Little Axe Live in London
AGMP presents LITTLE AXE feat. Skip McDonald Live Mix from Adrian Sherwood
FRIDAY 21 MAY 2010
PLAN B, Brixton Road, London, SW9
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LITTLE AXE - New Album
"BOUGHT FOR A DOLLAR, SOLD FOR A DIME" ( Real World )
www.little-axe.com/news/article/265/
Skip McDonald will release his sixth Little Axe album in June 2010. He just finished mastering the record (which is called Bought For a Dollar, Sold For a Dime) at Real World Studios.
McDonald recorded the album live at Real World's state-of-the-art facilities. With of course the usual suspects Doug Wimbish, Keith LeBlanc, Bernard Fowler and Adrian Sherwood, but also with the help of Saranella Bell, Kevin Gibbs, Alan Glenn, The Crispy Horns, Ken Booth and Cyril Atef.
“We played as if we were doing a gig with an audience,” McDonald explains. The colours, the feeling, the rhythm - everything matched. I always say there are only two kinds of music. The music you like and the music you don’t like. I only make music I love.”
LITTLE AXE - THE HISTORY
www.little-axe.com/biography/
Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1949, Skip McDonald learnt the guitar from an early age. He went on to form the house band for pioneering rap label SUGARHILL RECORDS with Keith Le Blanc, Doug Wimbish out of the ashes of the WOOD, BRASS & STEEL band, where they provided the backing music for GRANDMASTER FLASH, THE SUGARHILL GANG, AFRIKA BAMABAATAA and more.
From there they worked as TACKHEAD with Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound label throughout the 1980's. The band split in the early nineties when the LITTLE AXE project was born.
Skip has been the prime mover behind Little Axe since around 1992. Under a name inspired by Bob Marley's Small Axe and gospel singer Willmer 'Little Ax' Broadnax, the debut album Wolf That House Built was a personal take on blues and dub, and was released to critical acclaim in 1994. Both albums featured tabla player Talvin Singh, for Slow Fuse the gifted voices of Kevin Gibbs and Sas Bell were added.
Then it remained silent for far too long. In 2002 Skip's third Little Axe album Hard Grind became the first release for four years on Sherwood's revived and re-launched On-U Sound label with a mixture of raw blues and reggae. While Hard Grind no doubt will also draw comparisons to Moby's Play, it was Skip who pioneered the fusion of blues and electronic music with Little Axe.
In 2006 Skip McDonald released the fifth Little Axe album, Stone Cold Ohio, after Champagne and Grits (2004), the second record released on Peter Gabriel's Real World Records. This time the emphasis was on the gospel, another of Skip's old loves. The production and mixing was done Adrian Sherwood; 'gospel dub' like you never heard before.
Call My Name (2009) was a side project with Mauritanian singer Daby Touré. McDonald and Touré, who met at the Real World facilities and immediately felt a strong connection, went back to their African roots and recorded cover versions of their own songs, resulting in a critical acclaimed mini album.
It's 2010 now and Skip McDonald just finished Bought For a Dollar, Sold For a Dime, an album with covers his extended carreer, with new versions of old tracks. “I see myself as a time traveller,” he says. “I started out live and went into studio culture. I’ve gone all the way back and come full circle, though this time I’ve got the advantage of technology as well. Hey, I’m even doing covers of my own songs. It’s all part of the same puzzle.”
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