With the recent passing of Lynyrd Skynyrd bassist and Evanscapps guitarist Ean Evans, we not only lost a great musician but a down to earth person as well. I've set this blog up as not only a tribute to him, but as a vehicle to help keep his music alive for a long time to come. With that in mind, on May 12 Rock Ridge Music will re-release the Evanscapps disc THE LAST TIME. I highly recommend anyone out there go snag yourself a copy. I had the pleasure of getting to know Ean quite well over the last few years - pretty much staying in touch every few weeks ever since 2005. I accumulated some interview tape on him when the Evanscapps release was originally released back in 2005. Some of which, I'm going to post below...it's all Ean...and it's all his own words. I've left out any questions I asked...so what you'll read below is kind of like Ean telling you his story about the Evanscapps release and a few other associated things as well. I hope you enjoy it.
On a side note...there were many, many things that Ean and myself had discussions on ranging from personal things to business dealings and all points in between. To tell you what kind of person Ean was...both Ean and his wife did a school project for my daughter that was somewhat time consuming and had some leg work involved. I don't know how many busy musicians out there would take time out of their personal life to work on a school project for a first grader. But, without hesitation, Ean took on the project. That's how he was.
On the music side of things...He would be in his studio at home and he would let me here rough tracks of songs here and there and I would bounce feedback back to him. I'll miss that. He has a large collection of music that spans pretty much every genre....except rap! lol One thing Ean had told me awhile back was his desire to create a cd under the alias of Uncle Wayne - as he had a large archive of songs he created and he was planning on "dusting off" some of them. I'm not sure if he ever discussed this idea with anyone else, but the plan was for him to play all the instruments on it and create different "characters" if you will...one "character" would be Ean playing bass but with short hair. Another might have been him wearing a cowboy hat with sunglasses on - Ean didn't want people to know it was him that was behind the recordings. This was music that was a little outside of the box style wise for Evanscapps. Maybe someday someone will go through his catalog and release these tunes. There's some good songs there.
When the Evanscapps release came out, we tried real hard to give it the push it deserved. Ean and Bobby Capps did a feature cover story for Rhythm, Art, and Groove magazine, which RAG writer Andy Herron conducted. Hopefully, we can get that up here as well. They did interviews with my good friends Chris Aiken and Neeley on the Classic Metal Show and they did interviews with the Stickman on 107.5 The Fox out of Jefferson/Ashtabula, Ohio. Maybe we can get some of this footage up at some point as well to help push the re-release of their great Evanscapps release.
I'm not too good at writing memorials...so with that, I say rest well my friend and keep rocking up there in heaven. I know you're looking down with your fist in the air and smile from ear to ear. We'll keep your music alive.
With that...here's Ean talking about Evanscapps - THE LAST TIME.
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