Tom Seals - 'Boogie-Woogie, Blues and Black Coffee' - Interview

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Tom Seals might not be a familiar name to many, but for connoisseurs and cognoscenti of boogie-full piano playing and bluesomely soulful vocals, he’s already a standout performer.

Although still in his twenties, Tom has toured the world, sharing the stage with genre heavy-hitters, including Jamie Cullum and Gregory Porter, and played on Broadway and at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Jools Holland is a fan of his “extraordinary young talent”. Impressed by the Crewe-man’s keyboard mastery, Tom has become a regular fixture at Jools’ Boogie-Woogie nights, holding his own against renowned exponents including Neville Dickie and Ben Waters.

His voice has also developed into an equally powerful instrument, with venerable Welsh knight Tom Jones once declaring that “he sounds like Little Richard”.

‘Black and Gold’ (Sam Sparro) - Tom Seals and band

Having returned from tour to his Cheshire home, earlier this year, and with pandemic lockdown biting, Tom’s plans took an unexpected turn. He had developed a pilot for a prospective TV show that combined cultured conversation and musical performance in equal measure, but that now seemed unlikely to progress. Rather than waiting for a return to the old-normal, he embraced the new and self-produced a slick series of Tom Seals ‘In Isolation’ Shows. Featuring guests, including KT Tunstall, Dean Friedman, Matt Lucas and Jim Kirkpatrick, the show garnered online acclaim for its winning formula of exemplary musicianship, rousing performances, humour and broadcast-quality production values.

Well-known for his feisty and soulful versions of songs, popularised by a broad spectrum of artists from the blues of Ray Charles, the smooth jazz of Gregory Porter to the modern pop of Sam Sparro, Tom is now working on his first album of original songs, in collaboration with a team that includes Barry Eastmond, whose credits include Billy Ocean, Anita Baker, Freddie Jackson, Al Jarreau, Steve Perry and Michael Bolton.

‘Real Good Hands’ (Gregory Porter) - Tom Seals and The Untold Orchestra

We may have to wait a little longer for new music to be signed and Seals delivered, but Tom recently provided his online followers with news of an imminent single, that has now been released online.

“We've just recorded a tune called ‘Black Coffee’ as a little teaser for the album which will be next year. It's an old jazz standard but we've really turned it on its head, we've been almost Tower of Power with it. It's sort of a New Orleans, funk-souly kind of thing, with a real bluesy piano solo - a real mixture of styles.”

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The song itself dates all the way back to 1948 and written by Sonny Burke and Paul Francis, with Sarah Vaughan charting the following year, with the first of many versions that were to follow over the years by artists including: Peggy Lee, Sinead O’Connor, Ella Fitzgerald, K.D.Lang, Bobby Darin, Julie London, Ray Charles, Nana Mouskouri, Elkie Brooks and Petula Clark.

It’s a very different to the blues rock song of the name, originally written by Tina Turner in 1972 and memorably covered by Humble Pie in 1973, featuring perhaps Steve Marriott’s greatest recorded vocal performance. Whereas, Tina Turner sang, "My skin is brown but my mind is black." Marriott sings, "My skin is white but my soul is black”, which caused controversy at that conservative time. In retrospect, there is an echo of The Who’s ‘Substitute’ from 1966: "I look all white, but my dad was black" and is best considered as simply an acknowledgement of how authentically soulful Marriott’s voice really was.

Tom’s voice also has that same raw quality, albeit tempered by his jazz sensibilities. Perhaps there’s an opportunity for him to combine both songs in his live set for a double caffeine hit of rock and jazz?

Although lockdown continues to limit touring opportunities, Tom is showing no sign of slowing down, with recent performances, including a week’s residency at Boisedale of Belgravia and a headline performance at Picnic at the (Blenheim) Palace. He also played the closing set at the Streamly Sessions festival, at an iconic London venue, with his full band, that featured Bjorn Woodhall (guitar), Nick Bayes (Bass), Joel Barford (Drums), Matt Carter (Hammond Organ) and special guest Derek Nash (on loan from Jools Holland’s band). You can watch the full set on-demand.

Tom Seals & Sarah-Jane Morris - ‘I wish I knew how it would be to be free’

Tom returned to Ronnie Scott’s as Sarah Jane Morris’s special guest during her #ReturnSessions show on 7th September, as the fifty-year-old landmark venue gears-up to fully reopen on the 19th September. Following the remote duet they performed on one of Tom’s on-line shows, they delivered a rousing version of ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free", accompanied by the dazzling twin guitars of Tim Cansfield and Tony Rémy. You can watch the performance on Ronnie’s YouTube channel.

The jaunty instrumental version of the song is instantly recognisable as the theme music to the long-running BBC TV film review programme, hosted by the inimitable Barry Norman (1972-1998). Yet, the definitive version, of Dick Dallas and Billy Taylor’s original song, dates back to the previous decade. As recorded by Nina Simone in 1967, it became one of the de facto anthems of the American civil rights movement. The stirring jazz-meets-gospel arrangement and message of hope continue to carry poignancy and relevance, as we all seek to navigate the current turbulent waters of uncertainty and unrest.

In few weeks’ time, Tom follows up this fleeting appearance with an already sold-out lunchtime show of his own on Sunday 20th September graduating to a full evening performance at the iconic club on Sunday 18th October 2020, with tickets still available.

INTERVIEW

Decibel Report’s Andy Rawll had the recent good fortune to speak to Tom, not once but twice, to find out more about how he’s developed his unique musical style, his recent run of ‘In Isolation’ on-line shows and plans for an album of all original material, for release next year.

You can watch the latest video interview here and then scroll-down to read the previous conversation that Tom had with Andy.

ORIGINAL PHONE INTERVIEW

AR: How did the virtual TV shows come about ?

TS: Apart from my hero Jools Holland, I thought that there weren't too many people doing a live show with great chat plus music. We all know that Jools talks to people for a short while and then plays with them, but the talking aspect isn't as important as it is, for example, on the Graham Norton show. So I thought let's try it. Let's book a few people that I've met over the years, get them in a room as well as my incredible ten-piece band. Let's get a guest in and speak to them for five to ten or even 15 minutes and then we'll go and play a song together.

Now that was the original plan. Thanks to COVID that didn't happen. So I said I'm not going to let that stop me. I'm going to scale it down and see what I can do on my own. So the first show I did was back in May and was called "The Tom Seals Show - in isolation" and it was all filmed on my kitchen table with just me hosting the show on my iPhone. My friend is a production engineer and has got all the gear. He's also got some idea, which helps, and he came back to me and said: "I really see potential in this, so let me help you, let me get involved".

So the second episode it went up a little bit, to another gear. For that one, I filmed everything, had with loads of VT (pre-recorded video clips), did remote duets with my band, put all this content together and sent it to him. So episode 1 was good, episode 2 was a little bit better. Then we got to episode 3 and the government changed the rules so that we could only have six people in the garden. So I got my four piece band and two camera men in the garden. I rang my mum, because I don't have a garden and said I need to take over your garden for a few weeks. Luckily she was getting her garden done, so she didn't mind if I ruined the grass. So we went and set-up all the equipment: six cameras, a big marquee, a drum riser, my piano and we did a live streamed gig in BBC broadcast quality from my mum's garden and people seemed to like it.

AR: I think having that level of production really helped. It wasn't a random video with someone playing a few tunes with a band of friends. It maybe belies your background. You studied at LIPA (Liverpool's Institute of Performing Arts) and ended up playing festivals and gaining a proper experience and reputation as a live performer

TS: Yes, it's been a crazy few years. I did go to LIPA, but the truth is that didn't finish the course. I was getting offered work and I said to the teachers, I'm going to have to miss this lesson because of all of that. They said to me, "Tom, the aim at leaving music college is to make a professional living out of music". I'd already been given the opportunity, so I decided to take that and within a few years I was so lucky. I got to do so much travelling. European stuff that I still do now or at least I did until six months ago. I've done some incredible things, I've played on Broadway, the Montreux Jazz Festival and Cropredy festival to 25,000 people. It's been a crazy few years, but it's been fun

AR: What I like about your sound and playing is that it matches the traditional boogie-woogie sound, but there's a lot of jazz in there as well

TS: Definitely, and that has its pluses and its minuses, because I find it really difficult to pinpoint what I do. Yes, as piano player I do like boogie-woogie and that's what I'm probably best known for, but I love playing blues, I love playing swing, I love big band. My childhood was big-band. My grandad had a 25-piece big band and every week I'd go and watch them. I was brought up on Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Sinatra, Count Basie and that was my first education into this style of music. Now, you can imagine when I was ten years old, this sort of chubby ginger kid that listened to Glenn Miller, that I was Mr Popular at school That was my first introduction into that style of music. When I was around 15 or 16, my piano teacher, who was like my other grandad, gave me a CD of the greatest boogie piano players and that changed my direction. It took me down the Errol Garner route and then led-on into Oscar Peterson. There was a constant progression, which is now why I find it so difficult to categorise what I do as a piano player, because there are so many different influences.

AR: I had a great chat to Ben Waters just before lockdown, when we was doing all that stuff with Ronnie Wood. You performed with him at the Boisedale club in Canary Wharf at one of Jools' events.

TS: Yes, I've played with Ben a few times when I did the Jools Holland nights. Every year, Jools puts on a night called the Boogie-Woogie and Blues spectacular and he invites what he calls some of his favourite players, so it's nice to be on that list. It includes some amazing piano players, like Ben Waters, Ladiva, Neville Dickie, Axel Schwingenberger - the best name in boogie piano by the way - and some ginger kid from Crewe, so it's nice to be asked.

AR: the other thing that I remarked from watching your videos, is the strength of your voice, which is in contrast to many instrumentalists, great players, but only with passable vocal skills. For me, your voice has really well bedded-in. There's a real richness to it. When did you discover that you could sing like that ?

TS: Thanks. It's always a weird one for me. I always think "what am I? Am I a piano player a singer, a piano player that sings, a singer that plays the piano?" I still don't know the answer to that, but I know that when I got to about eighteen, I thought, I'm going to have to learn to sing to make me more sellable to make me a double-threat. If you can play the piano, fine. But if you can play the piano and sing, then you become twice as employable. It was purely a decision of "I should probably sing" so that people will book me. Obviously, for the first three to six years of my career, I probably wasn't a great singer, but I feel like in the past year or so that it's clicked and I've finally found my voice, I'm not trying to copy anyone. I'm not trying to sing with this fake American accent, because I want to be Michael Bublé. I think that I've finally embraced what I do. I kind of feel that it's become one, it's the combination of piano and voice that really defines me. I like that, it's a nice discovery to have made.

AR: With your growing profile, are your finding it easier to call upon people with whom you've played alongside in the past ? If you look at your website, there's some great names on there, including Gregory Porter and Jamie Cullum, amongst others.

TS: Yes, I get to sit and play with my heroes and that's incredible for me. My Gregory Porter story was at the Cheltenham Jazz festival a couple of years ago. I tried to get tickets for a gig called 'Gregory Porter and Friends' and it went on sale at 10 o'clock on a Friday morning. I phoned up and it had already sold out. So, I was really disappointed, but as I was playing at the festival, I was going enjoy the weekend in town anyway. However, a few weeks before it started, I got a phone call from the director of the festival. "Tom, I'd like you to be one of Gregory's friends". So I got to sit alongside Gregory for three and half minutes, which was incredible. Since then he's gone on to be this worldwide star. I've not seen him or done anything with him in the past few years. Hopefully when he comes back to the UK next year, we'll to get together and do something. Like you say, I also got to sit next to Jamie Cullum, which was cool. Most of all, my hero is Jools Holland. The fact that I keep get invited back, a couple of times a year, to play with him at his Boisedale Boogie-Woogie nights is just a dream come true for me.

AR: In each episode of your "In Isolation" show, every video seems to feature a different set of musicians. One that I spotted was Jim Kirkpatrick, whom I know from various rock bands including FM and Bernie Marsden. So, how did you get to know Jim ?

TS: We live about five minutes away from each other, so when I first started gigging in the local pubs around Crewe, Jim was doing the same. Naturally, you just meet people on the circuit, but I didn't really realise just how high-profile Jim was at that point. Playing with people like Bernie Marsden and Brian May and then all of a sudden he's touring the world with the rock band 'FM'. It was great, we just stayed in touch. He's a couple of years older than me. He's always giving me advice and helped me on certain decisions. He's always just been there to look up to and, as you know, he's an incredible player.

(NOTE: Jim has just released his second solo album ‘Ballad Of A Prodigal Son’ on US One Records. He performed the title track during his guest appearance on Episode 5 of the Tom Seals Show ‘In Isolation’), aided and abetted by the show’s host on vocals and piano).

AR: Go on and give us an example of one of the worldly-wise pieces of wisdom that you've received from Jim ?

TS: Probably who not to work with, I guess. For example, when I did my first ever recording I didn't have any management or any representation, I was doing it all myself. As a young musician, you get these offers and you think they're all amazing. You need someone with that older, wiser more level head that can say: "Tom, that's not a good decision to do that." So, I went to Jim and said I've been offered this, what do you think ? He said: "that one's good, that one's OK, don't do that thing." He's always been there as someone that I can just ask advice and that's really nice.

AR: In the present climate, things are rather open-ended and uncertain. How well have you been able to adapt your plans ?

TS: When the government said that we could only have six people in the garden, I really wanted to have a brass section on one of the live episodes that we've been doing in the garden, but I could I do that, when I've already got four in my band, plus two camera men? So what we did is that we put the brass section at the front of the house with their own camera and their own monitor. So, me and the rhythm section we were in the back and the virtual brass section were on the front. Luckily it worked. Talking about what's coming up, we've got some great offers of various really exciting things. One of those is to release an album. Now, I have written my own material in the past, but maybe due to lack of confidence or lack of practice, I don't know, it's not a process I necessarily enjoy. I don't sit down at the piano and write my own material for fun. Just for what ever reasons, I don't know. I've been hooked up with a team in New York, including a great songwriter called Barry Eastmond (https://barryeastmond.com) with his 65m record sales, which isn't too shabby. So me, Barry and Jolyon Skinner are meeting weekly on Zoom and we're writing tunes for my album which we're hoping to record soon. I don't know if I'll be going out to New York to record it or if Barry will come over here. As soon as we can, we're going to get together and record what will be my first album, which is really exciting, especially as it will include my own original material of which I'm very proud. I'm really looking forward to that.

AR: As a precursor to that are there any songs or performances that you would guide people towards. What would you recommend for people to listen, to get a taste of Tom, a sample of Seals.

TS: We've done the Tom Seals Show "in isolation" series, are all online, so now we're moving on. The next thing that's coming up, in the next few months, is original material, which I'm hoping to feature in preparation for the album next year. So what I would say, is bear with me. If you want to hear new music, please stick with me. We will be filming more Tom Seals Shows, which should feature some new original songs. Bear with me - if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it properly. Come with me on this little journey, follow me online. Type in my name, tomseals, one word, and you'll find me.

AR: In terms of your vision as an artist is there a sound or a style that you're gravitating towards, now that you've done these festivals and shows ?

TS: If you can let me know what get's play-listed on Radio 2 that would be sound we're going for. Who knows? My style is such a mixture and I'm so lucky to have this incredible band behind me. They all bring their own influences as well. Bjorn Woodhall, who's playing guitar with me, did two world tours with Bruno Mars, so he's bringing in that funk-soul guitar. Then, we've got Joel Barford on drums, who is a real out-and-out jazzer. He's bringing this incredible jazz flavour, which I wouldn't naturally gravitate towards. So I think we've got a real mixture in the band, which is nice because it helps us come up with something new. I always like it when people say to me after a show. Oh, I didn’t realise that I liked jazz, I didn’t realise that I liked blues, but I liked you. That's really nice, we're trying to come up with a new style of piano-driven music that's feel-good. It's not alienating people that think: "I don't like jazz, blues or boogie-woogie", because it's not that. I'm trying to take all of it, but soulful with a nice familiarity that hopefully gives my music a nice broad appeal.

AR: As I'm sure you're aware, other have remarked on some similarities with Elton John, from your look and everything else. What did he mean to you growing-up ?

TS: It's a little bit funny with Elton really. Because of the obvious similarity, I always avoided it. I always put that barrier up of "no, don't come near me with that Elton John thing". I don't know why. Maybe it was a defensive thing. I didn't want to be coined as Elton John or 'Elton Tom', which they used to call me. I naturally put up this real barrier. I'd say "No, I'm not playing Elton songs, I've got nothing to do with him". But then, a couple of years ago I got invited to an Elton John gig and I went backstage. I didn't get to meet him, unfortunately, but for the first time ever I just realised, and I know this sounds ridiculous, how incredible he is. I think that because I'd always blocked it, I never listened to him, never played him, never had anything to do with it. Then, I opened my eyes and ears and went: "he's a genius". I don't do any Elton John in the set now, but I've certainly accepted it a bit more.

AR: I'm really looking forward to your career taking off with being your own rocket man with your own style and trajectory.

TS: I hope people stay in touch over the next few months. For the Tom Seals Show, we've got some really exciting news we've just been offered a pilot, which will be going out on Sky and Freeview. We're filming it very soon. Hopefully, it will be out within a few months. So, if anyone wants to stay in touch, come and follow me:

Social Media:

Single (2020) - ‘Black coffee’:

Live EP (2017): ‘Where I’m at’

Live shows:

Tom Seals Show - In Isolation (highlights):

Tom Seals Show - In Isolation (full episodes):

Andy Rawlltom seals, boogie, woogie, jools holland, gregory porter, jamie cullum, kt tunstall, matt lucas, dean friedman, andy rawll, interview, decibel report, in isolation, ronnie scott's, ronnie scotts, boisedale, ben waters, black coffee, crewe, jim kirkpatrick