{Tomorrow Night (Thursday July 10th) Miles Tackett is having his record release party over at the Bootleg Bar, performing with his backing band “The Three Times” along with Mexico 68, Luther Russell and yours truly spinning some tunes throughout the night!!!}
“Music Man” Miles is perhaps best known as the driving force behind the mighty Breakestra. He’s also well known around these parts for two legendary nights, Root Down (currently on hiatus, though occasionally getting together as the Root Down Sound System) and Funky Sole (still growing strong every Saturday at the Echo). Recently he debuted a new project, Miles Tackett & the 3 Times, releasing music under his own name for the first time in a long long time via the just released album The Fool Who Wonders. For fans of his other projects, the tunes on this album may be a bit of a surprise. First off, while Miles handles a lot of the instruments on the recording, his work on guitar is featured most prominently. There are some definite nods to Hendrix, but Miles’ style is maybe a bit more akin to Stevie Ray Vaughan in his more Hendrix inspired moments, though it really doesn’t sound like either man explicitly (that makes more sense sonically than it might on paper, as you can hear on “Everything” above, or “One More Time” on the album). It’s not a straight funk sound as some might expect given Breakestra’s history, instead it’s more of a soulful rockin’ style that also has roots in his Laurel Canyon upbringing. The other surprise is Miles’ singing voice, something that I don’t think I’d heard until he started performing this solo material. There’s a real tenderness that comes out of his singing, particularly because of the phrasing where many of the ends of his words hang around, that reminds me a bit of Buddy Miles’ early work, while again retaining a sound all its own. It’s something that you hear on the mellower tracks like “Come Away,” “Paradise” or the cover of “Everybody’s Been Burned,” but you still hear it even when the band kicks it up a notch, as they do on “Everything.” That ability to seamlessly mix together a variety of different elements is one of the strengths of his previous work as a DJ and with Breakestra, and it’s something that is just as welcome here as Miles emerges with his a sound all his own.
As a bonus, here’s the video for the first single from the album, “Just What I Need”: