Philipp Fankhauser - I'll Be Around

The new album certainly makes a worthy milestone. Fankhauser comes across as mature, self-confident, and at ease with himself. The music is new, but draws on plenty of influences from the past. I'll Be Around is a blues album but also a soul album. It is retro, but at the same time very contemporary. It is authentic and cohesive. It is a tribute to good, old-fashioned craftsmanship, and to Fankhauser's vastly talented band, who recorded the music live in the studio. Most of the 15 songs on the album are first takes. Even my vocals! says Fankhauser, not without a hint of pride. We didn't tinker around, we didn't keep refining everything � we just played the music. We've never before had so many good songs for an album. They just worked. My band gave each song a life of its own. The six-piece wind section led by Tom Bones Malone and the three female singers from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, are the real icing on the cake of I'll Be Around. The album was produced by Wolf Stephenson and was recorded in famous Malaco Studios in Jackson.