Video: Grand Canyon, ‘Standing in the Shadows’

Kevin Bronson on January 16th, 2019

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If you do a deep dive into the resumés of the members of Grand Canyon, the L.A. folk-rockers qualify as a supergroup, even if not one of them is a household name. They have been side players and/or session musicians for a freeway full of artists in a wide array of genres, and on the sextet’s debut album, “Le Grand Cañon,” they find a sweet spot in harmony-rich and richly narrative classic rock, 1970s style.

The touchstones here are the likes of Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, Fleetwood Mac and even Warren Zevon, but Grand Canyon’s style is not so much a nostalgia trip as it is a natural vehicle for their big-hearted stories. The band, fronted by singer-guitarist Casey Shea and vocalist Amy Wilcox and featuring songwriting by Shea and guitarist Joe Guese, finds plenty of topical currency on “Le Grand Cañon,” whether in “Lucinda” and “Theory of Everything” (the emotional ballads that bookend the album), “Made in LA” (a tale of drugs and the Valley) or the Petty-esque open-road rocker “Standing in the Shadows.”

The video for the latter song is a simple, vintage affair featuring Shea, Wilcox and Guese along with keyboardist-singer Darice Bailey, bassist Jon Cornell and drummer Fitz Harris doing their thing in the studio. Even lyrically, the song is evidence that the ’70s could be now: “I’m telling you man there must be some conspiracy / The Pentagon, the Kremlin, it’s all the same don’t you see?” Shea sings. The album may bring members of Grand Canyon out of the shadows, but other still lurk there.

||| Watch: The video for “Standing in the Shadows”