For the better part of two decades, Rob McNelley has been a go-to guitar guy in Music Row’s studios, and his popularity as a leading session man only continues to grow. While his real breakthrough may have been working with Lady A early in their career, these days he continues to lend his guitar work to albums by Jon Pardi, Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton and other A-listers.
But where many studio cats don’t spend much time playing live, McNelley cut his teeth on the stage, playing for years for Texas bluesman Delbert McClinton before becoming Bob Seger’s road guitarist for the past decade or longer. What so many don’t know about McNelley is that he is an accomplished singer/songwriter in his own right, and he’s now making us aware of that fact with the release of two new singles, “Circus Is Leaving Town” and “Right Back to You.”
Co-written with Ben Daniel (Jake Owen, Josh Turner), “Right Back to You” is almost an ‘80s power-pop performance ala Bryan Adams or Jude Cole, and while McNelley is best-known in country session circles, the song more accurately reflects his years playing with blues and rock artists. He said that in addition to “Right Back to You” and the Joe Walsh-ish “Circus Is Leaving Town,” more songs will be released soon, as he has a stash that has been on the back burner for years.
“Things are coming out a song at a time right now,” he said. “I guess I’ve got probably two EPs worth of stuff that’s ready, I’ve just always done that on the side. I’ve always written and recorded here and there. I write a lot by myself, there’s very few people that I write with. I have written a lot with Ben, but they’ve all been country things that I probably wouldn’t cut for myself. ‘Right Back to You’ just happened to be an idea that was a little more fitted to what I would do. We did it over a weekend over at Dan Auerbach’s (the Black Keys) Easy Eye Sound studio.” He produced the track with fellow session player and pedal steel guitar innovator Russ Pahl (Elton John, Luke Bryan).
McNelley has a broad appreciation of all musical styles, and is a bit of music historian, as a well-rounded session player needs to be. “I think that anybody who wants to become a session player listens to a wide range of music,” he said. “As a singer, I’ve always been into blues singers and soul singers, but I love the Beatles’ sense of melody and the way John Lennon would sing. I don’t sing like these people, but I’ve always gravitated towards the way Keith Richards or Tom Waits would sing. I don’t have that kind of character to my voice, but I like their sense of phrasing, I like their sense of space. I find that I love people like Otis Redding who leave space. And Delbert is definitely in that category. When you stand next to him on stage for eight years, some of that soaks in. He’s the master at it.”
When it comes to writing and song construction, McNelley said his influences are “all over the place. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones are kind of ground zero for me. And I remember the first time I heard ‘Refugee’ by Tom Petty on the radio, it just stopped me cold. I was seven years old or something, but I remember that song came on the radio and I wanted to know who it was. I remember when Stevie Wonder’s ‘Sir Duke’ came on the radio. Subconsciously, I never thought about the playing of the songs, I always thought about how good the songs were, and how good the words were, the melody, all that stuff. And country music was on all the time at the house. Just a bunch of different influences.”
You can follow McNelley at the usual social media sites.
Be the first to comment