REVIEW: Steve Morse, Major Impacts (Magna Carta)
- Dan Birchall
Steve Morse is a different sort of guitar god. While axemen like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have risen to their greatest fame outside of bands and made their mark by releasing solo instrumental albums of their trademark sounds, Morse has maintained a somewhat lower profile over his 25-year career. Aside from a brief stint as an airline pilot, he's spent most of his time as a member of various bands, including the Dixie Dregs, Kansas, his own Steve Morse Band, and Deep Purple - not as a solo star.
On Major Impacts, Morse takes on the lead role, backed by and long-time Steve Morse Band members Dave LaRue and Van Romaine on bass drums respectively. Instead of dishing out an album of his own sound, though, he serves up a collection of instrumental tributes to the guitarists who influenced him.
No, these aren't cover tunes - they're original Steve Morse tunes. But each song reflects the style or styles of one or more Morse influences. The list of honorees is quite impressive in itself: Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Alex Lifeson, Roger McGuinn, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, George Harrison, the Allman Brothers, and more.
More impressive by far is the success with which Morse reproduces each style in his own songs on this album. "Led On" sounds for all the world like an actual Led Zeppelin song. "How Does It Feel?" will have all your friends swearing on a stack of Rolling Stones CD's that it's Mick Jagger and the boys.
Unlike the single-themed releases most other guitar gods offer, Major Impacts displays Steve Morse's great flexibility, while providing fifty-plus minutes of great music for any fan of the great guitarists of the 1960s and 1970s. Of course, in the process of emulating them all, Morse demonstrates that he, too, is a great guitarist.
