L+T: Have you encountered any crazed Sade fans? You have this guitar kind of squeaky sound, and it was also a little bit more country than what weve done, it wasnt kind of necessarily R&B. re-igniting peoples passion, internally, for the brand, and the role employees play in making sure that the brand values are presented outwardly and consistently. There are just certain things that I really love and I can understand. As an international marketer, Matthewman works with a team around the world who need to collaborate closely but also be able to work independently to produce marketing campaigns that make sense for their local market. I met a guy in a bar in New York years ago. Your email address will not be published. He went on to compose the music scores for various films;[10] with Maxwell the music for the short film To Be A Black Man (1997), and Twin Falls Idaho (1999)[11], Jackpot (2001), Northfork (2003), The Double (2005), The Astronaut Farmer (2006), Life Support (2007), The Smell Of Success (2009), Nona(2017), and short Erotic Dreams of the Chelsea Hotel (2017). Sade released their Bring Me Home Live 2011 DVD a short while ago, which was a homecoming of sorts for the band and their leader, having toured for the first time in a decade. Indeed, the world was waiting. It doesnt work when one is dictating to the other. Something will come over me and Ill suddenly realize I hadnt seen it lately. When we moved back from Nigeria, we didnt have anywhere to go, so first we lived with my grandparents, and then my mom got this job as a nurse. Ascension sold more than a million copies, and its not hard to understand its allure: Theres the gliding economy of the groove, which seems to walk on water; the reckless falsetto run from Maxwell that opens the song; the strangely sticky lyrical construction of the hook, which swings from questioning to emphatic (Shouldnt I realize/Youre the highest of high/If you dont know, then Ill say it/So dont ever wonder); the subtle tumble of drums that precedes the chorus every so often. You just try to make a record that you like, that you would buy yourself. Having a mom from Haiti and a father from Puerto Rico, being from Brooklyn and not the South, I felt like, did I deserve to be part of this tradition? Maxwell says. I wasnt really a Rod Stewart fan, but that one song. The company, IR, produces software that helps large enterprises monitor, manage and troubleshoot their critical networks and systems. Maxwell then caps the first half of Urban Hang Suite with the demo that entranced Matthewman, Til the Cops Come Knockin, which had originally been written by Hod David with a bass line that reminded the singer of Motown great James Jamerson. Some organisations focus on leads or marketing qualified leads (MQLs). This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. Thanks for this! I was so engrossed in the process of reading. Honestly, were a little bit amateur in the studio, the way we work. Success for me is defined as how fulfilled I am, he says, the work Im doing and the impact Im having in my organisation. Related Stories But it just didnt work. Then, when I was 13 I discovered a pirate radio station that played all sorts of stuff: folk, rock, soul, everything. So, the picture someone has of you is never completely true. Its great; its this guy from Germany, who I guess hes a cross-dresser. Stuart is an avid cyclist, training and racing with New York race team, RBNY Racing. Life+Times: What do you aim to do differently with your live sets each time you tour? I always see it as a compliment. A guy from the record company came in and said, Its, really beautiful, have you got drums coming in? ' Not long after, Karl Van Den Bossche, a percussionist who also worked with Sade, came through New York to do sessions with the young man behind the demo: A then-unknown Brooklyn native named Maxwell. Stuart is kind of an unsung hero and a truly incredible talent! Thank you Eric. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. So, however long it takes; sometimes the songs come really quickly, they just fall into place. The following week, Perry escorted me to Sades midtown hotel suite overlooking 6th Avenue. You cant run around and change it once its on vinyl. I was like, Its amazing, but it sounds like its already done. Stuart is an avid cyclist, and races with New York race team RBNY. When did you first became interested in music and thought it was something that you could do professionally? I also liked the heavier stuff as well, like Gil Scott-Heron. She did, however, tease us with an original song (Flowers in the Universe) contribution to Disneys A Wrinkle in Time soundtrack. You know the fans and doing such a big stage show at this time in our career and the fans being so responsive, we really didnt want to finish the tour! Its like musical recycling. I wasnt someone who had a lot of music around me when I was a child, really. Matthewman says, Its important for people to understand that the brand isnt a logo or PowerPoint template thats meant to stifle your creativity but the brand is who we are intrinsically. It was a good day. Twenty-five years after his debut, the singer-songwriter-producer and key collaborators look back on an album that proved R&B tradition could still thrive in a hip-hop world. A guy from the record company said, Its from a new artist, would you meet him? We played in Rio and the audience there, they just sang along to every song really loudly! Today, I might look after demand gen but it doesnt mean that the person looking after content, social, digital marketing dont have input. I was pretty much one of the lads, but I was an old soul even when I was a child. While other artists are content with releasing music more frequently to remain in the limelight, Matthewman says, [Sades] not interested in the fame or any of that [other] stuff. Not just people hanging out with their parents! In 2016, Stuart has kept busy back in his recording studio with several projects underway: co-writing and producing two songs on Maxwell's latest album earlier this year and composing the film score for the movie The Erotic Dreams Of The Chelsea Hotel. Chipboard we called it. Maxwell: Towards a New Definition of the Elegant Soulman. If someone tries to say, It wasnt my fault, call that out. I speak with Matthewmanabout international marketing, how he defines success and what he wishes hed learned earlier. What changes were they? Im just a girl who likes to party. I told them I would try. And this time, you know like our fans have grown with us. I just sat and waited., Some of his ambivalence about his path remained even when Urban Hang Suite finally hit stores in April 1996. Hopefully the organisation outlives all of us; but when were here, were the people that live and breathe the brand and we need to project those brand values collectively out to our people and the rest of the world., The new brand is easier to use but, more importantly, employees believe in it. Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. At that time, not many girls bought records; they were just listening to the same records as their boyfriends. Stuart: Well we absolutely loved doing the tour. We wanted to make sure that we really covered songs that weren't expected as well for us to do. I wanted the cover to not be my face, Maxwell says. Maxwell collaborated for the first time with guitarist Hod David, who co-wrote three songs and has worked with the singer ever since. I think people do think of me as this depressed person crying in my ivory tower. In the early Nineties, a young Maxwell was enraptured by Marvin Gaye, Prince, Graham Central Station, and the warmth of studios with Neve mixing consoles, but he wasnt sure he wanted to be a singer. In 1996 Matthewman along with Andrew Hale and Paul Spencer Denman formed the studio band Sweetback. L+T: When you finished recording By Your Side, did you have any idea that it was going to be so gigantic? I would have asked JAY Z to rap on Soldier Of Love in 2010. Recently, Stuart teamed up with singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Vanessa Bley, daughter of Jazz legend Paul Bley, to form the band,Twin Danger, resultingina unique sound described as "The love child of heroin jazz and seductive darkness. But there is, perhaps, one last surprise that Matthewman left with me: the lesson he wishes hed learned earlier. Whatever book I was reading, that would become my entire life. So I think that its like oh wow! to the younger people who maybe didnt know about Sade are discovering her, which is great. The record label found the idea of starting an album in this way baffling. I was like, Thats the point it starts with an instrumental and ends with a slow version of the same instrumental. We have no rules in the studio so anyone is, you know, always open to try anything. In 1995, percussionist Karl Vanden Bossche introduced Matthewman to then unknown singer Maxwell. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. In the early 1990s, Stuart Matthewman, the writer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist known for his work in Sade, heard a remarkable demo: a ballad that stretched out over nearly seven. We had the rises so the band could come up and down on, which meant that we could leave Sade completely on her own on an empty stage with no equipment, no drums, no amplifications, no monitors, anything to sing songs like Pearls or Morning Bird. So very early on when we were thinking of the idea of the tour, we wanted to be able to make it a little bit more theatrical, but as in the sets and using screens and curtains and the lighting. Yeah, I think so, but thats only because they see one level. Their work featured instrumental songs and songs with guest vocalists. Its hardly surprising that Matthewman was instrumental in setting up the first IR webinars that attracted 400 to 500 delegates: webinars that were so successful that Microsoft asked to join and co-present with IR. Stuart has. We wanted to make sure that we really covered songs that werent expected as well for us to do. One in particular was Like a Tattoo. That song is about a man who has been in Vietnam, but its not really about Vietnam. Solo transcription.Transcription sheet you will find on http://solojunkie.wix.com/solojunkie L+T: What still keeps you so passionate about making music? But, rather than putting a flash new design out there, Matthewmans brand refresh has taken the form of spending a lot of time with people in his organisation talking about what the IR brand means to them. I know I dont get angry with anyone except myself, really. Sade: I dont want to be a one trick pony. Their self-titled album was released on Decca/Universal in 2015. Were a lot of things, but when youre singing, when youre presenting yourself, you dont give everything away. Stuart Matthewman started marketing in the mid-90s and actually changed careers half way. As beautifully sweet as she was wickedly talented, Sade was the anti-diva Diva. In the years since Urban Hang Suite was released, its frequently been name-checked, along with DAngelos Brown Sugar (1995) and Erykah Badus Baduizm (1997), as a foundational album for the neo-soul movement. His influences include Jr. Walker, King Curtis, Art Pepper, Gato Barbieri, Ernie Isley, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Wah Wah Watson, Issac Hayes, Bill Withers, Lee Perry, and Gustav Mahler. I speak with Matthewman, Introducing flexibility from people on how they use the brand. Stuart has been with Sade since before they were signed - playing guitar, playing sax and co-writing many of the biggest hits in their 50+ million album selling career. The second half of Urban Hang Suite is more subdued, a series of Quiet Storm ballads. I listened to Drakes Take Care and Alison Krauss Forget About It. She is best known as front woman for haze-pop band Beast Patrol, noted "Band to Watch" by Rolling Stone, and the band Twin Danger, described by Jazziz magazine as "the brainchild of vocalist-pianist-guitarist Vanessa Bley and saxophonist-guitarist Stuart Mathewman, is . (Ive experienced that before with Sade when theyre scared of putting things out, Matthewman says sympathetically. Yeahyeah. I do think you should think about the fans but hopefully our fans will grow with us. From the first day we moved into the house, I was making friends; no one ever brought up my color. Maxwell enlisted other pros with enviable track records as well: David Gamson, a former member of Scritti Politti who had also produced for Chaka Khan and Sheila E.; Mike Pela, who produced and engineered for Sade and Fine Young Cannibals; and Itaal Shur, who would go on to mint money by co-writing Santanas gargantuan hit Smooth., The first half of Urban Hang Suite is springy and suave. Sad, happy, makes you want to dance, makes you feel elated. But we pretty much approached the album in the way that we always do. In 2014 Twin Danger signed to Decca Classics/Universal records and released[7] their eponymously titled album in spring 2015. We know what to expect from each other and how to deal with each other as well. We all had so much fun. Born August 18, 1960, in Hull, North Yorkshire, England, Matthewman started playing clarinet as a child. Mission Statement and Core Values; Wisdom Council; Calendar of Events; Programs. Or, slightly later, when I was 14 or 15 I started listening to Billie Holiday and Miles Davis; Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain. L+T: Who are some artists you are interested in these days? They sat on the first album for a long time before they put it out in America.) I was in a studio apartment with one window that faced a brick wall, Maxwell remembers. Its not that the song makes you feel sad, the sadness is already there. L+T: Over the years with creating this Sade sound, what have you done from a production standpoint to kind of tweak the music as you continue with the times? Along with her constant mates Stuart Matthewman (guitars and sax), Andrew Hale (keyboards) and Paul S. Denman (bass), this would be the groups first album since 1988s Stronger Than Pride. It was an Irish bar on 14th Street. And obviously over the years our tastes have grown and we just try different things. When were happy, then well let everyone else hear it., Like his comment in a previous interview with Rated R&B, It might sound funny but we write and do music to please ourselves and just hope that [we] have good taste and other people will like it.. So I mean yeah we have such a cross-section of people out there. I would think after all these years, you guys must have a pretty tight relationship. At IR, our corporate campaigns are developed here on a global level but we rely heavily on our colleagues in the regions to run those programs. Sade's longtime collaborator and famed British musician Stuart Matthewman who is an original member of the band exclusively tells Rated R&B, "We're working on a new album." Matthewman says Sade and their creative team currently have "a bunch of songs," that eager fans will hear once they're satisfied with the final product. That and we all listen to a lot of music. Although Im proud of them, it was the most that we could do at that time; at that moment in time, we did our best. While Urban Hang Suite is dashing and assured, its creator was profoundly ambivalent about his place in the music industry at the time. So whether thats the Promise album that was maybe more, a little bit more jazz-tinged. Now I collect books, but I never have time to read them. Flanked by Sweetback, Sade has crafted a sound that not only withstood the test of time, but arrived better with each return. We also learn about the next Sweet \u0026 Lynch album and hear stories behind some of the songs on the new Stryper record, Fallen.For more on Stuart, visit:http://www.sade.comhttp://www.twindanger.comFor more Pods \u0026 Sods, visit:http://www.facebook.com/podssodshttp://podsodcast.blogspot.com Other and how to deal with each return a record that you like, that would my... 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