Bill Leverty – Drive
Leverty Music
http://www.leverty.com/store-01.php

Rating: B+

Bill Leverty, most known as being the guitar slinger in FireHouse, has released a new album consisting of ten cover tunes that influenced Bill before he ever picked up a guitar.  While there are many of these inspirational and influential remake albums on the market, few deliver to the heights that Leverty has reached.  From start to finish, Bill has found ways to breathe new life into old songs and make them sound amazing.  This is not so much a covers album as it is a glimpse into the musical blueprint of the guitarist’s musical DNA. 

When asked if these songs were personal, Leverty replied, “Yes, they were all very personal. In choosing these songs to cover, each had to be a song that I loved before I started playing guitar, that I still love today, a song that hadn't been covered to death in the genre that I'm known, and a song that I thought that I could put my own spin on, while still staying true to the original recordings. That narrowed it down to these ten songs.”

Leverty proves he is much more than a ‘90’s guitar virtuoso from the Hair Band Era of hard rock.  His musical tastes are very deep, as this album shows.  From CCR’s “Fortunate Son,” to “Little Feat’s “Spanish Moon” to Stevie Wonder’s “Jesus Children of America” to the Ohio Player’s “Fire” to “Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Loose that Number,” Leverty succeeds in his mission. 

Drive is the prefect name for this collection for two reasons:  A) The album sounds great cranked up cruising down the road, and, B) The collection of tunes shows that Leverty continues to be driven to push his musical boundaries and add to his six string vocabulary.

This one is a winner.  Go to http://www.leverty.com/store-01.php and buy this one today!

By Jeb Wright