TWO SIDES OF IF
If you're a guitar player, especially if you came up in the late 80's
and 90's, you know who VIVIAN CAMPBELL is. His resume boasts an
impressive list of credits, including DIO, WHITESNAKE, and for the past
thirteen years... DEF LEPPARD. Vivian was recruited by Joe Elliot to
fill the position left vacant after Steve Clark's passing, and has been
doing the arena thing with Leppard ever since. However, with the
exception of the music he put out with
RIVERDOGS,
we haven't heard much of Campbell's solo efforts. Finally, he's managed
to sequester himself away long enough to put together
Two Sides Of If, a soulful, bluesy departure which features Vivian's vocal abilities, a talent he's kept under lock and key for some time.
The impressive thing about the way
Two Sides Of If
was recorded is the conditions Campbell made everyone stick to. Rule
number one: The songs had to be recorded LIVE in the studio, with
Campbell singing lead vocals while playing solo guitar...NO overdubs
allowed. Vivian also enlisted the help of A-list players to contribute
to this disc; Terry Bozzio plays drums on every track. ZZ TOP's Billy
F. Gibbons shows up on "Like It This Way", and JOAN OSBORNE cracks out
some vocals on "Spoonful". Considering this was all done live with no
overdubs,
Two Sides Of If is that much more impressive to me.
Obviously, if you're looking for some of the music that Vivian has been
playing throughout his career (harder rock, wild solos, etc), you're
not going to find it here. This is as far away from the hard rock genre
as an artist could get without going smooth jazz (to pick a really
out-of-the-way genre). This is well-crafted, and flawlessly-executed
blues in a live environment, that captures all of the emotion and raw
feel that makes the blues what it is.
