Chris Isaak |
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Tue. July 14.1998 3:04 AM EDT |
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Guitarist James Wilsey Resurfaces To Unveil MysteriesMan who helped forge singer Chris Isaak's lonesome, romantic sound leads new instrumental western rock group. by Contributing Editor Teri vanHorn |
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Wilsey (third from left) laid low after leaving Chris Isaak's band. ( ) |
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LOS ANGELES -- James "Jimmy" Calvin Wilsey, the man behind the haunting
guitar hook of singer Chris Isaak's defining moment, "Wicked Game," is celebrating his
41st birthday at the office. But it's not nearly as bad as it sounds.
At the moment, Wilsey and his friend, former Black Flag guitarist Dez Cadena, are sitting on bar stools and jamming along to the jukebox, doing what they call "guitar karaoke." It might be a strange coincidence that the song blurting from the jukebox is the Yardbirds' "Heart Full of Soul" (RealAudio excerpt), which Wilsey frequently covered while he was backing Isaak. But make no mistake, those days are long gone. Wilsey played his final show with Isaak on New Year's Eve 1991 after a 12-year run with the San Francisco-based Western-rock crooner. Since then, the guitarist has occupied himself in activities as banal as watching TV and, he said, as exotic as sailing the South Seas. He has also pursued ventures somewhere between, such as teaching at the prestigious Vienna Music Academy and accompanying Billy Idol. Now, Wilsey -- a longtime San Francisco resident -- has settled in Los Angeles and has a whole new thing brewing, as his self-decorated orange T-shirt proclaims in crude black marker: "The Mysteries / Los Angeles / Nitro Twang." "A lot of stuff we're doing is sort of pre-surf," Wilsey says of the Mysteries' sound. "It's very stylized -- kind of space-age hillbilly stuff, little-haunted-house-on-the-prairie music." In the Mysteries, Wilsey is joined in songwriting and twanging by Telecaster and pedal steel guitarist Chris Lawrence, who also plays for local country-rocker Cisco. Wilsey and Lawrence met in May at a show by country singer Rosie Flores. "Jimmy plays spacious and more atmospheric stuff, and on the whole, my guitar playing is more choppy and aggressive," Lawrence says, explaining how the two guitar maestros naturally avoid stepping on each other's straps. Though their first official gig is scheduled for July 24 at Jack's Sugar Shack in Hollywood, Wilsey and Lawrence have yet to rehearse with their rhythm section -- drummer Dave Raven, who also hits the skins for surf rockers the Surfaris, and bassist Chuck Morris. They are planning to have a full rehearsal sometime this week. Meanwhile, Wilsey and Lawrence are assembling the Mysteries' repertoire, which includes a mixture of original songs, such as "Tierra del Fuego" ("Land of Fire"), a spaghetti western number Wilsey wrote when he was 19, and the steel-guitar instrumental "Saddle Up," written by Lawrence. The foursome is also preparing to cover classic rockers Jeff Beck and the Shadows, soundtrack virtuoso Elmer Bernstein and twang pioneer Duane Eddy. And they even intend to play a version of "Wicked Game" (RealAudio excerpt), only they've renamed it "Wicked Thing." Wilsey made his first splash in the music business during the '70s when he played in the punk-rock band the Avengers, a Bay Area outfit that opened the final show by British punk legends the Sex Pistols at San Francisco's Winterland Arena. He hooked up with Isaak in the '80s and helped forge the singer's trademark lonesome, romantic sound. Despite his experience and his relative success as a musician, Wilsey is surprisingly modest when it comes to his guitar playing. "I don't consider myself a great guitar player or anything," he says. "What I do well is accompany singers. But now, the guitar takes over the voice part; it's leading rather than filling." And he's adamant that the Mysteries will remain a no-vocals affair. "Because what we're doing is so highly stylized," Wilsey says, "to bring in a singer -- even a great singer -- would be disastrous." Though the Mysteries plan to record an album before year's end, Wilsey envisions television commercials as one appropriate format for the quartet. "I think commercials are the pinnacle of art in our country," he says. "They reach everybody, and there's great 30-second commercials that everybody knows. There's a real art ... to be able to do that." But for now he's putting his energy into making a splash with the Mysteries on stage and in the studio. "I keep thinking, 'Everybody's going to like this. Everybody's going to think it's great,' " Wilsey says. "It's either going to be a total fiasco, or we're going to get away with it." |
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