Euclid Sessions - Holsapple and Stamey

by Steve Pick

What a pure delight it is to work in a store that allows two of the greatest songwriters of the last thirty years to come in, set up on our stage, and share some of their best material for free. Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey were in the dB's, the band that really should have been the Beatles of the 80s but which fell victim to all sorts of bad record company luck - once, their label went belly-up pretty much the week before their record came out. Their one and only duo record, "Mavericks," has to be on any serious short list of best albums of the 90s, too.



So, Super Bowl Sunday, the crowd was primed for a good time. Maybe 2/3 of the people had been lucky enough to catch them in a house concert the night before, and if there were few surprises for us Sunday, nobody seemed disappointed. New songs from the upcoming May release "Here and Now" blended with dB's classics and a few numbers from "Mavericks." Honestly, after hearing some of the new songs two or three times - I'm listening now to the recording we made of the performance - I'm already in love with material that hasn't been released yet. "Early in the Morning," for example, is as sweet and funny and melodically rich as any of Holsapple's previous gems.



Stamey writes the more unsually structured numbers, while Holsapple just comes up with richly enjoyable verse/chorus/bridge songs. The two of them blend their voices beautifully together, and each plays nicely intricate little guitar parts, with Stamey making perhaps the more convincing case as a lead player. For forty-five minutes Sunday, the two of them held the audience captive, as at least on a small scale, Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey were recognized for the incredible talents they are.

Oh, yeah, the lyrics you see scrawled in Stamey's hand at the top of the page were specially rewritten for the song "Gravity." You know, kinda how Springsteen rewrote a verse of "Glory Days" for his Super Bowl performance.