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July 17, 2010:
LEE "SHOT" WILLIAMS: I'm The Man For The Job (CDS) Three Stars *** Solid. The artist's fans will enjoy. Lee "Shot" Williams serves up a mixed bag on this, his 11th album in a long and distinguished (if largely unheralded) career as one of Southern Soul's foremost vocal interpreters.
Dependent upon other songwriters for his material, Lee "Shot" here selects songs from a varied list of composers including young Southern Soul artists Simeo, Eric Perkins and Charlie Brown, old-school crooner Lionel Ritchie and grizzled bluesman James Peterson.
The new album stakes a middle ground somewhere between the pitch-perfect Southern Soul of Lee "Shot's" last CD, Shot From The Soul, one of his very best, and the uneven efforts of some of his mid-aughts albums such as Nibble Man and Meat Man. The venerable Harrison Calloway shares producing duties with Eric Perkins (see Daddy B. Nice's Featured Artist: July 2010).
The album starts auspiciously with the title cut, "I'm The Man For The Job," an uptempo tune that careens ahead via a stinging guitar doing a telegraph-like, staccato riff that perfectly complements Lee "Shot's" wonderfully-seasoned vocal. His one-of-a-kind tenor sails above the rhythmic pulse with a verve as charismatic as anything he's ever recorded.
"Put your legs in my face," "Shot" yells plaintively in the chorus. "Put some hips right on my lips."
"753-L.O.V.E." slows it down a bit. The Eric Perkins tune plies a mid-tempo rhythm with an easy-going melody that is content to stay simple.
Both "I'm The Man For The Job" and "753-L.O.V.E." have the potential to be popular Southern Soul singles. "I'm The Man For The Job" was Daddy B. Nice's #2 "Breaking" Southern Soul Single for June 2010.
"Thirty Minutes," written by the usually avant-garde Simeo Overall in an uncharacteristically derivative exercise in the blues, begins the uneven portion of the CD. The chorus has a fifties-novelty feel and the vocal by Lee "Shot" is just workmanlike.
Similarly, "Yesterday I Fell In Love" has the sound of a retread, performed much better in former Lee "Shot" songs, "I'll Take The Risk" and "Make Me Holler."
Things take a turn for the better in "Welcome To The Club," although Williams' vocal seems to be huffing and puffing just to get back to a higher level. The song has a fairly worthy melody and an intriguing theme, a lonely-hearts club.
"Come on in," Lee "Shot" wails. "Welcome to the club. . . We've got every sad record / That you can think of." Producer Harrison Calloway gives the song a boost with one of his trademark, spirit-lifting horn sections.
"It Ain't Me No More" isn't memorable, but it's followed by a bluesy rendition of a Charlie Brown tune that made Daddy B. Nice's Top Ten Singles in May 2010, "Got A Good Woman," in which "Shot" ventures into B. B. King territory and triumphs with an authentic delivery. He sounds like he's singing through a broken bottle in a dark and twisted, sticky-countered, butts-on-the-floor dive.
"Got A Good Woman" showcases Lee "Shot" doing what he does best: infusing songs that in other singer's hands are merely imitative, transforming them through the unique passion of his voice and delivery into superlative music.
"Are You Leaving Me For Another Man" is a good but not great outing. It's just good enough to recall "Country Woman" or "Wrong Bed" from the "Shot From The Soul" album, but it never quite reaches the exquisite heights of those songs. And since those songs are the lofty standard by which we now judge Lee "Shot," "Are You Leaving Me For Another Man" sounds a little weak and anemic.
"It's Easy" is the undisputed clunker of the CD, in this reviewer's opinion. It sounds so "white," so bland. Even Lionel Ritchie's rendition sounded like a half-baked rendition of the Keith Carradine tune of the same name from the movie "Nashville."
This business of redoing "classics" is dicey. Sometimes it works to perfection, as--say--when Bobby "Blue" Bland sings "What A Wonderful World." He transforms the classic and makes it his own.
On "It's Easy" Lee "Shot" is less successful. Everything sounds okay, but the song doesn't fly, it doesn't soar. It seems grounded in the here-and-now of strictly-journeyman cover songs.
The gospel turn "Lifting Up The Name of Jesus"--a classic in another sense--is much better. Here Lee "Shot" sounds comfortably in his element, with a gospel background chorus that nicely complements his energetic vocal.
The album's closing tune, "Yesterday I Fell" reprises the number-four track on the CD and fails for the same reason: it never really escapes its deeply-rooted derivative sound. Not only does it sound like the Williams hits noted above, it ultimately traces its lineage to "Shot's" crowd-pleasing "freak" songs ("She Made A Freak Out Of Me," "She Blew The Whistle On Me.")
Obviously, Lee "Shot" considers "Yesterday I Fell" a "keeper" or he wouldn't have done it twice. That, however, is a miscalculation. The "keepers" on this album are "I'm The Man For The Job," "753-L.O.V.E." and "Got A Good Woman." "Welcome To The Club" also deserves special mention.
The high point is without a doubt the "legs-in-my-face" "I'm The Man For The Job," with its cute and salacious female chorus perfectly showcasing Lee "Shot's" singular ability to convey the male hormones on steroids and good-natured fun.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced I'm The Man For The Job CD
Comparison-Priced I'm The Man For The Job CD
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July 5, 2010:
EARL GAINES: Good To Me (Ecko) Five Stars ***** Can't Miss. Pure Southern Soul Heaven. If you like Roy C., you'll love Earl Gaines. Gaines is little known outside of the Southeast, although he hails all the way back to the dawn of R&B. He flourished in an overlooked Nashville-based soul scene with Excello Records and other Ted Jarrett labels of the fifties and sixties, then left the recording business for steady employment in the "real world" for the better part of two decades.
When he re-emerged as a soul singer in 1989 (thanks to Nashville producer Fred James), his vocal talents were undiminished. In the twenty years since Gaines has honed his seasoned, no-nonsense, full-barrelled vocal stylings to an exquisite, old-school level of mastery.
For a "country" musician Gaines was always uncommonly but unpretentiously witty and sensitive, characteristics evident in the colorful titles of his songs: "I Kissed My Last Ass" (from The Different Feelngs of Blues & Soul CD") or "Blue And Miserably Unhappy" (with Roscoe Shelton from the Let's Work Together album) or "Death in Buzzard Gulch," the incredibly-titled album on the 1978 Gag label.
But the care and sophistication Earl Gaines put into his song selection were also lavished on his considerable vocal talents, which to the present-day ear sound almost too good to be true, harking back to the man-sized delivery of artists like Bobby "Blue" Bland and Little Milton or country-western artists like Eddie Arnold. Compared to Gaines, today's Southern Soul artists sound like--well--kids.
Gaines' gained visibility (particularly among devotees of Southern Soul) in 2008 when Ecko Records' John Ward signed him to record the well-received "Nothin' But The Blues" album. Good To Me was conceived as its follow-up, and although Gaines died before it was completed, the album is the crowning achievement of his career, bringing together an almost perfect collection of contemporary and historical tracks.
The opening cut, "I'd Like To Try It One More Time," showcases the historical sound, surpassing the Ted Jarrett-written original recorded by Larry Birdsong by leagues while--due to a vintage bass-and-baritone chorus--harking back to the simpler, straight-ahead R&B of yesteryear.
Written by Jackson, Mississipi's Rick Lawson, "I Don't Wanna Be Here," by contrast, represents the powerful contemporary side of Earl Gaines. The ballad pushes at its tempo with the force of a horse bucking at its bridle, brimming over with feverish, frustrated emotion. The young singer-songwriter Lawson recorded the tune on his "I Wanna Have Some Fun" CD, but the Gaines' version sounds like a brand new offering and is probably the first time most of the audience has heard it.
"I Don't Wanna Be Here" personifies the thematic thread running through Good To Me: the emotional and spiritual battlefield between men and women. Younger artists may flounder for subject matter. Earl Gaines knows what Bland and Johnnie Taylor and all the greats of soul music knew: the space between a man and woman is infinite and inexhaustible.
The album continues with the Ted Jarrett-written "It Ain't Easy To Tell The One You Love Good-Bye," which as the old-timey title suggests is an Excello-sounding, mid-tempo ballad steeped in fifties-and-sixties-style keyboard and strings. It's the first time the song has ever been recorded, and once one gets used to the old-school style the song shimmers with feeling.
Then comes the first "monster" cut of the CD, "I Just Don't Know Anymore" (written by Raymond Moore and John Ward). A steamy keyboard fronts a rhythm section as seductive as a bullsnake on the move. The song has unusual heft--a deep, deep groove in the vein of Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind"--and through it all Earl Gaine's effortless and personality-filled tenor glides like one of the creatures from the movie "Avatar."
"Good To Me" comes from another writing stalwart at Ecko, Gerard Rayburn, who specializes in simple, catchy hooks, and the "Mississipi Boy"-sounding "Good Old Country Boy" reworks a Raymond Moore track first done on the "Nothin' But The Blues" CD. Here, in his only questionable decision of the set, Gaines slows down the "Country Boy" melody and talks the lyrics over an awkward, jazz-filtered-through-funk arrangement. The straight-ahead 2008 original is still the best.
The album swiftly returns to brilliance with "I'm Throwing In The Towel," (See Daddy B. Nice's #2 "Breaking" Southern Soul Single, July 2010), a new Raymond Moore song that Gaines renders with the aplomb of a genius. Human goodness drips from every syllable he sings. The song is so full of regret it sounds like a story your mother or father might have told you as a small child.
Three songs from the "Nothin' But The Blues" album close out the album. Although this may be interpreted as a drawback of the Good To Me CD (fans who bought "Nothin' But The Blues" will be buying the same tracks, not to mention "Country Boy," twice), the three repeated cuts represent the most solid music from the former CD and add much to the overall success of Good To Me.
Gaines knows how to seek out and choose material in the tradition of the masters. In this CD he goes to the "source" in three distinct places: 1/ Nashville-based Ted Jarrett, 2/ the Memphis-based Ecko stable of writers, especially Raymond Moore, and 3/ Jackson State alumnus Rick Lawson.
"Let The Past Be The Past" is by Lawson, recorded on his "Sexified" album of 2005.
"If I Could Do It All Over" (originally recorded by Donnie Ray) is by John Cummings and John Ward, and "Let's Call A Truce" is by Raymond Moore.
Longtime Southern Soul songwriter Moore in particular bestows some of his finest work upon this CD. In Gaines Moore has found his perfect interpreter.
Nevertheless, curious about the decision to insert the songs from "Nothin' But The Blues," I asked producer John Ward about the timing of Earl's passing relative to the studio work. Ward confirmed that Gaines had died before they were able to finish.
John Ward had called Earl Gaines on a Wednesday to set up a session for the following Monday to go over some new songs they had ready. Gaines was "totally positive" and saying things like,"I'm ready anytime, man. You just tell me when to be there." John was concerned--he thought Earl's voice sounded weak--but he went ahead and set up the session.
"As soon as I hung up," Ward said, "I went into Larry's" (Ecko promoter Larry Chambers)"office and asked him if he knew whether Earl had been feeling bad or not and Larry said 'no,' and that he had just talked to Earl a couple of days before and he sounded fine. It seemed kind of strange to me though and I was not feeling so sure that Earl was really up to it like he said he was. It was just a couple of days later when Larry told me he had gotten a call and that Earl had been admitted to the hospital. Earl never came back out of the hospital. He was in there about 2 weeks before he died on December 31st" (2009).
In a way, Good To Me is just reward for fans--just reward for all the great music we've missed out on due to the untimely deaths of Johnnie Taylor, Tyrone Davis, Little Milton and others. Cruel irony, though, that in the very act of producing the best album of his life and replenishing our thirst for rhythm and blues, Earl Gaines too should fall.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced Good To Me CD
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Feedback, comments, information or questions for Daddy B. Nice?
Write to daddybnice@southernsoulrnb.com
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Daddy B. Nice
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June 20, 2010:
CARL MARSHALL: Love Who You Wanna Love (CDS) Five Stars ***** Can't Miss. Pure Southern Soul Heaven. With the starry-eyed ambition of a man much younger, veteran Carl Marshall keeps searching for that perfect record, the one that will take him to another level. Coming after a spate of hiphop and urban-influenced albums by the younger generation reviewed here in the last few weeks, the sounds on Marshall's CD are especially welcome: warm, heartfelt and grown-up.
To those who've followed his career for any appreciable time, it can seem as if Marshall is only shuffling the same songs from album to album. But Carl Marshall's albums have remained obscure, so why not try and get it right?
If so, he's finally found that elusive, magical, near-perfect mix in Love Who You Wanna Love. New but faithful, exquisitely-produced versions of "Good Lovin' Will Make You Cry," "Let's Dance," "Don't Let Love Turn Into Hate" and "Sex Costs" anchor and space a surprisingly eclectic group of songs.
Even those who have become weary of the sermons, homilies and motivational monologues that have marred some recent Marshall efforts (including last tracks on T. J. Hooker and Nellie "Tiger" Travis albums) can take heart. For the most part, Carl doesn't indulge on Love Who You Wanna Love. He's intent on serving up straight-ahead music, and the results are superb.
Everything Marshall has done before is done better here. "Good Lovin' Testimony" (featuring Rue Davis)" and "Let's Dance, Let's Shag" (featuring David Brinston) will quickly become the versions of those songs his fans will want to keep. Rue Davis sounds a bit uncomfortable at first, but once he warms up his gravelly growl greatly enhances Marshall's own, and Michelle Miller is a more than capable female back-up.
In its original form, Carl Marshall's "steppin'" song, "Let's Dance." had an impromptu, tentative, quasi-live sound, although it was a studio recording. Marshall is meticulous in recreating the passion and immediacy of the original while elevating the arranging and producing. The guest vocals are now front and center, far exceeding the original in quality, as is the instrumentation from the rhythm track to the high-flying synthesizer and sax fills.
Even the funk-oriented numbers on Love Who You Wanna Love--the title cut, for example, or the mesmerizing "You Got A Love"--go down easier for fans tired of that form.
Marshall takes a lot of care to make each funk-based track interesting. "Love Who You Wanna Love" is not very appealing until halfway through the song, when Marshall begins to pile on the flourishes and the song begins to pick up some vaunted funk momentum.
Marshall outdoes himself with the vocal on "You
Got A Love," underlining one of the accomplishments of this CD: scorching vocals by a singer not always known for his loyalty to the sung word. The song is a little bit of Carl Marshall meets 70's Herbie Hancock--another seemingly tired form that comes off refashioned and refreshed.
A rapper named Gesta adds immeasurable texture to the funk jam "I Was Trying To Get My Groove On." None of this variety, however, destroys the dominant Marshall mood and ambience, which transitions seamlessly from track to track, even jams to ballads.
Indeed, an electrified blues named "Alberta" is not out of place, thanks to a revealingly-straight and satisfying vocal by Marshall with a synthesizer-distorted, background vocal (plus female cameo) over an unusually distinctive, minimalist arrangement.
The ballad "You Never Know Who You're Going To Love" mines the same ground as "Good Lovin'" without being derivative, blending Marshall's vocal, Miller's back-up and a crisp arrangement highlighted by a delicate guitar. Michelle Miller also carries the lullaby-like "Don't Turn Love Into Hate: Part 2."
"Linda" is a pop song with a Carl Marshall theme, unwed motherhood. Marshall keeps the "pop" to a minimum by talking rather than singing the lyrics, giving the song a flatter, funkier tone than it would otherwise have. And on the explicitly-funky track "Full Time Lover," with Marshall fronting his impeccable orchestra of musicians and singers, the impossible happens: an old dancehall warhorse of the eighties who maxed-out on funk long ago actually gets a glimmer of funk as something new and novel again.
But the jewel of this collection is the re-introduction of the long-out-of-print, early autobiographical masterpiece, "I've Lived It All," wisely placed in the closing position. (The better to remember it.)
The song sounds as if it was recorded yesterday--but oh--with what a difference. Immediacy. Lyricism. Personal detail. Vulnerability. Suffering. Clear-headed self-appraisal. And, ultimately, spiritual transcendence. They're all present in "I Lived It All."
Carl Marshall songs always boast tremendous keyboard work, but--good as it is--it will never come close to the ethereal, bagpipe-sounding keyboard that announces "I Lived It All" and the underlying rhythm track--half-military, half-gut-bucket--that carries the song along while Carl Marshall pours his guts out.
"I was out on my own
At the age of twelve.
From a kid to a man,
I caught plenty hell."
Most contemporary Southern Soul fans are probably not even aware Carl Marshal writes songs like this. "I Lived It All" is the young Carl Marshall.
"Nobody can tell me,
Nothing about rough times.
I know where I came from.
I believe I've lived it all."
The difference is in the perspective the artist brings to the song. These days, as a grown man, Carl Marshall wants to come from a place of wisdom. Dispensing it, that is. But the more powerful song will always come from the "victim-of-life" kind of experience we get most usually from young artists like L. J. Echols and LaMorris Williams.
That's why Mel Waiter's admission of vulnerability (an older man not being able to keep up with a younger woman) is not only refreshingly unique but brings so much resonance to his present hit, "I Can't Do it."
If you can't find something personal (implicit or explicit) to put behind the song you're singing, then chances are that song is never going to mean much to anybody else. By those standards "I Lived It All" is the finest song Carl Marshall has ever recorded.
Did I mention the great, prolonged saxaphone solo that culminates "I Lived It All"? It must be heard to be believed.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced Love Who You Wanna Love CD
Note: CDS Records has informed me that my previous notice and appreciation of this song is the very reason it is included on this album. DBN.
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June 12, 2010:
FALISA JANAYE': Sweet Love (Milaja) Three Stars *** Solid Southern Soul Debut by a New Female Vocalist. When an artist begins a song with a vocal flourish having nothing to do with the lyrics, as the tongue-twistingly-named new performer Falisa JaNaye' does with the opening track of her debut CD, Sweet Love, you expect it to immediately seduce you, the way Jackie Neal does with her mellow but super-soulful "Yayyy-yayyyy-yayyyy" at the beginning of "Money Can't Buy Me Love," or the way Carl Sims does with his hair-raising wail that commences "It Ain't A Jook Joint (Without The Blues)," or the way (more recently) James Morgan begins his "I'm All Good In The Neighborhood" with a mesmerizing long falsetto note, or (closer to home) the way one of Falisa JaNaye's own producers, young Mr. Sam (Sam Fallie), jump-starts his "Since You've Been Gone" with two long, soulful, alto-registered notes.
By contrast, the "Shooby-dooby-dooby-doob-doob-do-owwww" with which Falisa JaNaye introduces the opening track ("You Won't Miss Your Water") of her debut CD is so amateurish and unspectacular you immediately wonder why the producers didn't cut it out.
"You Won't Miss Your Water" quickly regains some solid musical footing, enough at any rate to have garnered some air play on Southern Soul stations over the last couple of months. The song reworks the old William Bell theme from a young female's perspective. And more than any other tune on the new CD, "You Won't Miss Your Water" adheres to tried-and-true southern r&b conventions.
"I'm tired of your games.
You're putting me down.
Taking me for granted,
Acting like you don't care."
By the time she has reached one of the later verses, JaNaye' has worked up a decent head of steam, negotiating the lyrics with fairly impressive power and intensity. Her vocal mode is of a type not often seen in Southern Soul music: brash but thin, whiplash-smart but lacking in maturity, akin to a lesser-endowed and much younger Shirley Brown.
"Sweet Love," the dominant ballad on the CD, with a seductive line ("Take off your clothes") that Falisa proffers with convincing emotion over a lush and well-done chorus, follows "You Won't Miss Your Water" and showcases JaNaye' in her most flattering light, something like an updated LaKeisha. The lyrics are perfect for the extremely young, which is JaNaye's natural demographic.
In fact, the repeated couplet of the song that begins with--
"Can I make sweet love to you?
Can I make it up to you?"
--followed by the chorus's rejoinder, a long, exquisitely drawn-out "Can I. . . " is the highlight of the album. And when Falisa sings an extended "explode," she elevates the entire song to a level not often seen outside of the cream of the crop of hiphop's slow-jam divas.
"Tonight Is The Night" is a musical reworking of the Betty Wright song of the same name, and in some ways it's better. Wright's original was overly-derivative and sentimental, traits which the JaNaye' version (with a different melody and words) avoids by infusing the song with an aggressive rhythm track and yet another well-crafted vocal by Ms. JaNaye.
"Can't Nobody" seems to be an atypical song for the feisty and sexy persona Falisa projects in the first three songs of the LP. There's a bluesy feel to the tune, with minor-sounding chords that stress a deeper kind of soul (think Reggie P.'s "Your Love Is A Bad Habit"). The result is one of the more interesting and durable cuts on the disc.
"Whind" is a funk hook with a hiphop delivery--a dance floor jam. JaNaye's vocal gets lost in the percussion-dominated mix--as if she were out of breath, concentrating on her dancing. If you listen closely to the ending, you'll hear a cajun-accordion sound taking over the hook. That tiny hint of inspiration would have made a far more original song.
"I Will" (featuring Mr. Sam) returns JaNaye' to a more Southern Soul mode, but the composition--all sound and fury over a meager melody--undercuts competent vocals by the talented pair.
"How Do You Do (featuring Crimson) bounces back hiphop's way, especially on the overly-repetitive choruses.
"Cowboy" has a fresh-sounding pop-style arrangement, showcasing a smooth-as-peach Janaye vocal. Much more could have been done with the "giddy-up" part of the vocal. The in-your-face, jazzy-sounding background singing works, but not as well as a rough, chitlin' circuit treatment would have.
"Sweet Love (Lover's Mix)" reworks the album's best cut, and "Come To Me" closes out the album.
Sweet Love, with the likes of Southern Soulsters Sam Fallie, Gerald Robinson, Morris Williams and Jazzi Anderson bolstering the writing, production and general artistic support, is far too accomplished a debut to warrant panning. (I rated five of the songs 3 stars, which is very good.)
On the other hand, this is not an especially "likeable" album for the typical, old-school Southern Soul fan. It has all the personality of an exercise video. Each song is well-crafted, but some final, convincing spark is lacking.
Reason? It may be the songwriting, or it may be that the young performer simply doesn't have the personality in terms of experience yet to ultimately bring all of this off musically.
The trouble with Falisa JaNaye's music, from a Southern Soul perspective, is--quite frankly--that it's not "grown folks" music. Grown folks don't go about making love the way people do on this album--unless they're not really grown up.
Falisa's music has the cool feel--the shellac-hard ego--of the hiphop young. The album lacks the warmth of the best of Southern Soul. If the music worked one hundred per cent, even grown folks would "get with it." (Witness the LaMorris Williams and "Impala" phenomenon.)
And to Felisa's credit, she comes close to breakthrough success of that sort with "Sweet Love," which unfolds like the finest of silk sheets, with care taken to no less than three layers of tantalizing vocals: the primary track sung by Falisa, Falisa's own background, and then the background singers' background. They roll in one after another, a roundelay of beautiful and ultimately hit-worthy sound. The extra care and inspiration taken in "Sweet Love"--and, as a result, the credibility and hit potential of that song--bode well for Falisa's future. And the album makes clear she doesn't fear success.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced Sweet Love CD, MP3'S
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May 23, 2010:
LaMorris Williams: Sexy Soul Songs: Vol. 1, The Ladies' Edition (Mabrey) Four Stars **** Distinguished Southern Soul Debut by a New Male Vocalist w/ One Previous LP. Sexy Soul Songs is one of the most accomplished appearances by a new Southern Soul artist in recent memory. LaMorris Williams, according to the liner notes, has recorded a half-dozen LP's, but only one has been introduced to the national audience, via CD Baby: LaMorris Williams Sings The New School Blues (Melendo). Anchored by a sweet-tempered and even more sweetly-sung, mid-tempo tune, "Whatever Kind Of Love," the album has recently sold out its first printing and become unavailable.
Meanwhile, the centerpiece of the new disc, "Impala," has been burning up the air waves in select chitlin' circuit locations--particularly Jackson, Mississippi--for the better part of the last year.
"Ring On Your Finger," a rousing, quasi-acapella, intentionally-rough single reminiscent of Floyd Hamberlin's and Charles Wilson's "Mississippi Boy," preceded "Impala" and first charted on Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "Breaking" Southern Soul singles in September 2008.
"Ring On Your Finger" also won an end-of-the-year "Daddy" award for "Best Out-Of-Left-Field Song of 2008."
"Impala" made its first appearance on the Top 10 "Breaking" Southern Soul singles in July of 2009 under the title "We Can Do It," fresh off its first airing on WMPR, Jackson, Mississippi.
"Impala" charted again in September 2009 and at year's end was a nominee for numerous awards. It was the recipient of Daddy B. Nice's "Best Debut of 2009."
In short, this CD--first forecast for the autumn of 2009--has been long talked-about and anticipated. Still, I'd like to be a fly on the wall the first time Marvin Sease or Mel Waiters or Willie Clayton listens to this album. What will the old masters of Southern Soul think?
Will they dig it? Or will they be turned off by the Snoop-type synthesizer fill in the brief but melodic "Intro" that kicks off the album, or by the way Sir Charles (of all people) does a P. Diddy-like voice-over of LaMorris's name? Will they relate? Or will they be put off by the Timbaland style of the "Stroke It With The Motion" rhythm track, or by the Boyz 2 Men vocal stylings? In short, will they call this Southern Soul?
What the opening cuts of Sexy Soul Songs make clear is that this is not a Southern Soul album in the traditional sense, or even in the sense that the two aforementioned singles--"Ring On Your Finger" and "Impala"--may have led Southern Soul fans to expect.
While "Impala" incorporates many of the best elements of hiphop into its unique approach to Southern Soul, the song doesn't really indicate the extent to which the young LaMorris Williams has bought into the hiphop style.
Like the cover photo of LaMorris with thick black shades and a head tilted to display that diamond stud in his ear, Sexy Soul Songs will surprise the listener with its hiphop affectations, both personal and musical.
And when you ponder that it's the "King of Southern Soul," Sir Charles Jones, producing the cut--"Stroke It With A Motion" (his only contribution)--you're likely to think about what might have been accomplished in a traditional vein by a pairing of such exceptional rhythm-and-blues performers.
But soon enough comes "Impala" (Track 3), the centerpiece of the album.
A LaMorris voice-over narrative--totally convincing--sets the scene: two young musicians on the way back from a gig, stopping at a little roadhouse with a lot of cars in the parking lot. LaMorris and Big Yayo order drinks and LaMorris zeroes in on a girl in a "sexy little red dress" dancing by herself. He makes his move and, as sometimes happens, the lady stuns him with her reciprocity. She's ready to get it on.
"We can do it in any spot.
We can do it in the parking lot.
We can do it in the shower,
Baby, let's go for hours. . . .
You can make me holla,
In the back of my Impala."
Musically, the song works to perfection. Strong bass line. Strong piano chords. Slowwww beat. And LaMorris, simultaneously singing background and talking voice-over. This is a soul-singing talent as pure as you're going to find anywhere, and "Impala" is a spectacular song. It may take a couple of listenings, but once the hook sets in, the song takes on stadium-like dimensions, and LaMorris--singing and talking foreground, backgrounds and choruses--is its impresario.
How much of this superbly original song is writer/producer Big Yayo's doing? It's obvious he deserves at the very least great credit. The song delivers a wallop that no other song on the CD possesses, while accomplishing a feat that is nigh impossible: delivering a thoroughly Southern Soul song in a stripped-down urban style.
At once instantly accessible and endlessly fascinating, "Impala" is destined to become a Southern Soul classic. If lightning strikes, it could easily cross over as a mainstream hit, every detail intact. In short, "Impala" the song alone is worth the price of the album.
But although essentially an album built around a hit single, Sexy Soul Songs has plenty more.
"Ring On Your Finger"--written, produced and performed by LaMorris--is the next best cut on the CD. LaMorris styles but he's no thug, and the refreshing theme of "Ring" is the excitement of making a woman happy in the most traditional way.
"I want to fill you up
With a lifetime of memories.
Have a couple more babies,
Start our family."
It's just a one-chord chant, which unfortunately is what passes for generic Southern Soul these days, but within its musical limits, "Ring On Your Finger" is enormously effective.
"I'm gonna put that ring on your finger.
Walk you down the line.
Change your name to mine,
Help take care of your child."
The message is moral and upstanding, and yet it's delivered with irreverence and orneriness, with the gusto and passion more often associated with Saturday night than with Sunday morning. Or, the song implies, maybe we're just not accustomed to being mesmerized and seduced by anybody but "bad boys."
Williams' singing--immediately engaging and yet deeply nuanced, an amalgam of gospel, R&B and other influences--is so effortless it's easily taken for granted. But all one has to do in order to appreciate what a rare event it represents is to compare LaMorris' execution with practically any other young performer recording today. LaMorris' confidence and technical mastery are off the chain.
Next up in terms of importance is "Pretty Lady," written and produced by Roger Trapman. Frequently heard of late on Southern Soul radio, the tune always seems a little off-putting with its Strawberry Fields-like, synthesizer-dominated arrangement and vocal distortion. With a singer as good as LaMorris, why is distortion needed? Doesn't it really distract and diminish?
And yet, within the context of the album, "Pretty Lady" comes off as almost central--an accurate summary of the hiphop influences imbedded in the CD. The melody, not to mention the helpful contrast of the uncredited female background-singing, boosts the song's profile and makes it one of the more enduring cuts on the album.
"Make Your Body Roll (Just Roll)," another chant-slash-hook, doesn't work as well as "Ring On Your Finger." Obviously tailored for the dancehall crowd that loves to grind pelvises to ditties like Steve Perry's "Booty Roll," it's the kind of song that should work for LaMorris but doesn't--not the way it does with "Ring," at any rate. It's fun only because it's fascinating to hear more vocal traits from LaMorris's bag of techniques.
"Just For A Little While," "You Made A Way," "Impala (Part 2)" and "One Blessing" complete the album. In "Just For A Little While" LaMorris does something traditional and (compared to the rest of the CD) fairly understated, with good results. The melody and the vocal are exemplary.
"You Made A Man" is similar: a secondary song done effectively by a singer whose "Impala" has gained our interest and patience in practically anything the artist puts his mind to do.
"Impala (Part 2)" is a synthesizer-laced doodling with the album's prize cut. It plays with the "Impala" hook without the meat of the song or the voice-over narration, and basically exists to reinforce the power of the "Impala" theme.
Finally, "One Blessing" closes out the CD with a return to the gospel roots from which LaMorris sprang.
Sexy Soul Songs burns a path into new and original territory. It's a milestone CD--not many come along--and if you're into Southern Soul music, you're going to have to check out "Impala" and come to terms with it. LaMorris Williams is a powerful new addition to the Southern Soul family of artists, and his "Impala" is destined for the "classics" shelf.
--Daddy B. Nice
See related story on Daddy B. Nice's Corner: "LaMorris Williams Is Southern Soul's New Cross Over Star"
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May 8, 2010:
B. B. QUEEN: I Can Play Da Blues(Hearon) Three Stars *** Solid Southern Soul Debut by a New Female Vocalist. After a few close listenings, most CD reviews write themselves in a matter of days. This one--the debut of new female vocalist B. B. Queen--has sat on my desk for months.
Part of the reason may be that I Can Play Da Blues is conceived for what we "racial profilers" (just a joke, folks) in Southern Soul call the "white-blues" or "guitar-slinger" audience.
This immersion in "commercial" blues may not even be a conscious creative decision on the part of producers Don Hearon and Ms. Queen. Musicians, like all people, swim in the oceans in which they've matured.
And yet, for someone with an ear for Southern Soul, the differences may remain off-putting, and not only in the choice of material--obvious blues selections such as "Newsy Neighbors," "I Can Play The Blues" (title cut), "Psychic Lady" and "Talk To The Hand."
There's also the problem of B. B. Queen's voice. We Southern Soul fans are spoiled: we enjoy so many great female singers. B. B. Queen plays a mean guitar (in the B. B. and Albert King mode), but she doesn't sing with the power and precision that Southern Soul fans are accustomed to hearing from divas like Peggy Scott-Adams, Shirley Brown, Denise LaSalle, Nellie "Tiger" Travis, Ms. Jody and Karen Wolfe.
Remember Vanity from the early Prince days? Vanity's voice was airy. it was like looking directly into the sun through cheesecloth. And Vanity's delicate voice seemed to disappear like cheesecloth at times. That's the kind of voice B. B. Queen has.
But that's not to say B. B. Queen's singing is not appealing. On the contrary, while I continued to listen to this album over a longer-than-usual time period, B. B. Queen's vocals always sounded heart-felt and true. And while I was procastinating, the overall quality of the songs on the CD won me over.
By my count there are no less than four memorable songs on the LP, all composed by the writing team of Don Hearon, Aslon, and M. Omar. (I'll make a wild guess that one of the last two is an acronym or pseudonym for B. B. Queen herself.)
They are: "Wobble Wiggle," "All About You," "Ain't Going Your Way" and "I Ain't Your Lady." Not only are these songs inspired efforts, they're arranged and produced with great detail, originality and care.
A pair of the songs cracked Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "Breaking" Singles charts as follows:
FEBRUARY 2010
9. "Ain't Going Your Way"---------------B. B. Queen
If Erykah Badu steered her career back in a "Tyrone"-like Southern Soul direction, she'd sound very much like this Kattman-produced, Las Vegas-based singer.
And. . .
MARCH 2010
7. "I Ain't Your Lady"-----------B. B. Queen
Her work may sound a trifle thin on first listening, but there's undeniable substance to B. B. Queen, in the way there was a substance to Jackie Neal's early efforts.
The references to Erykah Badu and Jackie Neal are telling. B. B. Queen's vocals may be less than spectacular, but they're stirring enough to evoke some pretty good company.
Here's a snapshot of the CD's contents, skipping over three of the lesser songs:
"Wobble Wiggle": catchy song, mid-tempo, nice arrangement, nice guitar lick. Vocal has a Karen Wolfe feel to it--it almost sounds like Karen's singing background, in fact. Also, a tantalizing mix of crowd "background" noise.
"All About You": ballad, beautiful melody, tastefully done. Its guitar hook and its authentic emotion are devastatingly effective. My favorite cut right now.
"Newsy Neighbors": blues, blues.
"I Can Play Da Blues": "Little girls too/ Can play the blues."
"Ain't Going Your Way": another excellent song and arrangement, with a snappy brass section. That horn riffing is like catching a whiff of a jazz club as you're walking down a street. The musical payoff, however, is in B. B.'s atypically well-sung, "Ladies. . . Sisters. . . " Finest vocal performance on the CD.
"I Ain't Your Lady": has a very Southern Soul-sounding hook. (A good thing.) B. B. Queen's best songs seem to be about what she "ain't gonna do."
"Phychic Lady": listening to the song, you realize the title is a typo and it's supposed to be "psychic"--not "fi-chick".
Like Chandra Calloway's recent typo on her single "Lose Sleep," which went out as "Loose Sleep" (the opposite of tight sleep?).
One thing about the blues songs on this LP. They're done well, they're very "listenable," and--perhaps most important--they weave themselves into the fabric of the more original songs to make a tapestry of inter-related music.
Finally, I asked myself, "What, after all, would a Southern Soul Erykah Badu album sound like?" (When Erykah's not busy, of course, parading in downtown Dallas, discarding clothes.) How does B. B. Queen compare with one of the true stars of R&B?
And while I think Erykah's vocals would put B. B. to shame, I don't believe Erykah would come close to the overall success--writing, arranging, producing and, generally speaking, creating a new Southern Soul sound--that B. B. Queen has put together in just her first outing.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced I Can Play Da Blues CD, MP3's .
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April 29, 2010:
AVAIL HOLLYWOOD: The Young Gunn Of Southern Soul (Nlightn) Two Stars ** Dubious Southern Soul Debut by a New Male Vocalist What makes this hiphop-influenced debut stand out from the countless other CD's vying for attention and space is not only its aggressive assertion to be Southern Soul (see the title) but its promise--via a couple of its best songs--of real Southern Soul to come.
With The Young Gunn Of Southern Soul, the Texarkana-based Avail Hollywood falls short of the accomplishments of true "young guns" like Stevie Jay and LaMorris Williams, who have Southern Soul music seemingly running through their arteries, and who use hiphop only as an external aid to update and refresh the genre.
Avail, at least at this point, has hiphop and urban R&B running through his blood stream, with Southern Soul functioning only as a veneer for marketing. The singer pays homage to "Tuscaloosa, Alabama" and "Jackson, Mississippi" in two of the songs on this set, but it's not in his "genes." There's not a trace of traditional soul or gospel in this music.
Whether or not Avail Hollywood is really conscious of the gap that separates him from the real Southern Soul "young guns" (Sir Charles Jones, T. K. Soul, etc.) is an open question. But Avail's sheer "want-to" and musical competence place him solidly in the ranks of such hiphop-slash-Southern Soul fringe artists as Simeo, Cupid and Rude, albeit not quite at their levels of accomplishment.
The CD jacket shows the artist adorned with a cowboy-style buckle (emblazoned with a Texas longhorn) nearly as large as a professional wrestler's championship belt. Hollywood is not bashful, and when it comes to career-starting milestones, chutzpah and panache count as much as talent.
"Slide-N-It," the primary single from the album, introduces a kind of synthesizer-enhanced vocal, a metallic-sounding tenor that may be Hollywood's real voice with flourishes of reverb. In any case, this unorthodox vocal styling dominates all ten cuts on the disc.
"Slide-N-It" has energy and verve, and it's put together well. The song has received some air play from traditional Southern Soul media, but it hasn't struck the kind of chord that will secure Hollywood a solid audience. What it does possess in spades is a confidence--even brashness--that augers well for the future.
"Let's Get Raw" is pure urban hiphop. If you watch BET you've heard this ballad--actually more of a slow-jam chant--a thousand times before via R. Kelly and many others.
The mid-tempo "Show Me What You're Working With" continues to showcase Hollywood's curious vocal sound, achieved ostensibly with one of those voice-distortion devices.
"Sexy Cover Girl" returns to the same urban-influenced melody of "Let's Get Raw." Like his references to Southern Soul sanctuaries like Jackson, Mississippi, Avail knows how to sprinkle this song with Southern Soul conventions. Here he reprises the old saw--"one leg in the east, one leg in the west"--but these nods to Southern Soul conventions lose most of their power against the hiphop essence of the song.
"Don't Leave Me" is the closest thing to a Southern Soul ballad on the CD. Here Avail finally pounces upon a true "meat and potatoes" song and does a good job with it, with a distinguished bass line and the estimable melody carried along by a tasteful and succinct guitar hook and a pleasant horn background. If Avail truly wants to make Southern Soul music, he needs to go in the direction this song beckons.
"Touch It" is "Slide-N-It" recycled and "A Million Ways" ("I want your body")--two versions of which close out the CD--is hiphop/urban all the way. Like the vast majority of hiphop material, you can't really call this a melody. It's a chant, the same elementary-chorded slow jam you hear every day on urban radio and done much better by the Ushers and Wests of the rap world. Actually, the rap-over by Bigg Charlse is the cut's most interesting ingredient.
The Young Gunn Of Southern Soul CD shows promise, but it is definitely not the kind of Southern Soul to warm the hearts of chitlin' circuit fans. If Avail is as serious about making a name for himself in the Southern Soul world as he appears to be, he needs to follow the path he's laid down in "Don't Leave Me." That's where his true soul shines through.
--Daddy B. Nice
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Lee "Shot" Williams, I'm The Man For The Job 7/17/10
Earl Gaines, Good To Me, 7/5/10
Carl Marshall, Love Who You Wanna Love, 6/20/10
Falisa JaNaye', Sweet Love 6/12/10
LaMorris Williams, Sexy Soul Songs 5/22/10
B. B. Queen, I Can Play Da Blues 5/8/10
Avail Hollywood, The Young Gunn Of Southern Soul 4/29/10
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Recently reviewed:
Luther Lackey, The Preacher's Wife 4/11/10 (Contained in "Tidbits" section of Artist Guide. Click link.)
Pat Cooley, Cougar 3/29/10
(Scroll down this column.)
Ms. Jody, Ms. Jody's Back In The Streets Again 3/14/10 (Contained in "Tidbits" section of Artist Guide. Click link.)
Nellie "Tiger" Travis, I'm In Love With A Man I Can't Stand 2/27/10 (Contained in "Tidbits" section of Artist Guide. Click link.)
Stephanie Pickett, Finally Made It, 2/14/10 (Scroll down this column.)
Donnie Ray, It's BYOB, 2/5/10 (Contained in "Tidbits" section of Artist Guide. Click link.)
Lee Roy, Should Have Called, 1/30/10 (Scroll down this column.)
Terry Wright, How Sweet Is Your Candy, 1/15/10 (Contained in "Tidbits" section of Artist Guide. Click link.)
James Smith, Everybody Needs Love, 12/29/09 (Scroll down this column.)
Chuck Roberson, For Real This Time, 12/10/09 (Contained in "Tidbits" section of Artist Guide. Click link.)
Karen Wolfe, A Woman Needs A Strong Man, 11/23/09 (Scroll down this column.)
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Rating Guide:
Five Stars ***** Can't miss. Pure Southern Soul heaven.
Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new.
Three Stars *** Solid. The artist's fans will enjoy.
Two Stars ** Dubious. Not much here.
One Star * A disappointment. Avoid.
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March 29, 2010:
PAT COOLEY: Cougar (L & L) Three Stars *** Solid. The artist's fans will enjoy.
Experimenting with a wide range of styles, the talented Southern Soul singer Pat Cooley has nevertheless steadily and surely carved out a singular identity for herself with three albums in the last three years. Pat's dominant singles over that period reflect her eclecticism.
"I Ain't Going Where You Go" (from Real Thing) is disco-tinged Candi Stanton--even Donna Sumner--like. "Older Woman, Younger Man" is pure Southern Soul in the vein of O. B. Buchana's "Back Up Lover." And "Boy Toy" (from Boy Toy) is as pop as Annette Funicello.
The newest CD, Cougar, starts off with a riff and arrangement that is done much better on the third cut, "Get Out," the first single from the CD. "Get Out" (Daddy B. Nice's Top Ten Breaking Singles, March 2010) grafts the "Cougar" song onto a more sophisticated guitar riff and pares down the noise around Cooley's vocal, which is a marvel of rocking, leather-slapping toughness.
Pat Cooley shows off a worthy soulfulness on the pop-influenced tune "Hold Still" as well, her inherent straightforwardness just as compelling when she's using it in a romantic and tender way.
One of the pleasures of listening to Cooley is the little jabs to the memory her songs give the soul fan who harks back a decade or two. (Cooley first recorded back then.) There's a little Barbara Lewis here, a little Adina Howard there--sounds that are as indispensable as they currently are rare.
Not as special are the tunes "Haters" (when's the last time you heard a "haters" song that was any good) and "Hungry Woman" (a bar blues on which Cooley sounds uncharacteristically restrained).
But the CD quickly regains balance with the beautiful "Hold Still," the Bill Withers' remake "Use Me," and the interesting "Be A Man," a serious message delivered in first-rate fashion by Ms. Cooley, who is almost always convincingly real.
Here she's in that deep domestic territory Karen Wolfe explored so well last year. And "Be A Man" also boasts a Latin-tinged, acoustic guitar-based arrangement that lends the song an endearing originality.
The CD closes with "Dance It Down," which dancing-wise is actually less hypnotic than the fantastic "Get Out"; the falsetto-scaled "I Can't Stop Loving You," which more than any divas recalls male crooners like Little Anthony and Curtis Mayfield; and "Everyday With You," whose "Boy Toy"-like melody and arrangement is refashioned to celebrate a grown man.
But these songs--although not without charm--are nothing to write home about.
Your Daddy B. Nice must confess to going back and reading the track listings for Pat Cooley's first two albums many times in the course of this review. I was looking for Cooley's chitlin' circuit hit, "Older Woman Younger Man." I couldn't find it. (DBN Note: "Older Woman Younger Man was published on Bigg Robb's Blues Soul And Old School .)
It's not on this album either. With "Older Woman," this new disc would certainly be approaching five-star territory. The title cut of Pat Cooley's Cougar is okay, with a big underline, but it doesn't take the album over the top, the way, for instance, Nellie "Tiger" Travis's "I'm A Woman" boosted that CD a couple of years ago. And any title cut that doesn't give its CD a boost ends up giving into the laws of gravity.
Readers can sample the songs on Cougar and decide for themselves whether it's worth the fairly hefty album price ($15). For the MP3-crowd, the undisputed keepers are "Get Out," "Hold Still," "Use Me" and "Be A Man." That being said, this disc is Pat Cooley's best and most consistent yet.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced Cougar CD
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February 14, 2010:
STEPHANIE PICKETT: Finally Made It (CDS) Two Stars ** Dubious Southern Soul Debut by a New Female Vocalist
Is this an artist ready for Southern Soul stardom? Forgive me for going against the prevailing consensus, but I just don't think so. Stephanie Pickett's debut CD, Finally Made It, won the Best New Artist in the Blues Critic 2009 Southern Soul Blues Readers' Poll.
But the impression of the CD hereabouts is that it's an effort that would have been better served by much more stringent choice of material and much more disciplined and strenuous standards of singing. If Finally Made It were truly the best new product that Southern Soul music had to offer in 2009, it would be hard to tout the genre as a unique and original alternative to today's urban/smooth R&B.
"Still Want You Baby" sets the tone and the bar for the entire album: a kind of middle-of-the-road soul, with a material and a delivery that sounds derivative and homogenized, with little to set it apart from the hundreds of other female R&B aspirants in the year just passed.
"Let's Get It Together" is a better effort. Pickett is more relaxed, and the melody is passable, and the drums are wonderful, and the arrangement has a nice, bubbling synth hook, but some element of accomplishment is lacking, and it's hard not to fault the vocal.
On the majority of the tunes on the album, Pickett has the power of a background singer, but not the force of a first-rate singer. She reminds me of longtime background singer Brenda Williams, a Morris Williams-produced artist whose 2009 album went unnoticed for arguably some of the same reasons, although without any of the hype given Pickett's Finally Made It.
"Love Me Right" is a mish-mash of countless urban R&B ballads by female singers from Mariah Carey to Kelly Price. There is litte of interest to the true-blue Southern Soul fan: the fan who revels, for instance, in the recent work of Karen Wolfe or Lacee Reed.
"Money Talks" is a mid-tempo tune that breaks the languor and inertia of the above-mentioned tracks, but we've heard this song so many times before, most recently by Lou Wilson. Nothing in the vocal grabs the material by the shoulders and lifts it to a new and interesting level.
"Time Heals All Wounds" returns to the slightly-drowsy, slightly-weepy R&B of "Still Want You Baby" and "Love Me Right." Here Stephanie Pickett delivers what might be considered a journeywoman's peformance. The notes are on tune, the sincerity is obvious, but there's no vocal force to lift the cut above the ordinary.
"I'm In The Right Mood" returns to a "Money Talks" mid-tempo vein, with a funk-based rhythm section, but once again the vocal doesn't transform the material to a level that would warrant attention. One can imagine a Bobby "Blue" Bland or a Bobby Rush morphing this song into a blues treat of the first order, but Stephanie Pickett can't make that claim.
The ballad "Can't Get You Off My Mind" is better. The vocal is a bit more convincing and personable. Here and there, the listener can detect hints of the kind of singer Stephanie Pickett could become.
"Run'n" may be the best raw material in this collection of fairly-anemic songwriting, but even "Run'n" isn't completely successful. Again, one is tempted to search for comparisons. What would this song sound like if Lacee or--say--Sheba Potts-Wright were singing it? Carl Sims might have turned it into a blockbuster.
Stephanie Pickett makes a stab at it. As the song progresses, the choruses in particular show a little of the charisma that is necessary in the highly-competitive Southern Soul market.
But as the album exits with yet another undistinguished slow jam, "Stay With Me," it's difficult not to come to the conclusion that Stephanie Pickett, in stark contrast to the album title "finally made it," is not yet ready for prime time.
As "Stay With Me" moves into a gospel-like finale, you can hear Stephanie Pickett finally putting some of her inner strength and soul on the line. Why she waits until the last cut is perplexing.
And it's hard not to wonder what might have been if the producers had demanded more of the artist. The listener is left with the impression a new artist is being rushed to the "show" without all of the tools, be it in the material or the performance.
The Blues Critic synopsis cites the influences of Shirley Brown and Aretha Franklin, but those comparisons are far-fetched. In fact, there's only one cut on the album in which Stephanie Pickett's vocal bears the stamp of originality: "Family Man."
This radio cut--the only bona fide Southern Soul keeper on the disc--did not impress on first hearing. The lyrics are very good, though, describing a "family man" who isn't the kind who "provides for his family" but who wants to sleep with everyone:
"He wants to sleep with me,
My sister and my brother,
He wants to sleep with my whole family."
This is really the only song on the album in which producer Carl Marshall takes over and jams, and it shows. Even though there is no melody line of any kind, the in-your-face arrangement, replete with all kinds of novel bells and whistles, ultimately wins over the listener.
And most remarkably, the song and the arrangement pushes the singer. The result is by far Stephanie Pickett's best performance on the CD. It's the only song on the album to which one can say, "Oh, that's who she is. That's what she does."
If Stephanie Pickett indeed has the goods--and she may yet prove she does--I think she has been done a disservice by her collaborators. This album gives too much evidence of a coddled environment, a studio in which too many people were patting the singer on the back when they should have been pushing her to greater focus and intensity.
--Daddy B. Nice
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January 30, 2010:
LEE ROY: Should Have Called (Artizen Records) Three Stars *** Solid Southern Soul Debut by a New Male Vocalist.
It's always nice to discover an artist before they discover you--that is, hear them on the radio and say, "I like that," before they or someone promoting them gets to you with the hype.
That was the way it worked out last year with the music of young Lee Roy Ward, whose name I at first didn't know--and, after I did know, couldn't spell.
The song that caught my attention was a remake of the oft-recorded (Ernestine Anderson, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Marva Wright, to name only a few) "Never Make Your Move Too Soon," the B. B. King standard written by Stix Hooper and Will Jennings.
The contemporary Southern Soul audience is undoubtedly most familiar with the excellent rendition of the tune by Lynn White, "I Didn't Make My Move Too Soon."
Lee Roy's twist on the old message is embodied with the refrain that commences the song:
"You can't wait.
Can't hesitate
Because if you do
You might be too late."
And the first verse tells the whole story:
"Walked in the club,
And there she was.
I didn't know
If I should say hello.
Went to the bar,
Got me a drink
So I could think.
I turned around.
This guy was all up
In her face.
Uh-oh. I think I
Made my move too late."
Lee Roy boasts a deceptively easy-going R&B voice that is actually quite potent. And one wouldn't normally expect this level of awareness of the musical nuances of delta-based Southern Soul music from someone based in Dallas, Texas. Lee Roy must have some Ward relatives in Mississippi. It's either in his blood or he's listened to the real thing for a good long time.
That's not to say Lee Roy is imitative or derivative. He doesn't remind you of anybody in particular, although there's a little Tyrone Davis and a little Billy "Soul" Bonds and a little Carl Sims in his approach.
His relatively high Southern Soul IQ is reinforced on the title cut from Lee Roy's debut album, Should Have Called. In "Should Have Called," which appeared as a single late last year, Lee Roy is a two-woman man, and as every man who's taken on this kind of action-slash-responsibility knows, it's a world of stress.
"I was at a party late last night
With my other woman,
Everything was going right
Until I seen her walk through my door
It was my wife
I knew it was time to go
She had this kind of look on her face
That told me I'd better leave this place
I wish she would have called
Before she came over.
I wish she would have called me on my cell phone
Before she came over."
I don't cite the lyrics as evidence that Lee Roy has mastered the art of finding the "sweet spot" of Southern Soul. Anyone can write the routine "player" lyrics. What authenticates what Lee Roy does in "Should Have Called" is in the music: specifically, the front-and-center vocal (which is like ear-candy) the perfectly complementary guitar riff and the texture of the arrangement, in which impeccable detail is given to the background vocals and the mix.
As every singer worth his salt knows, having the right background singer--and the correct background-singing arrangement--is a big part of being a successful singer. And unless you're Marvin Sease, with three or four young ladies continually at your beck and call, the young artist usually dubs his or her own voice over the primary truck. (In concert, it can be simulated by hired back-up singers.) It's the composite of upfront and background vocals that makes up the identity of any popular singer in the public's imagination.
Lee Roy has a knack for background vocals and choruses, and arrangements in general. He and his cohorts--producer Timothy Michael Young, Chester Burns on guitar, and Terrance Moore on keyboards and brass, among others--have done their homework. And so I was curious to see what the full CD had to offer.
The message is mixed. On the one hand, there's nothing quite as accessible as "Move Too Late" or "Should Have Called"; on the other, there are no obvious mis-steps.
"Anybody Need Love," a ballad, is followed by a mid-tempo stint, "Good Girl." "Sooner Or Later" has a funk hook I should remember but can't and a funk-style arrangement projected through the smokey lense of a Southern Soul filter.
"Waiting On The Moonlight" is a rocking-chair kind of ballad, with a beguiling tempo and some interesting vocal improvisation. "Come Back," "Keep The Move On" and "Whenever You Need Me" constitute fairly rote uptempo stuff.
If I had to choose a possible third single and potential hit from the album, I could do worse than pick "I"m Going Back To My Momma's House." It's a straightforward, almost mainstream-sounding song, sung in a straightforward, lounge-singer's fashion.
And yet it has a relatively unique theme--going back to Momma--done in a style that seems more sincere than satirical. The song isn't played for humor, and there are no apologies or guilt or even self-deprecation for being a "momma's boy."
Must be a big house. Must be a great Momma.
Solid debut, Lee Roy.
--Daddy B. Nice
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December 29, 2009:
JAMES SMITH: Everybody Needs Love (Anna Neal Music) Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new.
People who listen to Southern Soul radio probably know the mid-tempo song with the groovy hook called "Plumber Man." Loosely based on Bobby Rush's "I'm Your Handy Man," "Plumber Man" is actually much more musical and satisfyingly structured.
People today probably associate "Plumber Man" with Charles Wilson, who recorded a faithful version on his The After Party album (CDS, 2008), where--unfortunately--the writing was credited to Simeo Overall, who was actually only the producer.
The writer and original performer of "Plumber Man" is James Smith, a long under-rated Southern Soul creative mind who is just beginning to come into his own. James "Plumber Man" Smith has been primarily known as a songwriter, but--as everyone knows--behind nine out of ten writers lurks a nascent performer either frustrated to all hell or secretly biding his time.
Smith's version of "Plumber Man," recorded on his CD, James Smith's Greatest Hits (B&J, 2005), is better than Wilson's cover for the same reasons Will T.'s original of "Mississippi Boy" was a little better than Wilson's cover of "Mississippi Boy." Although Charles Wilson's versions are effective and even exemplary, in both cases the originals are rawer, looser, and a tad closer to the source of inspiration.
James Smith's new CD, Everybody Needs Love , is a super-solid album and should mollify anyone who might have thought it presumptuous to call an essentially first album a collection of "greatest hits." Not only does Smith present a soulful, gritty outing that is miles ahead of 90 per cent of what's out there; he offers two or three songs of the highest order.
"Daddy Sweet Back" is a great song, and a single that's been floating around for a couple of years now. It's a mystery the song hasn't caught on with an influential deejay, one who's ready to play it until the cows come home.
"I'm gonna make you moan and groan
When I lay this bone.
I'm Daddy Sweet Back.
I just got it like that."
"Daddy Sweet Back" is really funky--funky not in the monotonous, pounding 'house'-music way of Parliament-Funkadelic or, more recently, Carl Marshall--but funky in the swinging, street-wise style of Rick James, mid-period Stevie Wonder, or, more recently, Reggie P. Maybe "Daddy Sweet Back's" time is still to come.
The new single from the album, designated for radio airplay, "Just Ain't Good," is also a keeper and potential classic. It boasts a great composition anchored by a lifetime-guaranteed hook and a funky-as-a-salted-nut vocal by Smith.
One of the joys of this song and many others on the CD is the background vocals of (among others, and most prominently) the incomparable Karen Wolfe, fresh off her much talked about blockbuster single "Man Enough" and triumphant CD A WOMAN NEEDS A STRONG MAN (reviewed on this page).
As if the track wasn't already steeped in authenticity, Ms. Wolfe's blue-denim contralto ratchets up the "real-life-feel" of "Just Ain't Good." Smith has a voice that is serviceable but not outstanding, except at times--in glimpses--like the sun peeking out from the clouds on an overcast day. "Just Ain't Good" features one of those celestial partings. As in "Sweet Back," and as foreshadowed in "Plumber Man," James Smith really finds his Stella-like groove.
Then there's the terrific ballad, "Knock Down Love." This is a song that could easily go overlooked, even for an artist whose music routinely disappears faster than an August snow cone.
"She's got that knock down kind of loving,
She keeps it hot, just like an oven."
James Smith has, as Sheba Potts-Wright would say, "big hands"--that is, a man-sized grasp of Southern Soul atmosphere--and his arrangement of "Knock Down Love's" beautiful melody is a primer for young artists who just don't understand the rough beauty of Southern Soul ballads and what makes them so special in this slick and smooth urban age.
In fact, "Knock Down Love" is reminiscent of Stan Mosley's "Rock Me," one of the classics of the genre.
These cuts are the stand-outs, but the CD as a whole is replete with worthy tracks. Among the ballads, "I'm Still In Love With You" is notable. "Everybody Needs Love is a better-than-average love song and a kind of artistic bookend to Karen Wolfe's affecting love ballad, "A Woman Needs A Strong Man."
"Caught" is a creeping song (Does anyone in this age not know that "creeping" means "cheating"?) featuring one of Smith's seemingly inexhaustible supply of slinky hooks and "Rumble In The Bedroom" is a mid-tempo tune with a nice melody.
This album is highly recommended, and your Daddy B. Nice is sending out the formal announcement: Please RSVP the coming-out party for James Smith's "corduroy soul."
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced Everybody Needs Love CD, MP3'S
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November 23, 2009:
KAREN WOLFE: A Woman Needs A Strong Man (B & J) Five Stars ***** Can't Miss. Pure Southern Soul Heaven.
Karen Wolfe's A Woman Needs A Strong Man is a strong contender for Southern Soul album of the year, and if you can afford to buy only one album in 2009, say a Christmas CD for your Southern Soul-loving wife or girlfriend or mother, this is it.
For old-school music lovers who remember when vinyl long-plays were as important as the air we breathed and came in gorgeous, foot-square, keepsake covers, I'd compare A Woman Needs A Strong Man to Carole King's 1971 "Tapestry" album, the quintessential female singer/songwriter CD, with all those great girl-group soul hits King co-authored: "It's Too Late," "You've Got A Friend" (James Taylor), "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" (The Shirelles) and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," Aretha Franklin's classic.
For folks too young to understand the compliment behind that comparison, Tapestry was ranked Number 1 on "Billboard" for 15 weeks and occupied a position on the charts for over six years. It's the longest-charting album by a female solo artist in the history of American popular music. And what rock critic Robert Christgau wrote about Carole King's masterpiece then could also apply to Karen Wolfe in 2009:
"King has done for the female voice what countless singer-composers achieved years ago for the male: liberated it from technical decorum. She insists on being heard as she is--not raunchy and hot-to-trot or sweeet and be-yoo-ti-ful, just human, with all the cracks and imperfections that implies."
Like so much else in life, the emergence of Karen Wolfe was a precarious event, blessed by good fortune and coincidence. Her career might never have happened had she not married Denise LaSalle's brother-in-law, Gary Wolfe. Denise recognized Karen's talent (Karen had sung in a defunct gospel group called Soul Unlimited for a decade) and hired her as a back-up singer. Denise also encouraged Karen to strike out on her own.
Karen's debut CD, First Time Out, appeared in 2006 under the tutorship of the late Bill Coday (whom Karen still affectionately calls "Paw Paw") and Anna Neal Coday, who became her manager. The album emerged just about the time a whole slew of potential Southern Soul divas--Ms. Jody, Nellie "Tiger" Travis, Miz B., Renea Mitchell and Tazz Calhoun among others--were making bigger splashes with better-executed hits.
No one song on First Time Out came close to matching the appeal of Travis' "If I Back It Up" or Miz B.'s "My Name Is $$$$'s" or Mitchell's "Seventeen Days Of Loving" or Tazz's "Stroke It Easy" or Ms. Jody's "I Never Take A Day Off."
By contrast, Karen's songs--most notably about sloppy, careless, clothes-tossing, nose-picking husbands as described in "Unloveable Habits," "Grown Ass Man" and "Back Door Love Affair"--sounded competent at best.
In short, the odds were against--if not nearly impossible--that this unique but somewhat bashful and slow-starting new vocalist would ever become popular.
Then, in the fall of 2008, Karen Wolfe dropped the bomb. I can still remember getting the copy of the promotional single for "Man Enough" in the mail. I slapped it into the CD player and almost fell out of my chair. All it took was one listen. I made it the number-one "breaking" Southern Soul single for that month, October, 2008. By year's end, the song had won the Daddy B. Nice Southern Soul Music Award for Best Mid-Tempo Southern Soul Song of 2008.
"Man Enough" has gone on to become a fixture of Southern Soul deejays' playlists--the finest Southern Soul treatment of a domestic dispute in memory.
Musically, compositionally, "Man Enough" is superb, comparing favorably, for example, with Syleena Johnson's (the daughter of bluesman Syl) one and only Southern Soul hit, "Guess What"--written, by the way, by R. Kelly.
But lyrically, it's even better. Omar Cunningham, a strong candidate himself for Southern Soul songwriter of the year, wrote "Man Enough" and sings along on the rousing and irresistable chorus, lending the song even more of a congregational hue.
"You must have woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. . . "--the song begins, and the lyrics--for those who have never heard the song--are so razor-sharp you find yourself, as a fan, relishing the few lapses and tics in the composition, such as the very next line:
"Because you've been talking to me in any kind of way."
"In any kind of way" is weak, but the next line comes back with the immediacy of a brick wall:
"All of a sudden my eggs aren't scrambled right. . . "
Followed by a classic summation of the song to come--
"And everything I say starts a fight."
So begins a veritable pile-of-gold of real-life and Southern-Soul-certified imagery, anchored by the trusty, ultimately triumphant, gospel-and-country-drenched chorus:
"If you're man enough to leave,
I'm woman enough to let you go."
Here's another lapse that tickles the fan, just because the lyrics and Karen's delivery of them is so right-on:
"And I know she can't make that cornbread like you like. . . "--which follows "You've been creeping late at night" in a puzzling non sequitur.
Here's another favorite, this one spoken by Ms. Wolfe in a voice-over:
"You've been walking around slamming doors and not speaking. I ain't done nothin' to ya. . . I know what it is. Some hot-tailed girl out there done showed her teeth or batted her eyes at ya. . ."
These wonderful images, sung over a tireless melody by a singer who is so convincing she practically steps out of the music speakers, constitute just a little of the extraordinary appeal of "Man Eough."
The ironic thing, to fans already familiar with its many pleasures, is that "Man Enough" (I think we can admit this, can't we?) has a muddy production sound, with a weak, submerged-sounding bass and piano. (Oddly, according to the credits, it's the sole track produced by Omar Cunningham, who is usually technically polished.)
That Karen Wolfe's extraordinary vocal technique rises above the production--even triumphs--places her, actually, in a long tradition of sketchily-produced Southern Soul classics.
The good news, however, is that the rest of the album (under producers Anna Coday, Joe Jackson and Gary Wolfe), is a pleasant surprise, with crisp bass and overall production. In fact, by the time you get to "I Ain't Gone Take It No More" the band--synthetic or not--is really cooking.
But what makes the album special is the "difference" Karen Wolfe's vocals bring to the mix of curent Southern Soul artists. Even the somewhat pedestrian cuts--the obligatory bar blues of "Blues Me Up," the by-rote dance-funk of "Southern Soul Party"--are carried along by Karen's plaintive, street-wise and house-wise alto.
I confess to being in the first, powerful stage all fans are familiar with: the throes of falling in love with a new artist's very voice. Right about now, Karen Wolfe could sing the phone book and I'd be riveted.
"One Good Man" is a case in point. Karen extends the notes of "One. . . good. . . man. . . " with the confidence that eluded her on First Time Out and the result is soul of the most feverish order. "I Don't Wanna Play This Game" is as good as The Supremes or Betty Wright.
The surefire second hit on this album--the potential follow-up to "Man Enough," just lurking in the wings, just waiting for some of these deejays to give up on "Southern Soul Party" (Oops! Did I say that?) and discover it--is "It Ain't That Kind Of Party."
"It Ain't That Kind Of Party" is reminiscent of some of Nellie Travis's best work with songwriter Floyd Hamberlin. Spare in arrangement, with a great bass, snare and woodblock rhythm section and a subtle but fine hook driven along by a simple but solid keyboard riff and a nasty-fresh horn chorus, "It Ain't That Kind Of Party" has hit potential written all over it.
This album, in sum, is rich in overall material, but particularly outstanding are the title cut, "A Woman Needs A Strong Man," with its whole new and potent draft of imagery sung in Wolfe's finest-ever ballad; Man Enough" (of course); and the danceaholic "It Ain't That Kind Of Party";
. . . followed--on an only slightly-lesser level--by the excellent "One Good Man," "Broken Hearts Don't Last," "You Make Me Feel Like I'm Wanted," "I Don't Want To Play This Game" and "I Ain't Gone Take It No More."
I doubt that even Mss. Wolfe and Coday realize how special and possibly never-to-be-duplicated this particular set of songs, sung at this particular time by this particular singer, is. In the liner notes Karen writes:
"This CD is dedicated to the loving "memory" of my Paw Paw, Mr. Bill Coday. We miss you, Paw Paw. You would have liked this one."
He would have, indeed. This is a woman singing from a big heart--a big-hearted woman not infected by all the annoying and trivial media-driven mannerisms that seep into not only music but speech--and your Daddy B. Nice hopes she can just hold onto that elusive and unique, character-inspired magic.
Karen Wolfe is that rarest of creatures: a grounded woman who has nevertheless retained a sense of innocence and goodness. It's all there, in her voice. You can hear it on this album really for the first time.
And A Woman Needs A Strong Man is a shining moment--a defining moment--in her career. It places her in the select company of the dozen-at-most present-day Southern Soul singers who legitimately descend from Peggy Scott-Adams, the Southern Soul diva who started it all.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced A Woman Needs A Strong Man CD, MP3's
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