Helen Herimbi
Tony DeSare swears he’s not a party-pooper. But after the American jazz singer tells me about a night out with friends, I’m inclined to not believe him. Kiss, a smooth Prince cover, appears on his compilation album, Chemistry, which follows three offerings: Want You, Last First Kiss and PiANO.
The idea to take on a Prince classic came during the aforementioned night out.
“I was in the process of gathering songs for my second album and had my ear open,” he starts. “I was living in Manhattan at the time and over there, there are bars that cater to college kids and play songs from the ’80s.
“ Kiss came on and I thought, ‘this is actually a blues song. It’s the structure of blues, but the only difference is it has a chorus, so why not turn it into a blues song?’ So I excused myself from the bar and went home.”
When I laugh about him ducking his friends for work, he sheepishly says: “When you get a song idea and are afraid you’re going to lose it, you do whatever it takes to get it down.”
This has been his approach with the many, many covers he’s performed as well as the music he has written. For the title track of his compilation album, DeSare, who sounds a bit Buble-ish, he dug into his memory archives and pulled out the two things that made him who he was as a kid.
“When I was in school, I was a geek,” he confesses. “I loved two things: music and science. So on this song, I decided to merge those two things and play on the idea of people who have sexual chemistry and are in the lab.”
He says he was inspired to write a song that had a Cole Porter kind of feel.
But with mash-ups that marry Pharrell’s Happy to Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry Be Happy, it’s hard to distinguish the cover-happy singer from the original writer.
“I like to offer a nice variety of everything,” he defends his stance. “Generally, my recordings are half new songs and then I like to pull from the great American Songbook for standards.”
He says songs that were recorded decades ago “have become a part of our culture so they are fair game for being classic pop. Even something like Pharrell’s Happy– we don’t know for sure if it’ll still be playing on radio in 30 years, but I’d like to venture that we will still hear it”. Probably more from cover artists than from the man himself.
DeSare sounds elated about Chemistry being released in South Africa and says: “I’m looking forward to visiting South Africa and to play for the audience there. I’m very excited and happy that people there are finally hearing me.”
l Tony DeSare’s Chemistry is in stores now.