American Songwriter – Icons: Dave Stewart
By Paul Zollo January 9th, 2012
Meeting with Dave Stewart at his Hollywood dream factor is a dizzying experience, not unlike what one imagines visiting Warhol’s factory was like in the day, minus the zombies and cocaine. There’s a whole lot of people in a unified space doing a whole lot of art all the time. To Dave, it’s more Wonka than Warhol, “except instead of candy we make ideas.”
A lot of ideas. The Dave engine, which sprawls over two stories above Hollywood & Vine, goes 24-7, sparking always in many directions at once: besides his myriad musical projects as artist, songwriter and/or producer (including his glorious recent solo album The Blackbird Diaries and his most recent supergroup Superheavy, which includes bandmates Mick Jagger, Joss Stone, A.R. Rahman and Damian Marley), there’s films (he films everything always), books, TV shows, photographs and always more. Dave’s staff is forever editing and mixing and working away to his instructions, though remarkably agile when it comes to showing a visitor a film of Dave and Shakira dancing in a barn, or soloing Stevie Wonder’s miraculous harmonica solo on The Eurythmics’ “Here Comes The Rain Again.”
He’s the great collaborator. Most famous of course for the Eurythmics, his collaboration with Annie Lennox, his genius is for humbly standing behind the singer – whether it’s Annie or Mick or Tom Petty (they concocted “Don’t Come Around Here No More”) or any of the other stars with whom he’s written songs (such as Bono, Dylan, Bryan Ferry, Stevie Nicks and Sinead O’Connor), and making them shine. “There’s only two kinds of people,” his mother told him. “There are drains and radiators. People who drag you down and people who spark you up.” Without a doubt, Dave Stewart is a radiator. He brings out what is essential and best about an artist, whether it’s Dylan, Petty or Jagger.
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