Music Review: Cory Brown’s “Days In A Life” is acoustic, soulful, and takes us on a journey

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By Jim Fusco:

Cory Brown is a songwriter with quite the pedigree.  Growing up in California (my personal favorite breeding ground for musicians), he had his father Barry (of the 70s band Morning) to look up to while he learned to play guitar and write songs.  Clearly, he picked something up from the genre of music that his father helped pioneer: the melodic tunes and soft-rock style is in great form on Cory’s 2012 debut album, “Days In A Life”.  But, Cory’s music still sounds fresh and relevant today.  His songwriting ability and style will fit well on any contemporary rock station.

This may be the debut album for Cory Brown as a solo artist, but he’s garnered some success already in his young career with a band called 7th Direction.  Clearly, Cory’s first solo album allowed him to express himself more- the songs on “Days In A Life” are introspective and poignant.  They’re the kind of songs that would only sound right on a solo record.  It’s kind of like Brian Wilson when he made “Pet Sounds”- even members of the Beach Boys have said that “Pet Sounds” was essentially a Brian Wilson solo record.  And they were correct- with the raw emotion and personal tales of longing, as in “Days In A Life”, it’s work that comes from the heart of only one person.

My favorite track on the album is “Her Eyes”.  The guitar hook and the well-crafted unique harmonies on the chorus really make this a stand-out track.  The track features just the right amount of that Crosby, Stills, and Nash semi-country-rock feel with the great guitar soloing throughout.  The track just begs for multiple listens.  I have a feeling I’ll be listening to “Her Eyes” for quite a while.

One theme I noticed throughout the whole album is the theme of traveling.  In many tracks, from “Wingman”, “Grass on the Highway”, and “Lacy Ann”, Cory weaves in visions of traveling.  He talks about driving across the country and even living life on “overdrive”.  He asks various people not to leave him and travel away, but also talks about the youthful need to run away.  As a songwriter myself who has gone through those same emotions early in life, I can definitely relate.  And, with Cory’s God-given talents, his songs and subject matter will only get more complex and interesting as time goes on.

Cory Brown’s music, tour dates, and bio can all be found on his website at http://corybrownmusic.com.  And, make sure to go get “Days In A Life” on iTunes right now by clicking here!

The BEST “SHOULD’VE BEEN THE SINGLE”’s of 2011 (The Year-End Review Awards)

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By Chris Moore:

Every year, a significant percentage of music listeners base their playlists and knowledge of music on the tracks chosen as singles.  The obvious drawback here is that these tracks are chosen based on the likelihood they will be radio hits.  In short, the songs that fit the formula prescribed by the labels will be chosen, and the other – oftentimes superior – songs are left unnoticed.

Now, I understand why this is the process; I really do.  Those who like albums are left to take our chances on the LPs.  However, even in choosing the singles, the powers-that-be often surprise me.  The following three tracks are the songs that I feel should have been the singles for their respective albums instead of the ones that were actually chosen.  I’ve listed out the songs that were chosen as singles, and you’ll find that, in a couple cases, there are three songs that have been chosen over the song I feel is most single-worthy.  As a final note, Colbie Caillat recently released “Brighter Than the Sun” as the second single from All of You, which leads me to believe that I’m not completely off base in my opinions.

1)  “Hurts Like Heaven” – Coldplay (over ‘Every Teardrop is a Waterfall,” “Paradise,” and “Charlie Brown”)

2)  “Fire Fly” – Childish Gambino (over “Bonfire,” “Heartbeat,” and “All the Shine”)

3)  “Brighter Than the Sun” – Colbie Caillat (over “I Do”)

“New Horizons” (Moody Blues Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your fantastic Friday edition of The Laptop Sessions. Today I delve into a new band for me, but Jim has covered this band before. Of course i’m talking about the Moodies themselves.

I bring you a song from The Moody Blues’ album “Seventh Sojourn” called “New Horizons”. Jim introduced me to this song on a past radio show, and I have enjoyed it since. There is no Moody Blues song that I have heard that I didn’t like. I really should purchase some of their albums.

I’m very happy with how this video came out. You may notice I am using a capo. The song is in F and I usually have no problem whatsoever playing a song in F without a capo, but this song does require some barre chords to play. My arm was in a bit of pain today because I took a baseball off my shoulder in a game I umpired today. Barre chords tend to hurt my hand and forearm if I play them for a long time. I can get through a song fine, but today not so much. So I capo’d the song on the 5th fret, and played it using a C transposition. Worked for me, hopefully it’ll work for you.

A new band is coming to the sessions on Monday. Remember to check back every day for a new session, as a single laptop session a day rolls on through 2008!

Come back tomorrow for Jim’s latest and greatest session!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“Choose Your Words (Carefully)” (Original song by Jim Fusco) – The Open Mic Sessions

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, everyone, to the first installment of the Open Mic Sessions, where I’ll bring you my performances of my original songs from various open mic nights.  The video will be a bit choppy, the sound won’t be perfect, and there usually aren’t too many people in the crowd, but it’s been a lot of fun for me to do these, so I wanted to share my original song performances with the world!

Today’s video is of my song, “Choose Your Words (Carefully)” from my 2012 album, “Those Around Us”.  I think I’ve received a great response to this song every time I play it live.  People either relate to the words…or just find the chorus catchy. 🙂  Either way, it’s been one of my favorites to play and is always the standby song for when someone says, “Play one more!”

This video was taken by my brother Mike at Sam Ash music store in New Haven, CT on April 3rd, 2013.  As you can probably tell, there wasn’t much of a crowd…but the staff sure seemed to like it!  Sometimes, even if there isn’t a big audience, it’s still cool to hear your original song amplified like that.  There’s something empowering about that.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s video and stay tuned each week for more videos from the Open Mic Sessions!