It’s with great joy Bluesfest announces the prolific American rocker, Chris Isaak, performing at Bluesfest for the very first time this Easter. With a career spanning more than a quarter or a century, Chris has given us hits such as “Wicked Game”, “Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing” and “Somebody’s Crying”.

 

His latest album Beyond the Sun (2011), recorded at the legendary Memphis’ Sun Studio is homage to Chris’s obsession with the glory days of the Studio and the visionary artists who all got their starts there. The list includes Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis- all of them discovered and nurtured by the late, great Sun Records founder Sam Phillips. Chris says of his idol Phillips , “ ….the guy who pretty much got rock and roll going…without Sam, and Sun Studio, I don’t think we would have rock and roll…”

 

Beyond the Sun features a handpicked selection of Sun greats, it opens with Johnny Cash’s “Ring Of Fire” and also includes “I Walk The Line”. Elvis Presley is also heavily represented on the album, with “Trying to Get to You” and the first song Elvis ever recorded, “My Happiness” among others. Chris also penned a few originals for the Album, including the rock track “ Live It Up” and “Lovely Loretta”. Chris describes the recording the album as “…the most fun I ever had making a record”. Beyond The Sun was recorded as it would have been in the early days of the studio, with Chris and his band playing in the room together, “…we just listened to each other and went for it. We cut way more music than we intended…we just couldn’t and didn’t want to stop”, explains Chris.

 

The result is an Album that recaptures the magic of the classics sides cut by those rock and roll icons at Sun studio with Phillips in the mid – ‘50s , while also getting down to the heart and soul of Chris’s own musical identity. Make sure you don’t miss out on this magic in full force, when Chris Isaak takes the Bluesfest stage for the first time this Easter.