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18 Tracks, 27 Years, One Release

Mon, 08/22/2022 - 15:26
Andy Aledort will perform and be interviewed at LTV Studios next Thursday.
Alison Hasbach

The guitarist Andy Aledort, a regular performer at music venues here, will return next Thursday for a special show at LTV Studios in Wainscott. With his band, the Groove Kings, Mr. Aledort will celebrate the release of "Light of Love," an 18-track double album of songs, with a 7:30 p.m. performance.

Harry Wareing of WEHM will interview Mr. Aledort, followed by the concert. 

For a decade, Mr. Aledort was a member of Great Southern, the band led by Dickey Betts, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band. A senior editor of Guitar World magazine, he has written more than 200 books of guitar transcriptions and a series of instructional books and videos. His book "Jimi Hendrix Signature Licks: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of His Guitar Styles and Techniques" led to recordings and performances with Double Trouble, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan's rhythm section. That experience led him to perform and record with Billy Cox, Mitch Mitchell, and Buddy Miles, all members of Hendrix's bands. 

He is also a co-author of "Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan," which The Star called "a colorful and lively biography of a complicated, obsessed, spiritual, and immensely talented musician." 

Mr. Aledort is himself immensely talented. "Light of Love," recorded over a 27-year span and all but one of its tracks an original composition, delves into various genres and textures, but the guitarist's otherworldly skills are a constant. It is clear that Hendrix is a primary influence, and he channels the legendary guitarist and composer's instrumental ferocity and emotion on tracks like "Have Mercy on Me," recorded with Double Trouble in Austin, Tex. The explosiveness is sometimes matched by an equal measure of tenderness, as on "Wonder." He is uncannily Beatle-esque on "Buried Summerville" (more on that later), and intensely soulful on "Save Something for Me." 

As of last week, the album had been streamed around 320,000 times on Spotify, "and the number-one most streamed song is 'Save Something for Me,' " said Mr. Aledort, who lives in Sea Cliff and whose family has a house in East Hampton. The guitarist Joe Satriani, "someone I've known forever, bought the record. He texted me and said, 'Call me crazy, but my favorite song on the whole album is "Save Something for Me." ' Andy Timmons, another 'shredder' type -- guys known for that angle of playing many, many notes -- said the same thing."

"I don't know what it is about that song," Mr. Aledort said of "Save Something for Me" during a long conversation that touched on the artistry of Roy Orbison, Hendrix, the Beatles, the Righteous Brothers, Johnny Winter, the Black Crowes, and many others. "I don't even know what that phrase necessarily means. I think it means 'don't forget about me.' People can relate to that."

For Mr. Aledort, who previously released the albums "Live at the North Star 2009" and "Put a Sock in It," the title track of "Light of Love" is another standout. It concludes with two simultaneous slide guitar solos. Each sings its own melody, but "there are moments when they intersect and harmonize, and drift apart," he observed. "I was trying to emulate two people's lives, traveling, then coming together and traveling in concert, if you will. They're in harmony, and then they might break off again. That was my attempt to, in a musical way, represent what happens in a relationship between two people."

Paul McCartney has said that he awoke, one morning in 1965, with the melody of "Yesterday" in his head. Around 30 years later, Mr. Aledort dreamed that he heard Mr. McCartney, who owns a house in Amagansett, playing piano and singing the chorus of "Buried Summerville" on the radio. "It was very clear, the lyrics and everything, and I came right downstairs and was able to play it," he recalled. "Sometimes it evaporates, but that's exactly what he was playing and singing. I wrote the rest of the song around that one little thing from the dream." 

For the bridge, he turned to another Beatles-influenced group. "I wanted the bridge to sound like Squeeze, so I listened to five Squeeze songs, and then wrote the bridge." 

Mr. Aledort and Michael Clark, LTV's executive director, are longtime friends; the musician both performed and led workshops at Mr. Clark's Crossroads Music shop when it was at Amagansett Square. "We are really excited to have a person of his talent and caliber coming into LTV," Mr. Clark said last week. "We're even more excited about the fact that he's finally taking all of the work that he's done for so many years and sharing it in one place with the public."

In addition to streaming platforms, "Light of Love" is available in compact disc format at andyaledort.com. Tickets for the release party are available at ltveh.org for $25, $30, or $35.

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