#james wilsey

[contac]

James Wilsey and his MIDI guitar rig, ca. 1988.

[thesunlounge]

Faint Waves - Mirage (from Hideaways III, Self-Released 2020)

[stularsen]

This guy is one of my favourites from the Chicago Song video, out soon thanks to Naknek Design! iamjordanlynn.com captured a real moment here!! Look at those eyes... they tell a thousands stories. ps Portland tonight at Doug Fir Lounge! thanks to all in Seattle who came to hang out with Adam Burrows and myself last night :) 

[musicandsexandart]

James Wilsey, Chris Isaac’s lead guitarist for many years, wrote the song’s haunting, opening riff. One of my favorite instrumental albums is his album from 2008 called El Dorado. 

[cavegirl66]

:::: JAMES WILSEY ::::

Instr.Surf Rock

[cavegirl66]

(James Wilsey)

°°° James Wilsey °°° ° Rattler ° Instrumental guitar desert rock

[cavegirl66]

°°° James Wilsey °°° ° City of Broken Dolls ° Instrumental guitar desert rock

[wicked-things]

Wicked Wednesday

step one: get a good song ...and recognize it                                                 . 

Chris Isaak has been in business for a while but was only noticed by a few before "Wicked Game" became a hugh sucess. Not even with his third album "Heart Sheped World" that first includes the song he could make it to a big breakthrough. The song itself was highly underrated by everybody then, not only the band and Isaak himself didn't pay a lot of attention to the song at all, nor had anybody thoughts of releasing it as a single track. James Wilsey, former lead guitarist at that time later stated in several interviews "It was a pretty song, but we just considered it a nice ballad for the album. Nobody picked that as a ‘single’". Also the audience wasn't keen to hear "Wicked Game" as Wilsey remembered when discovering old band recordings: "I just came across a bunch of live footage from the 1989 tour when we were supporting the "Heart Shaped World" album, but “Wicked Game” wasn’t a hit. That really struck me and I hadn’t seen it for years. ...Those moments where we start off playing “Wicked Game,” and I play the first two notes and nobody claps — it liked shocked me because, after playing it on the other tour, it was like people hear those first two notes anywhere in the world and they can identify the song and everybody claps."

Some live bootlegs can give you an impression on that, sometimes "Wicked Game" isn't even on the set list.

A year after its first release "Wicked Game"'s instrumental theme has found his place in one of the key scenes of "Wild at Heart", a road movie about a strange couple in love starring Nicolas Cage was shown in Cannes for the first time and won the main price, the golden palm of the critics. The film got a lot of attention then and "Wicked Game" finally got recognized and made it to the radio. A single release accompanied by a promotion clip using movie footage along with mostly black and white band shots followed but mostly failed. The song hit the charts all over the world when the single was rerelease and supported by a new video directed by Herb Ritts and featuring the model Helena Christensen. 

In Nov. '90 "Wicked Game" entered the UK Single Charts and peaked at # 10. The UK Charts position provided the stage this song needed and was then picked by radio DJs everywhere.

In Dec. '90 the US Charts followed with a # 6 peak position and in Feb. '91 the German charts also picked up the hit single and lifted "Wicked Game" in the top 10 at position # 9.

The list is a follows:

> # 1 in Belgium

> # 3 in Sweden

> # 5 in Netherland

> # 6 in USA Hot 100

(# 2 Modern Rock / # 10 Mainstream Rock / # 12 Adult Contemporary)

> # 7 in New Zealand

> # 9 in Germany

> # 10 in UK

> # 10 Ireland

> # 15 in Australia

> # 42 in France

On the back of its worldwide success an album with the same title was released and is often mistaken as an original album featuring this single hit, but in fact is a compilation put together with a selection of tracks from the first three longplayer Chris Isaak has released before.