. (God help me, I love to hear Kenny Vaughan and Sonny Landreth play the blues.) 'If I Were King' and 'Don't Ask Me' are right up my alley, and 'I Got Your Dog' is really messed up, too.

A heartbreaking separation from a great woman tore the guy in half, and he doesn't hide or shrink from that in these songs. His ability to open up about it is one of the elements that makes this record great. I'm proud to know him."

- Frank Goodman
Puremusic (2003)

Copyright © 2003-2006. Steve Conn. All Rights Reserved.