Steven Soles is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and guitarist. [1]
Known also as J. Steven Soles, he was asked by Bob Dylan to join the band for his 1975–1976 "Rolling Thunder Revue" tour, he appeared on Dylan's album "Desire" and he also played with Dylan on Street Legal and the following tour, including the live album Bob Dylan at Budokan . When that tour ended, Soles and two other members of Dylan's band, T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield, formed The Alpha Band.
Like most of the musicians in The Rolling Thunder Revue, Soles appeared in the 1978 film, Renaldo and Clara , in which he played the rôle of Ramon.
During its time, The Alpha Band released three albums, The Alpha Band in 1977, Spark in the Dark in the same year and The Statue Makers of Hollywood in 1978.
After its breakup, T Bone Burnett went on to a distinguished production career, working with artists such as Roy Orbison, Lisa Marie Presley, John Mellencamp, Counting Crows, Elton John, Elvis Costello and k.d. lang. He won two Grammy Awards and an Academy Award.
Steven Soles released two solo albums of original material, The Promise in 1980, and 1982's Walk By Love. Allmusic gave the first an album rating of three stars and the second four stars, commenting of Walk By Love that, "more commercial than The Promise, this second solo album features catchier songs and fuller pop arrangements." [2] Allmusic pointed out that the albums had both been critically acclaimed, "if little heard". [3]
Soles went on to produce or perform on albums by Dylan, Burnett, The Washington Squares, Bob Neuwirth, Steve Poltz, Peter Case, Elvis Costello, Roger McGuinn, Don McLean, The Monkees, The 77s, Olivia Newton-John, Roy Orbison, Tonio K, Victoria Williams, Steve Scott and others.
He was part of the highly acclaimed Cinemax special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night . As J. Steven Soles, he is credited as "Music Supervisor" in the movie Space Truckers (Stuart Gordon, 1996).
Soles was married to actress P. J. Soles from 1973 to 1975.
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist known for his distinctive and powerful voice, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. Orbison's music is mostly in the rock genre and his most successful periods were in the early 1960s and the late 1980s. He was nicknamed "The Caruso of Rock" and "The Big O". Many of Orbison's songs conveyed vulnerability at a time when most male rock-and-roll performers projected machismo. He performed with minimal motion and in black clothes, matching his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses.
The Alpha Band was an American rock band, formed in July 1976 from the remnants of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue.
David Mansfield is an American musician and composer.
David Kent Hidalgo is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his work with the band Los Lobos. Hidalgo frequently plays musical instruments such as accordion, violin, 6-string banjo, cello, requinto jarocho, percussion, drums and guitar as a session musician on other artists' releases.
Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night is a 1988 Cinemax television special originally broadcast on January 3, 1988, presenting a performance by singer/songwriter Roy Orbison and the TCB Band with special guests including Bruce Springsteen, k.d. lang and others. The special was filmed entirely in black and white. After the broadcast, the concert was released on VHS and Laserdisc, and a live album was released in 1989.
Hard Rain is a live album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 13, 1976, by Columbia Records. The album was recorded during the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue.
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a 1975–76 concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan with numerous musicians and collaborators. The purpose of the tour was to allow Dylan, who was a major recording artist and concert performer, to play in smaller auditoriums in less populated cities where he could be more intimate with his audiences.
Street-Legal is the eighteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on June 15, 1978, by Columbia Records. The album was a departure for Dylan, who assembled a large pop-rock band with female backing vocalists for its recording.
The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue is a live album by Bob Dylan released by Columbia Records in 2002. The third installment in the ongoing Bob Dylan Bootleg Series on Legacy Records, it documents the Rolling Thunder Revue led by Dylan prior to the release of the album Desire. Until the release of this album, the only official live documentation of the Rolling Thunder Revue was Hard Rain, recorded during the less critically well received second leg of the tour.
A Black & White Night Live is a Roy Orbison music album made posthumously by Virgin Records from the HBO television special, Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night, which was filmed in 1987 and broadcast in 1988. According to the authorised Roy Orbison biography, the album was released in October 1989 and included the song "Blue Bayou" which because of time constraints had been deleted from the televised broadcast. However, it did not include the songs "Claudette" and "Blue Angel", which were also cut from the original broadcast for the same reason.
Jerry Obern Scheff is an American bassist, best known for his work with Elvis Presley from 1969 to 1977 as a member of his TCB Band and on the Doors' L.A. Woman.
Howard Pyle Wyeth, also known as Howie Wyeth, was an American drummer and pianist. Wyeth is remembered for work with the saxophonist James Moody, the rockabilly singer Robert Gordon, the electric guitarist Link Wray, the rhythm and blues singer Don Covay, and the folk singer Christine Lavin. Best known as a drummer for Bob Dylan, he was a member of the Wyeth family of American artists.
Lasso from El Paso is an album by Kinky Friedman, released in 1976. "Sold American" was recorded live while on tour with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. It was Friedman's last album of original material for more than 40 years.
The B-52 Band & the Fabulous Skylarks is the first album by T Bone Burnett, released in 1972 as J. Henry Burnett. It would be eight years before he released his first solo album as T Bone Burnett. Burnett would next go on to play with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and then release three albums with the Alpha Band.
The Alpha Band is the debut album by the rock group The Alpha Band, released in 1976. The band was formed in 1976 from the remnants of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. The core band members were T-Bone Burnett, Steven Soles and David Mansfield.
T Bone Burnett has won Grammy Awards for his work on the albums O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Down from the Mountain (2001), A Wonderful World (2002), Cold Mountain (2004), Walk the Line (2006), Crazy Heart (2010), Raising Sand (2007), and One Kind Favor (2008). He won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year (Non-Classical) in 2001 and 2004. Burnett produced music for the television programs Nashville and True Detective.
Joseph Henry "T Bone" Burnett III is an American recording artist, record producer, guitarist, and songwriter. He was a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band during the 1970s. Burnett has received multiple Grammy awards for his work in film music, including for O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Cold Mountain (2004), Walk the Line (2005), and Crazy Heart (2010); and won another Grammy for producing the studio album Raising Sand (2007), in which he united the contemporary bluegrass of Alison Krauss with the blues rock of Robert Plant.
"You Bowed Down" is a song written by Elvis Costello, first released by Roger McGuinn on his album Back from Rio. Costello recorded his own version of the song for his 1996 album All This Useless Beauty.
Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes is an album produced by T Bone Burnett featuring a collective of musicians recording under the moniker The New Basement Tapes—Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James and Marcus Mumford.
Bob Dylan – The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings is a box set of 1975 live recordings by Bob Dylan, released on June 7, 2019. For this tour, Dylan assembled a loose collective of a backing band called Guam and played across North America for several dozen shows. The tie-in Netflix documentary film Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese was released the following week. A similar compilation was released in 2002 entitled Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue, as part of Dylan's ongoing Bootleg Series. That compilation was re-released on vinyl as a companion to the later release.