Real Audio Samples:
An Excerpt:
Q: Is jazz your favourite type of music?
While I was growing up, I listened to jazz around my house 24 hours a day. I had a good feel for it and I was content just to listen to it because some of it was kinda deep. I played R & B for a very long time and my father had always told me to sing older tunes and the way that you sing will make you successful. I just ignored him and ignored him...
Corey on his musical transition from jazz to soul:
I made a big transition because I prefer to play songs from Arthur Prysock, Billy Eckstine, and you know those guys in the 30s. I feel more relaxed, I have more control and there's things that I can do with my voice that show my technical ability as well as my voice.
Q: What instruments did you play?
I played trumpet...it was my first instrument when I was eight years old. I sort of mastered it to a degree. I ended up playing in the high school senior jazz band and the junior high jazz band and before long the instructors advanced me into the high school jazz band as playing first trumpet. I played that for, I guess, eight years and travelled with a disco band playing all over Nova Scotia and I then picked up the saxophone and played along side my dad for a few years. I played alto saxophone while my dad played tenor saxophone in a nice R & B band.
Corey on his Dad:
My dad's in Halifax, Nova Scotia...right now he's performing regularly, voluntarily at an old folks home. Me and my dad, we're like brothers, he thinks I'm the oldest one, he thinks I'm the old guy, but we're like friends first and then we're, well, he's father and me son, but we're like brothers.
Q: Did your dad teach you to play the saxophone?
Well basically, just listening to my father everyday practicing and when I didn't have a saxophone, I would kinda sneak his saxophone when he left the house.
Corey on his music:
I do more covers, but I have a lot of songs that I have written that I have not had the opportunity to bring to the surface, but I'm doing a lot of writing now. My moods, the sun, the moon, the birds that inspire me to write and the way I feel at the moment.
On his musical influences:
In my teens, it was Lou Rawls, and its still Lou Rawls. Reaching back, Billy Eckstine, Arthur Prysock, Joe Williams...these guys are my idols cause when they sang, just the lyrics alone you could find yourself right in the picture because I guess a lot of people experience different love stories, and what have you, and those guys are my idols.
Q: How do you go about writing your lyrics?
Sometimes I just sit here and just write titles. Like I'll write a title and then I'll just put it on the shelf and I'll maybe write twenty titles and in a month, when I'm not doing anything, I'll look at the titles and I'll pick one and then I'll just take it from there...sometimes I'm writing and I can't stop writing then I'll take a small recorder and I'll sing. And I'll play it back and I'll try to get a feel for it. I'll leave it alone for a few weeks and when I press that recorder again and it catches me, that's when I know that this is the song I'm gonna write.
On his band:
I'm still experimenting, I'm looking forward to playing with guys who can more or less throw away the sheet music and go into the inner parts of their souls and reach out...I'm kinda looking for guys that have contact body and soul musically as opposed to reading charts or whatever, they both work.
Q: Of all the things you do, which do you enjoy the most?
I can say I enjoy singing, my voice is my instrument. I tend to experiment with different ranges and stuff like that. I would say singing because I know how to control it; other than that if I get on a saxophone or trumpet, I let my fingers take me to where I want to go.
Q: Can you elaborate more on your most memorable experience at the CBC?
I can say that was my most memorable because I remember doing a live recording for the CBC back in 1987. It was them that I realized that, hey, you know I'm doing a live recording and I'm going to be national on the radio. So I really dug down deep into my full potential to try to bring out the best in myself. It was then that I realized that I had a nice bassy baritone voice that could perhaps give people a good earful.