Larry Heath catches up with emerging UK folk singer Bobby Long, while at the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival 2011.
The line up for the Austin City Limits Festival has been unveiled revealing more than one artist that has appeared on the Twilight soundtracks.to read to whole article... Groove Volt.
Bobby Long will perform along with Cee Lo Green and Iron and Wine. The festival will take place September 16th through September 18th at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas.
While Bobby Long was at university in London, he fell in with a group of musicians that included Robert Pattinson, future star of the "Twilight" films. "Let Me Sign," a song Mr. Long co-wrote and said he performed only once in public, was sung by Mr. Pattinson in the first "Twilight" installment with all the intensity of Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks."
There are worse ways to launch your career, but Mr. Long all but disavows the song. "It's not really who I am and what I'm doing now," he said when we met one recent frigid morning at the Cake Shop, a club here on the Lower East Side a short walk from his apartment.
Now 24 years old and attractive in that carefully tousled way, Mr. Long has a level of natural charisma he augments with a drive toward his vision of success. With his mind on the long term, he isn't looking for the quickest way to his goal. On Tuesday, Mr. Long releases "A Winter Tale" (ATO), a spirited, thoroughly enjoyable folk-blues collection featuring his gritty singing and well-crafted songs. Though it has more than enough spark to find an audience, the album announces that a promising talent has arrived and suggests he will have much more to say.
Taught the rudiments of folk and blues guitar by his father, Mr. Long cut his teeth at countless "open-mic" nights in London. Those events could be a drag, he recalled; since anyone could take the stage and play a tune, the environment was polluted with people who were more interested in applause than artistry and improvement.
"I didn't like the competitive nature of it," he said. "Everyone's a threat to each other—so you have to play for yourself. Do it for the songs."
With his confidence and competence growing, Mr. Long recorded his first solo album in his bedroom, then set out for the U.S. in 2009 to tour behind it. He became a web phenomenon when his MySpace page tallied some two million hits, many of which came, no doubt, from "Twilight" fans. After he played about 150 shows, a gig in Los Angeles brought him to the attention of ATO Records, the label co-founded by Dave Matthews. Liam Watson, who worked with the White Stripes and Tame Impala, was brought in to oversee Mr. Long's proper debut.
from EW.com ...
Long is a shy, serious Brit who should appeal to fans of John Mayer and Mumford & Sons. A Winter Tale's lyrics can tend toward the impenetrable, but his old-before-his-time romanticism and strong rasp are real draws. White Stripes producer Liam Watson sometimes frames the folkiness with a scorching full band and sometimes lets Long’s acoustic mystery be.
Bobby Long says how Robert Pattinson did a good job on "Let Me Sign" and how he was sharing his good fortune with his friends
around: 5:58...
"J'ai rencontré mon ami Rob qui lui aussi est un musicien. Il faisait partie de ce petit groupe d'amis et musiciens à la fois. Je suis devenu ami avec eux et pour la 1ère fois, je me suis fait des amis par moi même. Rob a fini par être un acteur. Il a co-écrit cette chanson et il a fini par montrer cette chanson aux producteurs du film. Et je me suis dit "Oh Génial, ça va être cool. N'y pense même pas". Mais d'un côté c'était bien plus gros que je ne l'avais imaginé. Le film était Twilight est... (rires). C'est assez ridicule. Et j'ai eu d'un seul coup 2000 amis sur myspace et chaque jour ça prenait de l'ampleur. J'étais un musicien, je n'avais pas de maison de disques à Londres et je ne parviens toujours pas à comprendre comment je me suis retrouvé sous les feux des projecteurs à cette époque. On me demandait de venir en Amérique (au Kentucky), au Cananda, etc... Je pense que c'était leur façon de tout savoir sur le film. Et les choses se sont amplifiées et j'ai pu faire tous ces shows. Ca a explosé et je suis partie à NY, LA et Nashville et tous les shows se faisaient à guichets fermés, c'était de la folie. Je suis revenu et j'ai fait une tournée de 2 mois. Tout à coup en revenant en Angleterre, j'ai eu des tournées de quelques mois de nouveau aux USA. Je suis rentré épuisé à Londres et j'ai ensuite enregistré mon album".
Il parle ensuite de l'enregistrement de son album.
