me & the Originator

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Me & the Originator is Al Basile fifteenth release on Sweetspot in 20 years, and while he has reliably produced new songs every year, this version is different. It's a concept album which tells a story through a hybrid of narration and songs – a story about an imaginary musician who has a career which harbors a dark secret – he didn't write the words to his songs, only the music. He didn't know the author to give due credit, so he lied and claimed to have written them himself. The success which followed left him feeling guilty, but he did manage to find something in each lyric which spoke to an experience in his own life. That gave him some feeling of ownership. This CD asks the questions “who makes the song?” and “Who can can call a song their own?” – another way of thinking about the history of blues as it has passed down to us latter day interpreters.