Bobby Whitlock & CoCo Carmel

Music:

Member Since: 6/11/2006
Band Members:
Sunday nights at The Saxon 10p.m. * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sounds Like:
Lovers (the Cd) can be purchased on ITunes , Amazon and CD Baby:

~ Reviews and Articles ~:

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We would like to thank all the writers that have been so kind , some of whose articles appear here . All that you do makes a difference in our lives and helps us to continue on in a most positive way . CoCo and Bobby
::Soundwaves Magazine
Review by Mark T. Gould ::
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Bobby Whitlock & CoCo Carmel “Lovers”If you thought Bobby Whitlock had soul in the halcyon days of the mega-classic album “Layla,” when he played the “yin” to Eric Clapton and Duane Allman’s twin guitar “yang” to complete their music’s essence and depth, just listen to this terrific new release, and it’s vitally obvious that the multi-talented songwriter, player and performer is just as strong and essential, vocally and musically, as he’s ever been.Ironically, just as he was in those early days, Whitlock’s got his own similarly talented, secret weapon, just as he was for “Slowhand” and “Skydog,” and, judging by the sound of “Lovers,” it remains crucial to his latest sound. That’s the voice, arrangements and playing (sax, bass and flutes) of the amazing Coco Carmel, who, like on the duo’s last release, “Other Assorted Love Songs,” provides the perfect addition to the mix. In their much more than capable hands, this makes “Lovers” an exquisite duet, recalling so many of the classic sounds that are so sadly gone missing in today’s contemporary music.Roaring out of the gate like a latter day Delaney & Bonnie (with whom Whitlock also played), sprinkled with a dash of Ike & Tina, the soulful and soul-laden Whitlock and Carmel have constructed another gem of a record, perhaps even more rocky and rootsier than “Assorted Love Songs,” which was great on its own.Here, just listen to the title track, “Dice of God,” ‘Power of Love,” “You Don’t Know,” and just about all the others to hear a hint of the best of American soul music, with more than a dash of the great rock ‘n’ roll spirit and voice that Whitlock brought as the absolute cutting edge of the ill-fated Derek & The Dominos, all augmented by Carmel’s steady and skillful flourishes to the mix. The album even concludes with a great nod to the past, with a slowed down, soulful duet remake of “Layla,” similar to some of the reworked classics the duo put into their last release.Add to that a stellar musical cast, that, in addition to the multi-faceted Carmel, includes guitarists Stephen Bruton, Eric Johnson and David Grissom, along with a guest turn on two tracks by the likewise incomparable Willie Nelson, and, man, does this record literally drip with talent.You say that you’re missing authentic rock and soul music? Put an order in for “Lovers,” and remember just how perfect, in the right hands, this music can sound.

- Mark T. Gould * * * * 1/2

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April 17 2008 Rolling Stone :: Fricke's
Picks ::Rolling Stone
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Fricke’s Picks: Bobby Whitlock & CoCo Carmel "Lovers"
4/11/08

On my last night at this year’s SXSW, I was a guest at a very private party —
a surprise sixtieth-birthday bash for Bobby Whitlock, who was, for a time, at
the center of everything as a vocal-keyboards sidekick with Eric Clapton in
Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass
and as the Memphis-soul factor in Derek and the Dominos. By the end of that
party, Whitlock, now living in Austin, was handing out presents at a piano,
singing the Dominos’ “Bell Bottom Blues” and playing the famous
instrumental coda to “Layla.” Whitlock and his wife, singer-saxophonist CoCo
Carmel, close their fine new record, Lovers (Monney Productions), with a
version of “Layla” that is part slow dance, part rave-up. But it is the
combined heat of Whitlock’s rugged white-Dixie-R&B howl and Carmel’s
gospel-siren vocals in new songs such as “Best Days of Our Lives” and “Ain’t
No Other Baby” that take you right back to 1970, minus the nostalgia.

David Fricke

MARCH 14, 2008

MUSIC

SXSW Platters

Saturday

BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

Bobby Whitlock & CoCo Carmel

Lovers

Thirty something years ago, Texan Boz Scaggs invented adult contemporary
radio by moving millions of Silk Degrees. Bobby Whitlock and wife CoCo
Carmel’s studio debut, Lovers, transforms silken Left Coast murmurs of the
heart into gritty Southwestern declarations of ardor. Her tart saxophone and
his thick, rich, deep grain delivery pledge the title track, singers entwined at
the chorus never to unclinch. Equally hewn comes ”Dice of God,” seven-
minute heavyweight rumble between Whitlock’s preacher command and
God’s own truth. Austin axe brigade Stephen Bruton, David Grissom, and Eric
Johnson carve up both sides. If 18 strings weren’t plenty, Willie Nelson’s
guitar work on Carmel’s ”True Love,” flushed and fluttering with its writer’s
vocal, courts divinity. The album’s centerpiece, ”Best Days of Our Lives,”
plays out as epic at the 1946 Best Picture of the same title, inflamed by
Whitlock’s Hammond organ, Carmel’s gritty harmonies, and its down-and-
dirty, three-guitar weave. ”Dear Veronica,” begun by Eric Clapton and
Whitlock in the aborted sessions for Derek & the Dominos’ never completed
second album, lands Willie again to stylize Veronica Lake’s cinematic allure
into sonic sepia tones. That would close most LPs, but Lovers ends with
Whitlock tearing out a piece of his heart to match his past, ”Layla” slowed
and saxed, built from comfort not for speed, and attacked with gusto by its
guitarists forgoing the song’s majority coda for fireworks its original guitarist
has favored for decades. Clapton never reworked a love like this. (Saturday,
March 15, Cedar Door, 8pm.)

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March

During the Austin Film Festival

Saturday March 8th Saxon Pub

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:::Spotlight:::

BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

Out steps the host of the The Johnny Cash Show, barrel-chested in a blue
tuxedo shirt and black velvet vest. ”If you detect some country blues pickin’
in this song you’re about to hear, you’re right,” announces Cash. ”Played by
one of the finest musical groups in the world, welcome Bobby Whitlock, Jim
Gordon, Carl Radle, and Eric Clapton – Derek & the Dominos!” Up cues
track 12 on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, ”It’s Too Late,” Whitlock
yowling ferocious harmonies at the piano. His close-up confirms who
possessed the quartet’s best voice, it soon becoming clear what isn’t always
on the LP: The Dominoes sported two vocalists, only one of them blessed
with a total soul exhale. ”When he introduced us at first, he said, ’Ladies and
gentleman, from London, England, Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock... Derek &
the Dominos!’” recalls Whitlock from his home in Austin. ”We’re getting ready
to start, and I went: ’Wait a minute! I’m not from England, and neither is he,
and neither is he.’ I said, ’My family’s in the front row. I’m from Memphis,
Tennessee!’” And Johnny Cash started laughing.” In fact, Radle and Gordon,
one dead and the other long imprisoned for killing his mother with a hammer
and knife, were both from Oklahoma. Honorary fifth Domino, Duane Allman,
another Southern epitaph. Whitlock’s one of the last Dominos standing, only
now he’s got a new vocal counterpoint, wife CoCo Carmel. Once married to
Whitlock’s former employer Delaney Bramlett, the multi-instrumentalist and
Whitlock moved to Austin in winter 2006 from Nashville. Their debut studio
recording, Lovers, came out Valentine’s Day and closes with a
new ”Layla.” “After ’It’s Too Late,’ Johnny and Carl Perkins came up, and we
did ’Matchbox’ and ’Blue Suede Shoes.’ After that was over, they let all the
country folk out, and there was people lined two deep, twice around the
block, at the Ryman Auditorium. They let all the rockers in, and [the
Dominos] rocked that joint for about two hours.” With guitarists Stephen
Bruton, David Grissom, and hopefully Eric Johnson backing Whitlock and
Carmel live, expect the South to rise again.

:::Friday March 14th:::

KGSR review by David Menconi of the New Observer

Saturday, March 15, 2008SXSW 2008: Day Three Every year, I come to
South by Southwest with a three-part mission. The first two goals are simple
enough: Check in on how our North Carolina folks do, and check out the
latest trendy acts (since SXSW is basically Mardi Gras for young hipsters
nowadays, part two is easily done). But the third part is more nebulous and
even, dare I say it, spiritual -- to try and reconnect with why I do what I do.
Covering music for a daily newspaper, you inevitably find yourself writing
about topics you might find less than engaging. I’m not complaining because
it comes with the territory; I’m just pointing out that when you’re up to your
ears in deadlines and details, it can be difficult to remember the joy and the
passion and the rockin’ out that made this job appealing in the first place. So
every March brings me to Texas in search of reminders, which always seem
to turn up. Sometimes it’s a new discovery, but just as often it’s a
rediscovery. This year’s rediscovery was Bobby Whitlock, who I saw play
Friday afternoon at Austin radio station KGSR. Even if you’ve never heard of
Whitlock, I can guarantee you’ve heard him play because he did the piano
outro on ”Layla.” What you might not know is that Whitlock is a brilliant
Memphis soul cat in his own right, and a hilarious raconteur. Nowadays he
leads a killer band with his singer/saxophonist wife CoCo Carmel, featuring
the guitar tandem of David Grissom and Stephen Bruton. And it’s just about
the best thing you’ve ever heard, like a ’70s classic-rock version of the
devotional duets that Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell used to do.

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::: Saturday March 15th :::

Cedar Door

Wall Street Journal

Review by Jim Fusilli

“I succumbed to nostalgia twice, seeing Mr. Morrison on opening night and
Bobby Whitlock near the festival’s end. Mr.Morrison has a new album, ”Keep
It Simple” (Lost Highway), coming out next month, and those who have
heard him in recent years will find no surprises in his recent work. Sung with
crusty ease, it’s competent but uninspired jazz sways between jump blues
and country swing. But a legend is a legend, perhaps more so to those who
know what it takes to become one: The day after Mr. Morrison’s live set,
several musicians asked me the same question: ”Did you see Van?”
Mr.Whitlock and his band played in one of the myriad tents in parking lots
and on rooftops. An Austin native, he’s been absent from the international
music scene for decades. In the 70’s,he was a member of Derek & the
Dominoes, playing keyboards alongside Eric Clapton and Duane Allman on
its ”Layla and Assorted Love Songs.” He performed a blistering 40-minute
set that included a new reading of the song ”Layla” as it appears on ”Lovers”
(Monney), a new album he recorded with his wife CoCo Carmel.” I turn 60
on the 18th,” he told me before the show,” and I think my voice is stronger
than ever.” It might very well be.

Bobby Whitlock: Lead Vocals / Hammond B-3 / Bosendorfer Grand::/ Slide guitar

CoCo Carmel: Lead Vocal/Bass/Saxophone/Bkrd Vocals/Flute/Strings

Willie Nelson: Lead Guitar on ”Dear Veronica” and ”True Love”

David Grissom: Lead Guitar

Eric Johnson: Lead Guitar

Stephen Bruton: Lead Guitar/ Slide Guitar/Rhythm Guitar

Brannen Temple: Drums

James Fenner: Percussion

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First in the studio was Willie, the first thing he said
was ”What are we doing?” Bobby, ever the gentleman spoke up ”True Love”,
Willie stood there listening , turned and asked ”What’s the
history?”
Quickly Bobby broke in... ”I went to the store, came back and CoCo had written this
song”. Willie smiled , went off to his corner in the studio and started
picking around. About two minutes into it, we started rolling. We all faded
into the background and this beautiful Spanish guitar took us all into Willie’s
World. Dear Veronica was a favorite among Willie's four old friends /
visiting. The song prompted fond memories of the onetime moviestar . After
playing Willie was rocked back in the control booth, and said "That’s a fine
song”, beautiful song."

Brannen came in next , transforming the tracks one by one and now we were ready for the guitars.

It seemed for a while that having the three guys all at the same time would
never be, but the day arrived and miraculously they all showed up. So we
naturally started with Layla because we thought we would lose them
throughout the day. After one run through they played the entire track, which
is the take we used on the record. We took two more just for the sake of it,
but number one was the one. We then proceeded to go through the entire record.

Bobby overdubbed Hammond B-3 and that beautiful
Bosendorfer Grand piano. Stephen Bruton played on all but one song (True Love) longest. We gave him
a funky little amp that had not worked since the day we bought it , he plugged that thing and it was fine. That
incredible slide work and sound on” Dice of God” is Stephen playing through
that little funky amp.

Last but not least was James Fenner...who provided a solid
percussion texture that has become distinctive to the sound of the
record.

During this whole process we had Steve Chadie (Engineer extraordinaire)
who fortunately has worked with Willie for years, he also engineered Los
Lonely Boys and works side by side with Andy Johns. Steve has a great ear,
and his drum sound is the best. He was vital in the process and we had
worked it out that on mixing days Bobby and Steve would set up the sound,
mix as much as possible and then CoCo would come in last with fresh ears and
tweak each track. It couldn’t have worked more perfectly and we were able to mix the entire record in about 15 days.

Quotes

Chuck Leavell (The Rolling Stones) says: ”Bobby and Coco are the REAL
DEAL. With the release of ”Lovers”, they have proved yet again that they are
not only in the groove, but they ARE the groove!

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Roger Cook (Songwriter of ”I’d like to teach the World to Sing”, ” Long Cool
Woman in a Black Dress” “I Believe in You”) says ”Bobby and CoCo’s work
can best be described as a passion. A passion for each other, a passion for
the music, and a passion for Life that is reflected in this wonderful collection.
I’m proud to be a small part of it”

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