Raul Midon - Synthesis - International Music Network

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“… a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice
into a chorus…” -Stephen Holden, New York Times
“Since his 2005 debut CD State of Mind, Raul Midon has received
glowing reviews for his unique sound combing flamenco and jazz guitar
stylings, a rich vocal range, and inspirational lyrics. What makes him
truly remarkable is that although he lost his sight shortly after birth, it
hasn't held him back from being one of the most sought after musicians
in the music industry.” -Lynn Neary, NPR
“Raul Midon is a hugely talented guy who calls to mind some of the
very best soul musicians of the last few decades.”
–David Pollack, Glasgow Daily Record
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 28, 2010
Triple-Threat Raul Midón Dazzles on New Album, 'Synthesis' (April 13/Decca)
A “One-Of-A-Kind Guitar and Vocal Sensation” - NY Daily News
Raul Midón - who critics have compared to Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, and Donny Hathaway may be the most compelling “triple threat” to come along in years - a show-stopping guitarist,
brilliant pop/soul/jazz vocalist, and a remarkable, outspoken songwriting talent.
Midón's brilliance in all three areas is on vivid display on his third album, 'Synthesis' (April
13/Decca), recorded by legendary producer and bassist Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Herbie
Hancock) with some of L.A.'s finest musicians. The album features eleven new songs, including
ten Midón originals and a stunning cover of The Beatles’ “Blackbird.”
Raul Midón is the very embodiment of an “outlier” - he made the most of his unique
circumstances - and he practiced like hell.
Raul and his twin brother Marco both lost their vision as newborns when they were placed in
hospital incubators without proper eye protection. Another tragedy befell them at age 4, when
their mother died. But their father, an acclaimed Argentinean dancer, instilled in his boys a
strong work ethic, and they both achieved extraordinary success. Marco became an electrical
engineer for NASA; and Raul, after a successful career as a session singer for artists like Shakira
and Julio Iglesias, has emerged as a brilliant singer/songwriter/guitarist.
“Raul was very disciplined as a kid,” brother Marco says. “At six or seven years old, he practiced
guitar 7 or 8 hours a day…Dad said there's nothing that you can't do.”
After putting in more than the requisite “10,000 hours,” Midón has developed a percussive,
flamenco/jazz guitar style that astonishes audiences and a silky smooth tenor, including “a spinetingling falsetto and an uncanny ability to mimic a trumpet,” according to People Magazine.
Raul's first two albums brought critical acclaim, appearances on all the major late night T.V.
shows in the U.S. and Europe, and multiple world tours.
http://www.shorefire.com/clients/rmidon
http://www.raulmidon.com
Radar: Raul Midon - Synthesis
By: Dave Curtis
October 20, 2009
“I wanted to get back to organic recording,” says acclaimed singer/songwriter and guitarist Raul
Midon of his forthcoming third album Synthesis, just out now internationally and arriving
stateside April 13 (Decca). “We did more programming on the last record, and I wanted the new
album to feature real musicians playing. So it’s guitars, bass, drums, vocals, and not a lot of
effects.” Working with noted producer/bassist Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Madeleine Peyroux,
Melody Gardot), Midon leads a crack studio band -- including Steely Dan guitarist Dean Parks through Synthesis' diverse mix of neo-soul and and jazzy folk/pop tracks that smartly highlight
Midon's songwriting skills as much as his famed percussive guitar style.
Songs such as the sly funky workout "Don't Take It That Way", featuring a slinky, stuttered beat
and Parks' unique guitar fretwork, and the lovely Latin-tinged ballad "Bonnie's Song" bring a
newly found depth to an artist who has turned heads primarily with his novel playing style.
Klein, as always, surrounds Midon with a lush but understated production backdrop, allowing the
singer - and "mouth horn" soloist (listen to "Bonnie's Song" for a demo) - a chance to dress up
his material in an elegant, well-fitted ensemble of gifted players.
http://www.directcurrentmusic.com/music-news-new-music/2009/10/20/radar-raul-midon-synthesis.html
Raul Midon: Meditations on Success and Soul
By: Allison Keyes
Published: November 10, 2007
Singer-songwriter Raul Midon first entered the public consciousness two years ago with his
album State of Mind. Audiences and critics alike were drawn to his remarkable guitar chops and
his voice, often likened to that of Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder.
Midon always performs solo. No backup — just him and his guitar. But his new CD, A World
Within a World, functions as a substantial departure from his previous recordings, which focused
mainly on his instrument and his voice. Midon says this disc reflects what he's thinking about
now.
Interviewed in his dressing room, he talks about the pitfalls of trying to get noticed in a
commercial environment.
"It's easy to get off track in this pop music field because people get elevated to greatness," Midon
says. "People get called artists that aren't artists. I try to keep my eye on the prize as I see it."
Of course, Midon sees things differently than most — he has been blind since he was an infant
growing up in New Mexico. Midon says the prize, as he sees it, is the goal of becoming
somebody who contributes something lasting to the musical landscape.
Midon hopes A World Within a World is part of that process. But it may surprise his fans.
"What we did was try to make a studio album this time and try and keep the essence and make it
more about the songs," he says.
Midon says the arc of the new album is much broader. Sprinkled among the soul tunes are tracks
like "Caminando." Sung in Spanish, the song eschews R&B in favor of traditional music from
Argentina.
There's even an a cappella tune on the new record. Midon says he wanted to pay homage to
groups like Take 6 and Singers Unlimited: "It took days to get all of these parts recorded, but it
turned into this a cappella monstrosity," he says.
But Midon still wants to make a living from his music, which he says is tricky. For him, it means
making music he likes that will also sell.
"What I try to do is take the parts of it that I think have a shot at being commercially viable ...
and put those on the record," Midon says. "You cannot make a record — I can't, anyway —
thinking about, 'Will this play on the radio?' If you do that, I think you're gonna end up making a
record that you're not going to like. Because, let's face it: Pop radio is pretty bad these days."
Midon says the narrow arena in which artists are forced to compete for attention on the airwaves
saddens him.
"There's a sort of conflict," he says. "People want to hear something new and something
different, but what the sort of values of commercial radio are — it has to sound like the last thing
that was a hit on the radio, which nobody really wants."
But he also says it's difficult to tell the difference between what will sell and what won't. Midon
says that the way people listen to music now — for example, putting songs they like into an iPod
playlist — might actually be good for his sales.
"I hope people will listen to the record and get where I'm coming from, and that ... it's not about
genre," Midon says. "I think people in a certain way are getting that now, because people have
their own musical universe where they are living now with the iPods and so forth. People are
living in their own musical universe, so it's not out of bounds to hear Madonna next to Mozart."
Midon says the best way to hear him is to see him live — just him and his guitar.
And he hopes that will convince audiences to vote with their wallets for the other Raul Midon.
June 21, 2008
Music Review
Faith From the South, and a One-Man Band Too
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
If I had to choose a single word to describe the mystique of the singer Lizz Wright, it would be steadfast.
Ms. Wright, who headlined a double bill with the equally talented singer-songwriter Raul Midón at the concert
hall of the New York Society for Ethical Culture on Thursday evening, is a minister’s daughter from a small
town in rural Georgia. Her recent album, “The Orchard” (Verve), is a self-conscious return-to-roots record,
although Ms. Wright has never ventured far from those roots.
In her last record, “Dreaming Wide Awake,” Ms. Wright’s voice brought a concentrated, churchlike gravity to
the folk-jazz musical settings of the material from here, there and everywhere. From its title to its gatefold
portrait of Ms. Wright, regally costumed, standing by a cypress tree in the middle of a swamp, “The Orchard” is
a celebration of the South, fecundity and connection with nature. It expresses a proud and profoundly reassuring
sense of knowing where you come from.
For this JVC Jazz Festival concert Ms. Wright was accompanied by a five-member band that included Toshi
Reagon (on rhythm guitar and backup vocals) with whom she collaborated on 6 of the 12 songs from “The
Orchard.”
All might be called contemporary spirituals. Although they describe exaltation and suffering in relationships,
there is little separation in feeling between the secular and the sacred. Faith, of one kind or another, is her
emotional anchor.
Even songs by others, like the Ike and Tina Turner classic “I Idolize You,” are transmuted into something
majestic. In Ms. Wright’s rendition on Thursday, it metamorphosed from a wild, flailing, call-and-response
rocker with a sassy girl-group chorus into a slow, deep blues shuffle, which Ms. Wright’s dark, penetrating alto
infused with a mystical belief.
The Led Zeppelin ballad “Thank You” and the Patsy Cline song “Strange” underwent similar transformations.
Ms. Wright’s integrity is synonymous with her utter lack of vocal adornment. Her voice, luminous and smoky
and perfectly pitched, is one of the most wondrous rhythm-and-blues instruments of our time; it needs no
ornamentation to stand on a pedestal by itself.
Mr. Midón, a one-man band who turns a guitar into an orchestra and his voice into a chorus, is just as
accomplished and as spiritually connected but in a sunnier way. And in his sensational set he suggested a threeway fusion of Stevie Wonder, Bobby McFerrin and José Feliciano.
Although only 42, Mr. Midón has the stage personality of an unreconstructed hippie. His lilting, continuously
melodious songs, taken from two albums, “A World Within a World” and “State of Mind,” expressed a liveand-let-live Caribbean perspective. (Mr. Midón, however, is from New Mexico.)
As he used his right hand alternately to slap his guitar strings for a beat, then to fingerpick, he displayed a
virtuosity that seemed effortless. His supple vocal phrasing echoed Mr. Wonder’s in some songs; in others he
turned his voice into a trumpet, then traded playful back-and-forth dialogue between the simulated horn and his
natural voice. Elsewhere the flurries of strumming echoed Mr. Feliciano’s intense, flamenco-flavored guitar
solos.
Mr. Midón and Ms. Wright made a persuasive case for personal, accessible music oblivious to trends: real
music as opposed to fashionable pop sound.
Jazz
Raul Midon
Pigalle, London
July 27, 2006
By JOHN L WALTERS
When you witness someone who is really good, like singer-songwriter Raul Midon, it's a
profoundly moving experience. But more than that, it redefines the whole notion of what "good"
means. Midon just walks on with his guitar and sings his deceptively simple songs, and the entire
club is enthralled.
Midon has a lovely voice, a beautifully controlled tenor that can express anything from
tenderness to passion. When he needs an additional instrumental colour, he imitates a trumpet in
the manner of Bob Gurland. It could seem like a gimmick, but he does it so well, with such
confidence and fluidity, that his Dizzy-like "vocal trumpet" solos become a highlight of the set.
And the guy can play. His strumming has a flamenco flourish, but after a while you realise he
can do every kind of accompaniment he needs on acoustic guitar. Funky rhythm guitar,
expressive arpeggios, super-relaxed "walking bass" for Devil May Care ... it's breathtaking.
All this would be impressive enough were Midon playing others' songs, but his own material is
of a high calibre, with few fillers. Songs such as Everybody, State of Mind (the title track of his
recent album), Suddenly and Sunshine I Can Fly (which he co-wrote with Louis Vega) already
sound like standards. If You're Gonna Leave showcases his finely honed control of voice and
accompaniment.
There are explicit influences - Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder - but Midon sounds like
someone who has done a great deal of listening and learning. His songs are not so "well-crafted"
that you're overly aware of the gears cranking into place: they flow like jazz performances. There
are times when you're reminded of a sweet-voiced Ray Charles, or Nat "King" Cole, but
everything about Midon reveals a strong, individual and totally musical mind at work. Awesome.
A sense of wonder
Sabine Durrant
Published: 12:01AM GMT 12 Mar 2006
Manhattan transfer: Raul Midon moved to the big city,
'Not to hang out, not to see New York, not to meet people.
If you're distracted, New York will eat you alive'
The soul singer Raul Midon was born blind, just like his mentor and hero, Stevie Wonder.
It hasn't helped, he tells Sabine Durrant. But it hasn't held him back, either
Raul Midon was playing one night in a small music venue called Joe's Pub in New York when a
man came up to him. 'He said, "How would you like to play at Carnegie Hall?" I'm like, "Yeah,
some day, that would be cool." He said, "How about next month?" "Next month? What do you
mean, with an orchestra?" "No, I'd like you to play solo."' The show, which took place in 2002,
was called The Movie Music of Spike Lee. Midon, whose soul baritone can swoop up high like a
trumpet, and who bangs and beats his guitar and slaps it on the strings as if it were a stageful of
percussion instruments, gave his interpretation of a Stevie Wonder song from Jungle Fever.
'Cassandra Wilson was on the show. Bruce Hornsby was on the show. A bunch of names, and I
was the no-name.'
Spike Lee himself rang him the next day. 'My wife answered the phone and I can hear her, like,
"oh hi, oh yeah, hang on … it's Spike Lee," trying to be really cool. He said, "You've got to do
what you did last night at the Hollywood Bowl. If you don't show up, I'm not showing up." Then
he asked me to write a song for She Hate Me, his next movie. That's how it happened.'
Other things followed dizzyingly fast: the record deal and debut album, State of Play (released
here last week), produced by the legendary Arif Mardin, who has worked with Ray Charles and
Aretha Franklin; the contact with Stevie Wonder, to whom Midon wrote in Braille inviting him
to play harmonica on one track ('We were on two different coasts when we recorded.'); the rave
reviews: 'The next great Wonder?' (People); 'a virtuoso' (The New York Times).
One minute, says Midon, he was a hired musician - backing for Ricky Martin, touring with
Shakira, 'Raul the please-everybody musician.'
The next, he was 'Raul the artist,' playing his own unique combination of jazz, pop, R&B and
Latin, no longer 'going in through the kitchen' for gigs, but travelling first class (where, for once,
no one tells him to stow his guitar in the hold).
'All those producers before who said, "You can't put your trumpet sound on a pop album. It's just
too weird. And you can't play the guitar on your record because it's so strange." I get to affirm
absolutely in myself my "artistic identify", for lack of a better term. I get to make a statement
that is unique.'
Midon is tall with soft features and a sketchy beard. He's eating linguini when I arrive at the
fancy hotel where he has been put up in London. ('I enjoy good living,' he laughs.) An assistant
guides him to the sofa where we talk. He has a computer around his neck, for information he
needs at his fingertips. He's wearing jeans, a jaunty cap, and a trendy two-tone blue jacket with
different coloured buttons on the cuffs: 'My wife,' he explains.
'When I met her, like most guys - and I was blind - I had, like, three pairs of jeans, one suit and
one tux. She was like, "You can't go on stage looking like that." I have to say, it made an
immediate difference.'
He says, in his deep quiet voice, with its unexpected hills and valleys, that his secret is to never
compromise, to never give up. His wife, Kathleen - a legal secretary he met in Florida, where he
had studied music - threw in her career to further his. 'I'll never forget that.' They moved to
Manhattan for the same reason. 'Not to hang out, not to see New York, not to meet people. If
you're distracted, New York will eat you alive.'
His self-belief, he says, comes from his parents. 'We didn't have "can't" in our family. We didn't
have, "Oh you're blind, so you should set your sights - pardon the pun - a little lower." That
didn't exist. "Whatever you want to do, you can do it. And by the way, if you're going to do it, try
to be the best at it." That was our credo.'
Midon and his identical twin brother, Marco, were born 39 years ago in a small town in New
Mexico to an Argentinian father (a dancer) and an African-American mother, who was to die of
an aneurysm when the children were four.
Six weeks premature, Raul and Marco were placed in an incubator with too much oxygen. Raul's
retinas were destroyed. Marco had limited vision in his childhood, finally losing his sight when
he was 16. They went to a school for the blind, where Raul learnt to play the guitar, and then,
thanks to someone to whom he refers to only as an anonymous benefactor, they attended a
prestigious prep school in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Raul remembers the first year here as the hardest thing in his life.
'Academically and, of course, socially. We were like "the blind kids" at a time when the whole
idea is to be cool and to try to fit in. And, boy, you just don't fit in.'
But they both flourished. Raul discovered his musical gifts. And, in the year he lost his sight,
Marco came in the top five of his class. He is now an engineer for Nasa.
Midon is tapping on his legs as he talks, his head jerking in rhythm. What's he doing?
'I always do that. There's always something in my head. I'm working on this song about … like,
I'm, I don't know, very happily married now, and doing well, and it's about the girls who passed
me by, and how they messed up.'
And he throws back his head and laughs.
Raul Midon Pushes Musical Boundaries
By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
02-26-2008
The name Raul Midon may not ring a bell. But try searching for Midon's live performances on
YouTube and you'll wonder why he's not yet a superstar.
Midon is literally a one-man band on stage, armed with his distinctive soulful voice, while his
fingers work magic on a guitar. When you have the immense talent of this man, a voice and
guitar is all you need.
``I've always been a musician. I think music chooses you,'' Midon told The Korea Times. The
41-year-old blind singer has earned rave reviews for his first two albums, 2005's ``A State of
Mind'' and 2007's ``A World Within a World."
Being blind never stopped Midon from pursuing his dream as a musician. Midon and his twin
brother were born in Embudo, New Mexico, to his Argentinean father and African-American
mother. They became blind as babies, when they were placed in an incubator without proper
protection for the eyes.
Midon learned to play drums when he was four years old, and began playing the guitar when he
was six years old. Later, he was accepted in the University of Miami's jazz program. After
college, he started singing backup for stars such as Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Jennifer Lopez,
Christina Aguilera and Ricky Martin.
Did he consider being blind an obstacle to pursuing a career in music? ``No, I think it is an asset.
I think being blind helped me to focus and direct my life better. I knew what I could and couldn't
do and with lots of practice I became good at it,'' he said.
Midon writes and composes his own music, which he describes as a mix of ``eclectic, genrejumping, pop, jazz fusion.'' His unique guitar-playing skills have also attracted a lot of attention.
``I absorbed a lot of techniques from studying classical, flamenco and jazz guitar. Then I started
breaking the rules of those traditions and came up with something that was my own,'' he
explained.
Midon has been compared to Donnie Hathaway and another blind superstar musician, Stevie
Wonder. He is flattered to be compared to his idols, saying that this only pushes him to become a
better musician.
Midon is grateful for the chance to work with Wonder, who played the harmonica on
``Expressions of Love,'' from his debut album. He recalled how his album producer, the late
Grammy-award winning producer Arif Mardin, pushed him to write a letter to Wonder, in
Braille, and ask him to play in the album.
``I wrote a letter and Arif, who is Stevie's friend, followed it up with a call and it all worked out.
I can never repay the debt of that generous act. I was unknown and he extended himself. I am
very grateful. He is, as you'd imagine, an extremely generous person, kind and of course,
supremely talented,'' he said.
When asked about his future plans, Midon said he is working on his next album and performing
in concerts around the world. ``I'd like to change the world but for now I'll just keep playing
music,'' he said.
Midon is looking forward to his first trip to Seoul next month. ``I hope to bring to (Korea) a
positive musical experience. I will do my best to be as creative as possible on stage and maybe
I'll play some new songs never heard before,'' he said.
JAZZ SOUL GETS SLAP HAPPY:
Raul Midon's attention-grabbing style trumpets
the arrival of a major new talent
BY JIM FARBER
May 29, 2005
You can't blame Raul Midón for feeling he's been chosen.
When a recent press showcase of his music was held, it wasn't shunted off to the usual dark club
or dank rehearsal studio. It was presented in the well-appointed Central Park West apartment of
Arif Mardin, one of pop's most storied producers.
Mardin helped shape the classic recordings of artists like Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield
in the '60s, the Bee Gees in the '70s, and more recently Norah Jones. Mardin helped Midón get
signed by Manhattan Records and co-produced his first album.
He was drawn to Midón's rare approach to singing and playing.
As Midón stood in Mardin's home and hunkered over his guitar, he didn't so much play his
instrument as slap it like it was a naughty child. First, he attacked its body with his flat hand,
then he pulled briskly back on the strings, flicking them with a flourish.
As Midón began to sing, he let the notes swirl feverishly around the melody, then pursed his lips
and imitated a trumpet in full solo swing.
Midón says he developed his percussive approach to music out of desperation.
"I had to find a way to have a presence, to stand out," he explains. "When you're an artist with an
acoustic guitar, opening for somebody else in a club, strumming quietly isn't going to cut it. I
wanted to project something rhythmic as well as lyrical."
The effect pricked up his producer's ears the moment he heard it.
"As a jazz fan, I detected that freedom of expression in his playing," Mardin explains. "It was
like a little drummer was living in his guitar, like in flamenco music. And his vocal had that
soulfulness."
You can hear the result on Midón's debut CD, "State of Mind," which comes out June 7.
Mardin, and his co-producer son Joe, let no sonic filters get in the way of Midón's style. The CD
sounds like it was cut live, but Midón says they worked on it meticulously.
It's no surprise Mardin Sr. was sensitive to the singer's spare approach. He had produced several
records that greatly influenced Midón, especially some by the late soul singer-songwriter Donny
Hathaway. Midón's voice has a similarly free range and rich core.
"I first heard Hathaway's 'A Song for You' and then kept discovering layers," Midón says. "I
realized I was on the same path."
Midón listened to Hathaway's music for inspiration every morning before recording his own
album. He even dedicated one song to him, "Sittin' in the Middle," since it bears an uncanny
resemblance to the unfiltered acoustic soul of Hathaway's early '70s work.
Another song on the CD, "Expressions of Love," draws from early '70s
Stevie Wonder to such an extent that Midón asked his producer - as a joke - if they could get
Wonder to play on the song. "[Arif] said, 'Oh, yeah, I'll call him,' - just like that," the singer
recalls with a laugh.
Midón and Wonder are also linked by the fact that both are blind. To boost his request, Midón
wrote Wonder a note in Braille. A month had passed when, on the day before they mastered the
final CD, Wonder sent in a harmonica part via the Internet.
MOVED TO NEW YORK
Such connections still boggle Midón's mind. He had struggled for many years before his recent
break. The musician, who will give his age only as "younger than Prince and older than Usher,"
grew up in the small town of Embudo, near Taos, in New Mexico. His father is Argentinian, his
mother was African-American.
Midón has an identical twin brother who's also blind and now works as an engineer at NASA.
Their mother died when the boys were 4, but Midón says their grandmother was a strong person
in the family and instilled her memories of their mom in their lives.
Midón absorbed Argentinian folk music from his dad (who was a professional dancer), along
with jazz and progressive pop. He considers himself a jazz musician at heart.
After graduating from the University of Miami, Midón worked on the local Latin music scene,
eventually making a solid living as a backup singer and session player. But he longed to focus on
his own music. So he moved to New York in 2002 and began playing small clubs, like Arthur's
in the West Village. He contributed a song to Spike Lee's "She Hate Me" soundtrack, but most of
the labels he approached wanted to steer him into commercial R&B.
"I didn't want to do that tired sort of approach," he says.
It was in New York that Midón developed his mix of flamenco-influenced acoustic jazz-soul. At
times, his style recalls the work of Richie Havens or José Feliciano. But Midón adds something
rare with his vocal trumpet effect. "It's like having three instruments," he says, "the guitar, the
vocals and the trumpet."
Only time will tell if a sound that straddles so many styles can find a large audience. Midón
admits it's a concern, but he feels thankful his record company never second-guessed the style he
chose. For the moment, Midón is simply flattered to be part of his famous producer's legacy.
"I feel," he says, "like all the stars are aligned."