Hello My Name Is G . E . & LeRoy
Coronavirus
( COVID-19 )
Update
For the safety of our community and its people , Impact Fuel Room will be closed and all shows rescheduled and postponed for the time being .
We are grateful for many of our customers who have purchased tickets to these shows , and we will be reaching out with updates as we learn more .
Check www . impactfuelroom . com for updates . Thank you for your patience , stay tuned and stay safe !
G . E . SMITH AND LEROY BELL
Timing , they say , is everything . There ’ s no possible way that legendary Long Islandbased musicologist and guitar slinger G . E . Smith could have predicted meeting
Washington state-reared , soul stylist LeRoy Bell roughly a year ago , or that they would hit it off so well that they would enter the studio to launch a new duo only two days after that first smooth summit . But now , the team-up seems not only prescient but written in the stars , as their new Stony Hill debut disc spins off its latest single this week , the starkly political “ Take Cover ,” with its metaphor-laden , eagle-vs .-snake video by filmmaker Ehud Lazin . The cut was penned by Smith ’ s wife of 30 years , Taylor Barton , who first heard Bell — a former X-Factor finalist from 2011 who has also written for artists like Elton John , Jennifer Lopez , and Teddy Pendergrass — online . She was so impressed with his singing voice she recruited him for her “ G . E . Smith ’ s Portraits ” series of concerts she was producing
10 • 2020 at Guild Hall . And her husband — whom she ’ d met when he was anchoring the house band at Saturday Night Live ( which earned him an Emmy ) — was more than open to any potential recording possibilities . “ Taylor just cold-called him , and he came out to our house , and we hit it off real well ,” recalls Smith , who — having backed stars such as David Bowie , Mick Jagger , Bob Dylan , Tina Turner , and Hall and Oates over his career — knew how to spot a great vocalist . “ He had just written the ( protest song ) “ America ,” and we got along so well in the studio that it then transpired that everything we did has dovetailed into what ’ s going on in the world right now .”
Echoing the racial harmony once suggested by the Paul McCartney / Stevie Wonder duet “ Ebony and Ivory ,” this one-two combo of African-American Bell and Lebanese-American Smith is a perfect sonic example of the power music has to unite all cultures , creeds , and races in this touchy , post-pandemic Black Lives Matter era . “‘ Ebony and Ivory ”! I forgot about that !” laughs Bell . “ But racial lines never meant anything to me , as far as music . I ’ ve played everything from country to hard rock , R & B , and blues — music is music , and I never want to be categorized and stuck in one slot .”
IE : G . E ., Hal Willner , an old cohort of yours , just passed away . G . E . SMITH : Isn ’ t that sad ? And I know a lot of American music , from the Civil War on . And I thought I was the king of that , but Hal knew more than anybody — he had the greatest record collection that I ’ ve ever seen , and he could instantly call it to mind . And that ’ s just what he did with the music he played — if you needed music from a specific period , he could instantly come up with three examples from the right era .
6 illinoisentertainer . com octobber 2020