Lee DeWyze performs "Predicament"

Video for the the Lee DeWyze song "Predicament" off his album "So I'm Told"

Lee DeWyze - "Predicament" Video

American Idol winner Lee DeWyze in the video for "Predicament," off the 2007 Wuli Records release "So I'm Told."

Music Review: Lee DeWyze - Slumberland

Music Review: Lee DeWyze - Slumberland

Who says a sophomore album has to be a bad one? Listening to Slumberland, the second album from 2010 American Idol winner Lee DeWyze, is a great musical experience from the first song to the last.

DeWyze's debut album, So I'm Told, was originally released in 2007, and now he's come out with Slumberland, which was released in January 2010. Since his first album there has come a good bit of refinement and richness in the instrumentals and vocals of his music.

DeWyze wrote and performed all of the songs featured on this album, but had some outside help from Ryan McGuire with production, drums, and percussion lines, and Louis Svitek on guitars and sitar. Both men are well known for their musical work and, from the sound of the album, DeWyze made a great choice bringing them onto this project.

"Annabelle," is quite possibly my favorite song on Slumberland.> The beautiful sound of the sitar leads the song and the famous, raspy, full voice of Lee DeWyze follows and pours out on listeners. You can hear the amazing control and sweet power in his notes as he sings about trying to keep "Annabelle," through life's hardships. With talent like this it's no wonder he won the title of American Idol.

Although DeWyze's voice has similarities to John Mayer, Dave Matthews, and Jack Johnson, his vocals in Slumberland give him an originality that does make him stand out as a recording artist, something I'm afraid his first album didn't accomplish for me.

I hate to compare but, through songs like "Another Sleep Song" and "All Fall Down," Lee DeWyze shows an amazing progression and transformation from his debut album. From 2007 to current day, DeWyze has gained a confidence in his vocal abilities that comes forth in his talent. The production on this album is also very professional and makes the difference that DeWyze needed as an artist.

On both albums the lyrics are truly outstanding, and there's no doubt that DeWyze puts great thought into his songs and their meanings. From cheating to alcohol abuse, and of course love and relationships, Lee covers real-life issues without being too gritty but at the same time not candy coating anything.

Slumberland is an album I can listen to over and over again. I enjoyed all 10 songs by Lee DeWyze and am looking forward to seeing what this new Idol winner has in store for us next. Fortunately for his fans, he has two great albums under his belt for their listening pleasure. I encourage Lee DeWyze fans to purchase this album for their collection.

ANNABELLE

Lee Dewyze’s “Slumberland” reaches #17 on Billboard Top Heatseekers Chart

Lee Dewyze’s “Slumberland” reaches #17 on Billboard Top Heatseekers Chart

American Idol continues to impact Billboard charts.

The "American Idol Season 9" soundtrack marks the ninth compilation from the series to reach the Billboard 200. Such collections were released each year from 2002 through 2006, followed by a two-year break before returning last year:

The new soundtrack isn't the only album debuting this week featuring one of the current "American Idol" top two finalists.

Lee DeWyze bows on Heatseekers Albums at No. 32 with "Slumberland." His second album, released on the independent WuLi Records label, features the singer/songwriter's now-familiar acoustic-rock stylings. In addition to this great chart position, "So I’m Told" (2007) is at #24 on the iTunes Top 100 Pop USA Album Chart!

The notable records, "Slumberland" and "So I’m Told", feature producer Ryan McGuire and guitarist extraordinaire, Louis Svitek, well known for his work with Ministry, M.O.D. and Mind Funk. The collaboration is an evocative, haunting mix of multi-instrumental, multi-faceted songs whose artistry draws comparison to Jack Johnson and Chris Martin of Coldplay.

Billboard chart manager Alex Vitoulis notes that DeWyze is the first "American Idol" contestant to reach a Billboard chart as a solo artist while competing on the show. (2008 hopeful Carly Smithson had spent a week on Hot Singles Sales, billed by her maiden name Carly Hennessy, in 2003. She now fronts the alternative/metal band We Are the Fallen, which, coincidentally, enters the Billboard 200 this week at No. 33 with its debut album, "Tear the World Down").

source:hollywoodnews/billboard

Lee DeWyze's Early Albums: A Boy and His Guitar Grow Up

Pre-American Idol work displays singer/songwriter's progress, in Bigger Than the Sound.
By James Montgomery

Late last week, I received a package from something called Wuli Records, a vaguely mysterious-sounding Chicago label with a fancy dragon logo. Intrigued — since, you know, I love dragons — I opened it, and out fell a pair of CDs from a singer/songwriter named Lee DeWyze. I have never heard of him, but I decided to give them a listen, since he looked like a nice guy in the press photo. I guess I had a few hours to kill or something.

Of course, the second-half of that paragraph isn't exactly true (since, you know, DeWyze is probably going to win "American Idol," a show watched by some 20 million people every week, myself included), but I decided to pretend like it was, for one day at least. Erasing everything I know about him from my memory (which isn't all that much — didn't he work in a paint store or something?), I sat down and listened to DeWyze's first two albums. After all, before he was a front-runner on America's favorite singing competition, he was just another kid with an acoustic guitar, a batch of songs and a dream of making it big. I suppose it was my way of trying to get to know him better or at least trying to latch on to this fairly nebulous thing his fans keep e-mailing me about. What can I say? I guess I had a few hours to kill or something.

So, ignore everything I just wrote. Let's talk about this DeWyze kid — he could be big someday, or at least have a song or two on adult-contemporary radio, provided he works hard enough.

His first album — which, conveniently enough, came bundled with a huge sticker declaring it "The Debut Album From Lee DeWyze" — is called So I'm Told, and it's very much a first album. Released in 2007 and produced by Ryan T. McGuire (who, Wikipedia tells me, is/was a member of the Virginia Gentlemen, "the oldest a cappella group at the University of Virginia"), it's basically 11 gently strummed acoustic numbers, with DeWyze singing like a mushier-mouthed Dave Matthews (particularly on the song "Love and Misery"). None of it is particularly grabbing, though it bears mention that the silly wah-wah guitar frippery on "Red Rover" manages to get a rise (it also sounds a whole lot like Edie Brickell & New Bohemians' "What I Am"), and DeWyze's duet with an unnamed female singer (looking at the back of the album for a name, perhaps it's "Erin McGuire," who's credited as an "Additional Recording Engineer") on "The Problem Is You" is genuinely pretty. The problem here is, DeWyze doesn't show anything special. Sure, his voice is nice enough, and he's a perfectly serviceable player, but he doesn't do much to distance himself from the 10 bazillion dudes who do this same kind of thing every Tuesday at open-mic night. Oh, and the album artwork is kind of boring too.

It's on DeWyze's second album — or, as the sticker on the front puts it, "The New Album" — Slumberland where he really shows signs of distancing himself from the pack. Released in 2009, it's proof that DeWyze has been practicing and growing as a musician and songwriter. Opening with "So What Now" — a hushed, dreamlike number featuring a humming, backtracked guitar bit, rattling tabla and a sitar (!) — the album rolls right into the strummy, feedback-laced "All Fall Down" and then a roiling slide-guitar tune called "Annabelle," each showcasing his newfound sorta-growl and swampy, sweaty phrasing techniques. There's a cocksure swagger here, and yes, DeWyze still sounds a lot like Matthews, but he's also coming into his own. I could see him winning a televised singing competition someday.

Thematically, as the title implies, Slumberland seems to be loosely based on the concept of sleep, or at least dreams. "Princess" opens with the line "Do you remember sleeping on the floor?" "Where You Lie" begins with "Under your bed, where you lie your head." And, shoot, there's a tune called "Another Sleep Song" on here too. Sonically, there's plenty of opaque, treated guitars, wooshing, windswept slide guitar, winsome strings and even some electronic beats. I'll go ahead and call it a concept album, because, hey, it's not like anyone is ever gonna hear it.

The point is, I would probably actually buy Slumberland. There's an admirable level of growth on display here, in just about every conceivable way — not to mention the level of ambition he shows by releasing what amounts to a conceptual piece. Even the artwork — a drawing of a tree — is much improved this time out.

I don't know what the future holds for DeWyze, but if the leap he made from one album to the next is any indication, things look bright indeed. Sure, he's still just a singer/songwriter (a genus I will freely admit to loathing), but there's something here, to be certain. Now, if only he could find some way to raise his profile. Then the sky would really be the limit.


*See previous Lee Dewyze Blog post to order Slumberland & So I'm Told on CD (the links above are for the MP3 format), as well as Square One, an album of children's songs!

Lee DeWyze Pre-Idol – The Making of ‘Annabelle’ – VIDEO

Lee DeWyze Pre-Idol – The Making of "Annabelle"
Author: mj

Lee DeWyze is constantly introduced as “the paint salesman” by Ryan Seacrest on Idol, but actually, Lee is no neophyte to the music business. He’s already got two albums under his belt–his debut, So I’m Told, and the recently released Slumberland. Both records were produced by Chicago indie label, Wuli records.

The label just released a new video of Lee recording the tune “Annabelle” from the 2009 album Slumberland. The song is a mournful acoustic ballad, and quite different than what we’ve heard from Lee on Idol so far.

Lee DeWyze Bandmates Watched 'American Idol' Finalist Become a Star

Ryan McGuire and Louis Svitek have played with Lee for more than six years. By Gil Kaufman

CHICAGO — Louis Svitek has seen plenty of rock and roll in his day. The music-industry veteran has played with hardcore bands such as M.O.D. and toured with industrial legends Ministry for more than a decade. But when a friend turned him on to an unknown, unassuming 17-year-old singer/songwriter named Lee DeWyze almost seven years go, Svitek took notice.

"Lee's got a great voice. I liked him. He was kind of shy, intimidated, nervous, and then when he sang it was just like ... I mean, he's got a fantastic voice," said Svitek, whose large presence, shoulder-length rocker hair, all-black ensemble and hardcore past seem to contrast with a gentle, soft-spoken spirit and admiration for DeWyze's mainstream pop/rock appeal. "I automatically saw that he had talent. And he starts singing all kinds of stuff and was nailing it. Lee's got that voice, and he can do just about anything and make it sound good."

Sitting in the production room at Chicago's Gravity Studios — where he was awaiting the final mix on "Princess (Reprise)," a new single he produced with business partner Ryan McGuire from an unused track recorded for DeWyze's second CD, January's Slumberland — Svitek and McGuire were happy to talk about their longtime bandmate and the first artist on their small indie label, Wuli Records, to hit the big time.

"I met Lee when he was 17 years old at a house party," said Svitek, who went on to play guitar in the Lee DeWyze Band right up until the singer left for "Idol" last winter. "A friend of mine was like, 'You really need to see Lee perform,' because I was already doing music and maybe I could do something and help him out and get [something] going."

The pair met, and when Svitek returned from a yearlong tour with Ministry, he began producing tracks for the teenage singer that would end up on 2007's So I'm Told, DeWyze's debut album and one of the first releases from the label he co-founded with drummer McGuire.

When the veteran musicians first got DeWyze into the studio, McGuire said the "Idol" finalist treated it like a "large lump of clay," and it wasn't long before Lee started asserting himself. "He wanted to do everything acoustic, just him, voice and guitar," McGuire said. "We kind of introduced him to loops, rhythms, drums, percussion and stuff, and he opened up to that." Svitek said the pair didn't really have to give DeWyze any direction, because the singer seemed like he already had a good idea of what he wanted to do.

Even more amazing, DeWyze had just picked up the guitar a few years earlier and, without any formal training, was already chopping out songs at a furious pace. "He would literally go outside and have a cigarette ... and come back and say, 'I just wrote a song,' " McGuire said. "And he'd play it, and then Louis would say the chord, and Lee would be like, 'No, I don't know what that is.' Till this day, he still does that."

With a love for sensitive singer/songwriters such as Dave Matthews and Cat Stevens, DeWyze definitely had a lane he was carving for himself, one that didn't seem to include "Idol." McGuire and Svitek stayed up late the night before last summer's Chicago "Idol" auditions, following a show with DeWyze, and they never imagined he'd end up where he is now. "He was going to do it for a couple of years, and he was just reluctant to [try out] and didn't want to go out and do the whole thing," said McGuire, who added that both men have repeatedly encouraged DeWyze to get a younger band because neither of the music vets are "spring chickens" anymore.

His baseball hat pulled down low over his eyes, McGuire leaned back in his chair at Gravity and smiled when asked to cough up a favorite Lee story as an example of whether Hollywood has gone to DeWyze's head. The tale happens to be a recent one, from a trip McGuire took out to Los Angeles to visit his friend in late April.

"He said, 'You're not going to pay for anything tonight,' " McGuire recalled. "We went out to a sushi restaurant, and then when he went to pay for it, he pulled out half a credit card, the bottom half with just the stripe, because he had sat on it and broke it. He pulled it out of his pants and gave it to the waitress. And I'm like, 'That's my guy Lee right there.' And of course, he's like, 'It works.' And it did work, so I don't think he's gone Hollywood yet. His clothing has changed a bit, but that's about it."

Though the judges have alluded to it at times on the show, one thing both men said most people don't know about Lee is that, despite his seemingly calm demeanor, he's a very, very nervous performer. "If he would come into this room right now and play in front of the six of us, he'd get nervous and probably have to go backstage and get his nerves and come back," said McGuire, who has seen DeWyze lose his lunch more than once before a show.

For now, both men are just watching "Idol" to see how Lee does and enjoying the healthy bump in sales for Slumberland and So I'm Told as a result of the exposure. "We have our hands full right now ... trying to get his product out there [and] making sure people hear what he's done before 'Idol,' because that's crucial," Svitek said. "That's his past, and that's definitely going to carry on to whatever he does on his third album."

How do you think Lee has grown on "American Idol"? Let us know in the comments.

source:mtv.com