New Video: Get Out Of My Heart by Steve Louw, released 30 July 2021

The official video for “Get Out My Heart”, created by Jacqui van Staden

From the album “Headlight Dreams” available to stream/download at: https://orcd.co/SteveLouwHeadlightDreams

STEVE LOUW ONLINE
https://stevelouw.com/
https://instagram.com/stevelouw/
https://twitter.com/stevelouwmusic
https://facebook.com/stevelouwmusic/
https://sptfy.com/stevelouw
https://apple.co/3iKTV9g

Dead Men Don’t Tour, Rodriguez in South Africa 1998 (TV Documentary)

This documentary was shown on South African Television this week, 20 years ago.

Footage from this documentary features strongly in the Oscar winning film, Searching For Sugar Man.

Dead Men Don’t Tour

Directed by Tonia Selley and featuring Big Sky, “Dead Men Don’t Tour”, was first broadcast on SABC 3 at 9.30pm on the 5th July 2001 just after ‘Ripley’s Believe Or Not’.

This film features wonderful concert footage, backstage antics, interviews with Craig Bartholomew Strydom and Stephen “Sugar” Segerman, Rodriguez and his family, the promoters, the fans and the musicians.

All live footage was filmed at the concerts in Pretoria, Durban and the Blues Room in Johannesburg.

The soundtrack for the documentary is based on the Live Fact CD with video collages from the various performances. The concert footage is linked with interviews, backstage antics, rehearsals, etc.

  1. I Wonder
  2. Inner City Blues
  3. Jane S. Piddy
  4. Sugar Man
  5. A Most Disgusting Song
  6. Like Janis
  7. Establishment Blues
  8. Climb Up On My Music
  9. I Wonder by Generation EXT (filmed during the studio recording)
  10. Forget It

Produced by Incha Productions
Executive producers: Georgina Parkin and Charles Watson
Directed by Tonia Selley
Edited by Cathy Winter

March 1998 (left-to-right): Willem Moller, Sixto Rodriguez, Tonia Selley, Steve Louw, Graeme Currie, Reuben Samuels, kneeling front: Russel Taylor
March 1998 (left-to-right): Willem Moller, Sixto Rodriguez, Tonia Selley, Steve Louw, Graeme Currie, Reuben Samuels, kneeling front: Russel Taylor

Big Sky presents Heart & Soul [DVD]

This live performance includes three original Steve Louw songs that have never been released as studio recordings: “Mama”, “Bound And Chained” and “Ten Men”.

Heart & Soul was recorded live at The Little Theatre, Cape Town on 31 October and 1 November 2008. Released on DVD in 2009 by Sony Music Entertainment, catalogue number: DVBSP3211. Recorded by Johan Griessel. Mixed by Neil Snyman. Directed by Glen Thomas and Mark Siebert. Staged by David Kramer.

Heart & Soul DVD
Heart & Soul DVD

Tracks

  1. Pony Blues
  2. Strange Room
  3. Diamond Heart
  4. Around Again
  5. The Wind Blows
  6. Hell’s Gates
  7. Mama
  8. Bound And Chained
  9. Ten Men
  10. Black Sun
  11. Diamonds And Dirt
  12. Raise Up Your Hand
  13. Kathleen
  14. Mr. Green
  15. The Road Ahead
  16. Bye Bye Johnny
  17. Fade Away
  18. Bring The Night On
  19. One Cut With A Knife
  20. Waiting For The Dawn
  21. Take My Heart
  22. John The Revelator

All songs composed by Steve Louw except “John The Revelator” (Traditional)

Musicians

  • Steve Louw: vocals, acoustic guitar
  • Willem Moller: electric and slide guitars
  • Tim Rankin: drums, percussion
  • Jacques Steyn: double bass, electric bass, mandolin
  • Simon Orange: keyboards, tea-chest bass
  • Rob Nagel: harmonica

Recorded live in front of a sell-out crowd at Cape Town’s historic Little Theatre. The show captures iconic South African songwriter Steve Louw and his band performing classic material from their other albums as well as previously unreleased songs.

Reviews

Steve Louw, sanger van die groep Big Sky, is al vir 25 jaar een van die mees gerekende liedjieskrywers in die land. Die groep se langverwagte DVD, Heart & Soul het musiekliefhebbers in hul noppies.

Die Burger deur Theunis Engelbrecht

Illuminating Headlight Dreams

by Brian Currin, June 2021, originally appeared on SugarMan.org

Back in early April 2021, I read a press release announcing a new album coming from Steve Louw and it included the video of a song called “Crazy River”. I loved the big open spaces this song evoked (and enhanced by the video) and the subtle African guitar sounds reminded me of early Johnny Clegg.

I first heard of Steve Louw in 1990 when the cassette version of the “Pop Shop 48” album featured the song “Waiting For The Dawn” by Big Sky as a bonus track. There is actually no real band called Big Sky, it is the name Steve Louw has used when he surrounds himself with the cream of the crop of American and South African musicians.

I first met Steve in March 1998, backstage at the first Rodriguez concert at the Bellville Velodrome, outside Cape Town. Steve and that year’s incarnation of Big Sky were a worthy support act. The rest of Big Sky (led by Steve’s old buddy since the seventies, Willem Möller) also backed Rodriguez for his set. That sold-out tour of South Africa is featured in the Oscar-winning film, “Searching For Sugar Man“.

Steve recorded two albums in the 80’s with his band All Night Radio, and then five albums as Big Sky between 1990 and 2008, as well as a compilation album, “Best Of The Decade” (in 1999), and a live concert DVD recorded over two nights in 2008.

And now he comes blasting back with his first solo album (well, technically) in 13 years. As in his Big Sky days, he has surrounded himself with some top players in their fields. So let’s drop a few names; “Headlight Dreams” was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, produced by Kevin Shirley, mastered by Bob Ludwig, liner notes by Stephen Thomas Erlewine (from AllMusic), and a guitar solo on “Wind In Your Hair” by one of my favourite guys from the more recent crop of Blues guitar-slingers, Joe Bonamassa.

Louw also brought in some of the best musos in Nashville, namely Kevin McKendree (keyboards), Alison Prestwood (bass), Rob McNelly (guitars) and Greg Morrow (drums). Steve Louw wrote all the songs and sings and plays acoustic guitar.

This album is filled with great songs, from the bluesy, lyrically hard-hitting “Get Out Of My Heart” to the bouncy “Queen Bee Maybe” with its delightful Hammond organ solo from Kevin McKendree, however my favourite track on this album is the almost proggish “Train Don’t Run”. Clocking in at seven and half minutes this is an epic tune that you hope never finishes. There is a soaring guitar solo by Rob McNelly that David Gilmour fans will love. No surprise to discover that this track was mixed on the same console as the classic “Dark Side Of The Moon“.

If you immerse yourself in the Steve Louw back-catalogue you will find recurring themes and reappearing characters, in a similar vein to Rodriguez, Piet Botha and many others. It is one of the things I love about listening to music, that there are rewards for paying extra attention.

This album can be played in the background, but if you give it your full awareness and dive into its depths you will be rewarded with poetic lyrics melded with great tunes, recorded by superb musicians.

Steve’s enthusiasm for life and love is expressed in every note in this superb creation. “Headlight Dreams” deserves to be listened to over and over again, and if you do, you will get something new every time.

Steve Louw on Social

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