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"Mr. Wrong's Gonna Get This Love Tonight" Sweet Angel
April 8, 2018: Reprinted from Daddy B. Nice's New CD Reviews:
 July 16, 2017:
SWEET ANGEL: Can't Walk Away (SA / Sweet Angel Records)
Four Stars **** Distinguished Effort. Should please old fans and gain new.
After an LP-recording hiatus of five years, Sweet Angel returns with an outstanding collection: CAN'T WALK AWAY. The singer from Memphis wrote all of the tunes (excepting “Steps To Love”), and the time spent away from the studio shows in the songs. They have the depth of real life and the verisimilitude of a debut album.
Not that there aren’t derivative exercises. The negligible “How Low Can You Go” (zydeco's "my tu-tu") and the superb “Thrill Is Real” (via B.B. King, of course) are obvious riffs on classic templates, and the two “obligatory” warm-up numbers that kick off the album, “Take A Look” and “Hold Back The Booga Bear,” hardly hint at the wealth and originality of southern soul material to come.
However, by the time Sweet Angel is halfway through the bar-bluesy “Booga Bear,” with the lead guitar (great throughout) blazing and with her background singers kicking in on choruses, she's ready to take you into the good stuff, some of which has charted here in the last three months.
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles Preview For. . .
-------MAY 2017-------
5. "I Wanna Ride It" / "Actions Speak Louder Than Words"-----Sweet Angel
CAN'T WALK AWAY is Sweet Angel's first album in five years--since her deep and mysterious "Mr. Wrong's Gonna Get This Love Tonight."
Listen to Sweet Angel singing " Ride It" on YouTube.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Actions Speak Louder Than Words" on YouTube.
And, a month after....
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles Preview For. . .
-------JUNE 2017-------
5. "The Thrill Is Real"-----Sweet Angel
"The Thrill Is Real" reminds me of "The Thrill Is Gone Again," Denise LaSalle's evocative reworking of the B.B. King classic in 2005. These ladies know how to sing the Boss. Sweet Angel's abrupt transition to a reggae interlude, complete with her staccato-flourished saxophone solo, also works to perfection.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "The Thrill Is Real" on YouTube
As mentioned, this album's true identity doesn't really kick into full gear until its third track, the head-turning "I Need A Real Love," but from then on it continues unabated with nary a lapse in material or execution through the better part of a dozen tunes: a veritable, all-you-can-eat feast of southern soul. My only reservations: I'm not enamored of the title cut, "Can't Walk Away," done twice, nor the double serving of "Still Crazy For You". These cuts aren't duds, though, and they may win over their own adherents among Sweet Angel fans.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "I Can't Walk Away From Mr. Good Thang" on YouTube.
"Still Crazy For You" derives from a little-known single release on CD Baby in 2013, while "Juking At The Hole In The Wall," another remix, first appeared on Angel's last CD, Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight.
Although I was drawn to the southern soul purity of "Actions Speak Louder Than Words" from the start, "I Wanna Ride It" was the first track to really grab my attention. Initially put off by its funk edge, as I listened to it more and more I was pulled into its fascinating matrix of voice-over story-telling and musical groove. As in Sweet Angel's tribute to being a would-be back-up singer for Bobby Rush in "A Girl Like Me," Sweet Angel can spin a narrative with the best of them, and in "Ride It" she progresses by stages from riding a little pink bicycle to riding a full-grown man--"this leg in the east/this leg in the west"--and when Sweet Angel trades "Ride it's" with her background singers, sex rises like steam from sweet corn in a pot of boiling water.
"Ride It” and “Steps To Love” were released, with little fanfare, as singles through CD Baby in 2015. I had heard "Steps To Love" played around a little, but not "Ride It." "Steps To Love" is another example of Sweet Angel's songwriting acumen, this one laid out like a speaker's power point presentation. "How To Keep Your Man: 101." Not only does Sweet Angel sing the song with feeling and technique--she outlines it for the ladies in four easy steps.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Steps To Love" on YouTube.
Adding immeasurably to the pit-stop pleasures of this album are the pop-sounding background choruses (with obvious gospel roots) in songs like "Steps To Love," "Ride It," and even the gospel number, "If It's For Me." This ballad-slash-prayer is not only musically compelling but conceptually fascinating, posing the humble premise that one may not know the best path or thing for oneself:
If it's for me,
Give it to me.
If it's not for me,
Take it away.
The ending is a climax of gospel-based pop, in other words true southern soul. The mid-tempo "I Got Your Back," on the other hand, is unexpurgated man-woman talk, and again Sweet Angel benefits greatly by contrasting her lead vocal against the background singing of Jacquelyn Ingram and Mattie Hester. (Not to mention the solid guitar-picking of Wayne Whitmore.) The merging of voices recalls the wildly popular girl-group anthems of yesteryear.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "I Got Your Back" on YouTube.
Finally, the musicianship is first-rate, with Randy Goodlow on drums, Donald Taylor on bass, Michael O. Cole (co-writer of "Steps To Love") on keyboard/organ in addition to Whitmore on guitar. The contrast in styles with the "John Ward" (CEO of Ecko) "sound"--which I assumed emanated from the very walls of the studio in Memphis, where CAN'T WALK AWAY was recorded--is refreshing and illuminating, not to mention a credit to the musicians themselves. The majority of Sweet Angel's CD's have been produced by Ecko.
Most of all, I'm amazed by Sweet Angel's nose for the overall sound she achieves with her background singers, a production "hunch" undoubtedly won from dues-paying gigs with background singers over the years. How many female singers doom their efforts for wider acceptance not only by their budgets, but their competitive fear of adding background singers of their own gender?
Not Sweet Angel. She is far too comfortable in her own persona and ability to compose songs of substance. The roots of those songs are planted firmly in southern soul soil, with their stems and flowers straining mightily for mainstream pop heaven. And that's why your Daddy B. Nice prefers to take the "can't-walk-away" title of this CD to be a message from Sweet Angel herself that she "can't walk away" from the southern soul scene.
--Daddy B. Nice
Sample/Buy Sweet Angel's CAN'T WALK AWAY CD at CD Baby.
Read Daddy B. Nice's Artist Guide to Sweet Angel.
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July 16, 2017:New CD Review! See Daddy B. Nice's New CD Reviews: SWEET ANGEL: Can't Walk Away
April 15, 2017: New Album Alert!
Pre-Order Sweet Angel's new CAN'T WALK AWAY CD.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Actions Speak Louder Than Words" on YouTube.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "I Wanna Ride It" on YouTube.
CAN'T WALK AWAY Track List:
1. Take a Look
2. Hold Back the Booga Bear
3. I Need a Real Love
4. Steps to Love (Remix)
5. Actions Speak Louder than Words
6. Juking at the Hole in the Wall (Remix)
7. I Got Your Back
8. Still Crazy for You (REMIX/Radio Version)
9. Can’t Walk Away (From Mr. Good Thang) (Radio Version)
10. I Wanna Ride It
11. How Low Can You Go?
12. Thrill is Real
13. This is My Prayer (If It’s for Me)
14. Still Crazy for You (Remix/Album Version)
15. Can’t Walk Away (From Mr. Good Thang) (Album Version)
Sample/Buy Sweet Angel's new CAN'T WALK AWAY CD at CD Baby.
--Daddy B. Nice
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See "Tidbits" below for the latest updates on Sweet Angel, including Daddy B. Nice reviews of her CD's.
To automatically link to Sweet Angel's charted radio singles, awards, CD's and other citations and references on the website, go to "Sweet Angel" in Daddy B. Nice's Comprehensive Index.
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Daddy B. Nice's Original Critique:
I've watched Sweet Angel's career since the arrival of her first solo album, and I would be less than truthful if I didn't admit I was skeptical in the beginning. With the possible exception of the inimitable Shirley Brown, most female Southern Soul singers have followed the time-worn path of the trail-blazing Peggy Scott-Adams, whose straight-ahead, simple deliveries focused on power and authenticity over jazz-riffing embellishment.
Southern Soul legend Jackie Neal, whose career was cut short just when she was coming into her own, brought some of the sophistication of jazz-based R&B singers to the fore in songs like "He Don't Love Me, But He Can't Stand To See Me With Another Man," although the thickness of her vocal timbre masqueraded her vocal sophistication and allowed her to align with the more mainstream southern soul tradition of divas like Ann Peebles, Gwen McCrae, Millie Jackson, Denise LaSalle and Scott-Adams.
Sweet Angel, on the other hand, arrived on the scene like a latter-day Dinah Washington, as polished as your rich aunt's silver, while negotiating material that Southern Soul fans are more accustomed to hearing in the blues-based treatments of the singers mentioned.
Four solid CD's later, Sweet Angel's songs still don't sound like any other Southern Soul being made. The jazz and pop hints that made Dinah Washington a crossover star in the 1950's are there in Sweet Angel's delivery. It's what gives the songs their power.
It's also what makes Sweet Angel's songs sound suspect to the Southern Soul ear. At this point in time she represents the urban diva of Southern Soul from the northern and urban point of Southern Soul's world: Memphis. But that distinction hasn't deterred Sweet Angel from becoming an indispensable fixture of the Southern Soul scene, and with each new album her profile grows.
Another Man's Meat On My Plate, a bluesy ballad, is perhaps Sweet Angel's most well-known tune from her debut CD of the same title, but I've always considered Mike's Place the key track, and certainly the track that captured my attention. Ballads are routine fare for female singers, but when a woman succeeds at delivering a fast tune, it's a breakthrough.
A rocker memorializing the Memphis juke joint of Sweet Angel's husband and collaborator, Mac Dobbins, "Mike's Place" is by no means perfect. In fact, I've often wished the duo would give the song one more try in the studio, calling in all the know-how they've accrued over the last four albums. But you don't have to be perfect to get a whiff of Soul Heaven.
"If you go through Memphis,
Don't leave in a hurry.
There's a place called Mike's,
It'll take away your worries."
And. . .
"The walls are blue.
Dance floor be packed.
People all around,
Back to back.
They call it Mike's Place.
It's the place to be.
In the middle of hard times
In Memphis, Tennessee."
The italics are mine. That couplet--"In the middle of hard times/ In Memphis, Tennessee"--carries a whopper punch. I've lived below the favelas (slums on hillsides) in Rio de Janeiro. I've lived in the wilderness of downtown New York City before it was gentrified. I sold magazines door-to-door in the hoods bordering Woodward Avenue in Detroit the month before the riots and burnings. I've spent major time in south Jackson, Mississippi and any number of blighted neighborhoods and impoverished small towns throughout the country, but I've never seen streets as mean-looking and forbidding as some in Memphis.
And when Sweet Angel sings:
"In the middle of hard times
In Memphis, Tennessee."
--she knows of what she sings. So that when the couplet arrives it's such wonderful irony--a triumph of will and artistry in the midst of poverty and neglect.
The arrangement of the song has pop/jazz elements (mostly in the guise of its programmed horns) that might be eliminated in the interest of funking it up even more. The bass line is the backbone of the song and the engine delivering its power.
Dobbins and Sweet Angel actually redid the melody as a song called "Rock Me" (on the Handle Your Business CD), but what would be even more eventful would be to re-record the original with a more Southern Soul arrangement. Along with Sweet Angel's acquired seasoning in the three albums since her debut, the song might very well become a hit the second time around.
Regardless of "Mike's Place," Sweet Angel found fast-song nirvana on her third CD, Bold Bitch. The song. . . "Good Girls Do Bad Things."
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Good Girls Do Bad Things" Live on YouTube.
Carried along by a great, John Ward-driven, fuzz-toned guitar, "Good Girls Do Bad Things" has one of the most delicious hooks in the Southern Soul canon. It's one of those songs you love the minute you hear the first few bars, even before the singer has sung a note.
"I was raised in the church.
My daddy was a deacon.
But my mind used to wander,
And bad thoughts kept on creeping.
One day in Sunday school,
This young man made a pass.
Oh, I felt myself sinking.
I was sinking real fast.
Good girls do bad things.
That's how the preacher got his wife
And the ------- (?).
Good girls do bad things.
I know it for myself.
That's how I got my man."
In fact, Sweet Angel's career took a major step forward with the release of her third and fourth CD's. With Bold Bitch (the third), it was all about "Good Girls Do Bad Things" and Sweet Angel's comfortable, pitch-perfect, emotionally-even vocal.
On her fourth CD, A Girl Like Me, it was the overall quality and variety of exceptional songs, led by "Last Night Was Your Last Night," "I'd Rather Be By Myself," "The Comfort Of My Man" and "Don't Be Lonely, Be Loved."
On A Girl Like Me Mac and Cliffeta Dobbins (Sweet Angel) wrote the bulk of the tunes themselves, sometimes aided by fellow songwriters Sherrie Thomas (who co-wrote "Good Girls Do Bad Things") and Adrianna Harrison, and the results are outstanding. Released in 2010, the music from this collection has gained stature with time.
And the songs cited don't even take into account the audience-pleasing, novelty "talker," "A Girl Like Me," in which Sweet Angel recounts her amusing flirtation with becoming one of Bobby Rush's background singers.
On her way to making a name for herself, Sweet Angel has defied, circumvented and overcome obstacles that routinely derail up-and-coming musicians. She has steadily forged an original brand without repeating, diluting or parodying herself.
As each new album has appeared, Sweet Angel's comfort level and expertise has risen, and while her initial efforts were almost cabaret-based--and strange to the blues and southern soul ear--she has absorbed the Southern Soul sound by some kind of osmosis, not only drawing the "feel" of the music into her own but doing so without compromising the musicial qualities--a clear, sparkling tone, an avoidance of fads, an unapologetic fealty to melody and the tradition of great singing--that brought her to the fore in the first place.
--Daddy B. Nice
About Sweet Angel
Clifetta Dobbins (her married, not maiden, name), also known as Sweet Angel, was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1964. She worked in real estate and banking until she met Mac "Mike" Dobbins, a Memphis musician, businessman and club-owner who became her husband and manager.
Sweet Angel played various instruments (most prominently saxophone) in a variety of Memphis aggregations over the years, but had never sung professionally until Dobbins, recognizing her talent, began collaborating with her on R&B songs in the early years of the 21st century.
Sweet Angel's solo debut, Another Man's Meat On My Plate, was released on a MAC Recordings, a self-published label, in Memphis in 2007, then picked up by Ecko Records and reprinted in 2008 with two additional tunes.
Later in 2008, Ecko released Sweet Angel's second CD, Handle Your Business, which included the songs, "I'm Leaving," "Guilty As Charged" and "Back It Up and Slow Roll It."
Bold Bitch, Sweet Angel's third album (Ecko), appeared in 2008. The disc was Angel's most accomplished to date, notching a number of radio-worthy singles highlighted by "Good Girls Do Bad Things," a classic piece of R&B that cemented Sweet Angel's reputation as one of contemporary Southern Soul's most prominent divas.
A Girl Like Me, Sweet Angel's fourth CD, was released in 2010. The title tune, a reworking of Bobby Rush's "Night Fishin'," recounted Sweet Angel's efforts to become one of Rush's back-up singers, accordingly gaining instant cachet and notoriety throughout the chitlin' circuit.
Fans quickly gleaned that the novelty-song homage to Rush was only one of a number of radio-worthy songs, however, as one track after another from the material-rich collection gained subsequent air time: "I'd Rather Be By Myself," "Last Night Was Your Last Night," "Don't Be Lonely, Be Loved," and "The Comfort Of My Man" among the stand-outs.
Sweet Angel was honored by the Memphis-based Jus' Blues Music Awards as the "Best New Southern Soul Female Vocalist" in 2008.
Sweet Angel Discography:
Another Man's Meat On My Plate (Ecko 2007)
Handle Your Business (Ecko 2008)
Bold Bitch (Ecko 2009)
A Girl Like Me (Ecko 2010)
Mr Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight (SA/Sweet Angel 2012)
Can't Walk Away (SA/Sweet Angel 2017)
Scroll down to Tidbits section for recent updates.
Tidbits
1.
March 24, 2012:
Like her first CD, Another Man's Meat On My Plate, Sweet Angel's second CD--Handle Your Business--was also originally self-published under the MAC Recordings label (with Mac Dobbins and Sweet Angel producing), and only later by Memphis-based Ecko Records.
The original release contained a re-working from a feminine perspective of the James Brown classic, "It's A Man's World," entitled "Women's National Anthem." Due to copyright issues, however, the album was aborted and republished by Ecko, and the estimable James Brown cover has never been heard from again.
2.
March 24, 2012:
"Purple Rain," an extended reworking of the Prince classic, is another song which has never appeared on a Sweet Angel album (to date). Daddy B. Nice heard it on the Mac Dobbins-conceived concert-calendar website, Bluez Newz and in January 2011 awarded it a spot on Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "Breaking" Southern Soul Singles with the following explanation:
No single element of this song--its song selection, its vocal, its sax solo or its extended length--stands out, and yet its low-key arrangement will seduce you with its quiet, soulful belief in itself.
Sweet Angel subsequently released a single of "Purple Rain" on CD Baby (via MAC Recordings), and the song will likely appear on an upcoming album.
3.
March 24, 2012:
Here are some YouTube offerings for Sweet Angel:
Listen to Sweet Angel talking about her career at the CD Release Party for Bold Bitch on YouTube.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Purple Rain" Live on YouTube.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Last Night Was Your Last Night" on YouTube.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Don't Let The Clean Up Woman Pick Up Your Woman" on YouTube.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Good Girls Do Bad Things" on YouTube.
4.
March 24, 2012: Daddy B. Nice CD Review
June 27, 2009 SWEET ANGEL: Bold Bitch (Ecko) Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new.
Sweet Angel's newest effort, Bold Bitch, her third, is a gem of a CD. Bereft of an obvious hit single, it's nevertheless much more than the sum of its parts. The Ecko Records studio sound--John Ward on the rhythm track sequencing and refreshing real-guitar licks, Morris Williams on the background vocals, and the addition of real-horn fills, including sax on one or two noteworthy numbers--is as saucy and insoucient as it's been in ages.
Everyone sounds like they're having a really good time, and Sweet Angel's vocals provide a center of gravity that never wavers, even when she "spreads her wings," as she does on the redolent slow blues, "Let Me Be Your Angel."
This is music that doesn't plow new frontiers. The songs rework tried and true formulas in almost all cases, and yet the execution is so flawless you have to sit back and shake your head in wonder that you're listening to, for instance, the most basic chord progression in all of music in "Blow That Thang Sweet Angel" and nevertheless enjoying the heck out of it.
"Butt Up," the opening track, a competent little rocker, serves notice that the Ecko house band is in tight form. It also conjures up the memory of past Ecko tunes (Quinn Golden?, Chuck Roberson?) that seem to be on the tip of the tongue but never quite reveal themselves.
Speaking of tongues, "The Tongue Don't Need No Viagra" is in the "Yo Dog Is Killing My Cat" mode, a slow ballad with risque lyrics powered by a Sweet Angel vocal that oozes strength and composure. "Good Love" owns a pretty little hook that ushers in the tender side of the singer.
But more than any other cut on the album, "Don't Let The Clean Up Woman Pick Up Your Man" signals Sweet Angel's determination to push the envelope. The song, of course, is a take-off on Betty Wright's "Clean Up Woman," but the verses are just unique enough to revitalize the song, and Sweet Angel's delivery surpasses any mere cover of the song that this writer has heard in recent years.
"I'm Moving Up" carries the highly-entertaining vibe forward. It has a lovely melody, and Sweet Angel slams it out of the park.
But the insinuating synth/guitar hook that snakes its way through the next track, "Good Girls Do Bad Things," marks the high point of the album. Sweet Angel rides the music like a veteran. Her trademark enunciation has never been as razor-sharp, her phrasing never more inspired. Vick Allen is currently getting a lot of air play for his "preacher" song, and Lenny Williams got a lot of attention with his "preacher" song a year ago, but when Sweet Angel sings:
"I was raised in the church.
My daddy was a deacon. . .
One day at Sunday school,
This young man made a pass. . .
Good girls do bad things. . .
I know it for myself.
That's how I got my man."
I get an immediacy and authenticity--perhaps because it's the female perspective--that trumps either of the more well-known, male-gender songs cited.
"Outside Tail" and "Bold Bitch" close out the album as effortlessly as a car salesman selling a pink Cadillac to Elvis up the street on Elvis Presley Boulevard. "Bold Bitch" is a reworking of Muddy Water's "I'm A Man."
Don't be deterred (or on the other hand, unduly turned on) by the provocative song titles. The lyrics are mild and won't be denied air play or consigned to the underground ala Clarence Carter's "Strokin'" or Marvin Sease's "Candy Licker." What the titles do establish is Sweet Angel's determination to carve out a space for herself in the crowded derby of Southern Soul female vocalists.
Ironically, Memphis, which in the sixties and seventies was the gritty R&B underbelly to Motown and Philly soul, has evolved into the "urban" sound of today's Southern Soul, the northernmost point, as it were, of the greater Delta region. Female singers from Memphis like Toni Green and Sweet Angel lack the gunny-sack roughness of the rural divas from Deep South like Ms. Jody and Karen Wolfe and are therefore always a little more suspect as true Southern Soul stars.
With her outstanding vocal clarity and precision, Sweet Angel sounds very "urban" for Southern Soul, even on this CD. In that respect Sweet Angel remains outside what most hardcore fans think of as mainstream Southern Soul. She is really more of a jazz singer, an (urban-sounding) blues singer, or what in New York night life is called a cabaret singer.
And yet, Bold Bitch is far too good to dismiss, and not that far, when you think of it, from the fingernail-tingling, fine-glass precision of Shirley Brown. It's Southern Soul--a little more urban, yes--but Southern Soul of the highest order. And Bold Bitch just begs you to keep playing it again and again.
--Daddy B. Nice
Bargain-Priced Bold Bitch CD
5.
Posted: March 24, 2012
September 27, 2010: SWEET ANGEL: A Girl Like Me (Ecko) Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new. In the opening and title cut to her new CD, A Girl Like Me, which is based on Bobby Rush's "Night Fishin'," Sweet Angel recounts how, at various times in her life, she asked Rush if she could be one of his dancing girls.
"Look, Bobby Rush,
Don't you wish you had
A girl like me?"
The first time, Bobby tells Sweet Angel that she's too young. (She's twenty-five at the time.) "Call me back in a few years," he tells her.
Ten years later, Sweet Angel shows up at a show and introduces herself to Bobby Rush again. "How old are you?" Bobby asks. "35 years old," Sweet Angel replies.
Then Bobby asks her how much she weighs.
"155 pounds," Sweet Angel says. "What's wrong now, Bobby Rush?"
Bobby Rush tells her she's too little--she needs to gain some weight. (Remember, this is the chitlin' circuit, folks,)
The third time, Sweet Angel (now well into her own career) finds herself opening up on the same venue with Bobby Rush. "You look like one of my dancing girls," Bobby says to Sweet Angel.
"Well, funny you should say that," Sweet Angel says, "because I asked you if I could be one of your dancing girls two times before."
Although it's a great novelty tune, "A Girl Like Me" is six minutes long. Even admitting the fact that it's done with a lot of verve and charm, it assumes you can tolerate hearing that bass line from "Night Fishin'," which was the same bass line as "I Ain't Studdin' You," which was the same bass line as some Bobby Rush song before that, without going crazy.
Charming as it is, I prefer the second track of the CD, "I"d Rather Be By Myself Than To Be Unhappy," a slow, stately ballad that is rapidly gaining deejay adherents across the country.
"Why do we hurt each other?
Why do we we make each other sad?
I don't know about you,
But I'm tired of the hurt."
How many long-standing marriages and relationships haven't experienced this very dilemma and these very words? Lush, well-orchestrated chords sail into one another like the rhythmic swells around a well-appointed yacht. The message reverberates with just the right tone.
The ballads "Mrs. Number Two" and "I've Got To Get Paid" are more generic and less enticing, as is the mid-tempo "What I Want, What I Need," which features a hook like a boxer punching a bag.
"Last Night Was Your Last Night," however, returns to the rarefied musical regions of "I'd Rather Be Alone."
"You used to tiptoe down my hall,
For a late-night booty call. . . "
At their best, as in this song, Sweet Angel and her husband, Mac A. Dobbins (who writes and produces her work, for the most part), achieve a fresh-sounding, aurally-perfect, sumptious kind of soul. Sweet Angel's vocal quality retains a subtle umbilical cord back to Dinah Washington, and that is the secret to her distinctiveness.
Sweet Angel's songs don't sound like any other Southern Soul being made. That hasn't changed since her first album. The jazz and pop hints that made Dinah Washington a crossover star are there in Sweet Angel's delivery. It's what gives the songs their power.
It's also what makes Sweet Angel's songs sound suspect to the Southern Soul ear. At this point in time she represents the urban diva of Southern Soul from the northern and urban point of Southern Soul's world: Memphis.
Sweet Angel gets bluesy on "Don't Be Lonely," which is reminiscent of "Another Man's Meat On My Plate" in its authoritative delivery and typically crisp arrangement. The background chorus is key, with the "don't be lonely" phrase softly repeated.
This is a generous album by any standards--thirteen fully-fleshed-out songs--and at a point when most CD's begin to flag, Sweet Angel is just getting started. "I Like The Money But I Don't Like The Job" is an uptempo blues you might imagine the singer dueting with a male Southern Soul singer onstage, although I still can't imagine her meshing with O. B. Buchana, whose work this cut recalls.
That's followed by another song about "jobs," "I'm Working On My Job," a very well-done ballad with a soft, feathery vocal and memorable melody.
This gem is followed by an even bigger surprise: a take-no-prisoners rocker (jazzy rocker, anyway) with a fantastic, piano-driven riff: "The Comfort Of My Man." Here Sweet Angel is working at the top of her art, fulfilling everything anyone expected of her and more.
Next up is "Roll," a playful, throwaway funk piece that I nevertheless liked even more than the title cut because its Beethoven-influenced back-up riff reminds me of--and may even have been inspired by--the musical climax of one of my favorite sci-fi movies, "The Fifth Element" with Bruce Willis, in which an exotic alien diva not only wows the galactic audience but carries (in her body) the "stones" that will save Earth.
"Do You Feel Alright?" and "Butt Up (remix)" close out the album, bringing it back down to earth so we can all head for the exits. But clocking out at an amazing sixty minutes or more of undiluted music, this CD--chock full of hummable singles--is another upward notch in the career of Sweet Angel.
Bargain-Priced A Girl Like Me CD, MP3's
Comparison-Priced A Girl Like Me CD
6.
Daddy B. Nice Reviews Sweet Angel's MR. WRONG'S GONNA GET THIS LOVE TONIGHT CD
August 4, 2012:
SWEET ANGEL: Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight (901 Entertainment/Sweet Angel.org) Two Stars ** Dubious. Not much here. Call it a "speed bump," not a "pothole." Sweet Angel's newest CD, Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight, is the first lackluster effort in the Memphis diva's meteoric rise to Southern Soul prominence, culminating in a featured spot (one of only three performers) in a rare mainstream-media overview of the genre by Chuck Eddy in New York's "Village Voice" in 2011.
The raison d'etre for the new album is the stunning title cut, a romantic and overpoweringly beautiful single which for some reason isn't burning up the charts--at least not yet.
The ballad redefines and updates the use of string sections and keyboard washes in Southern Soul, grafting Sweet Angel's fully-ripened vocal prowess upon a musical background so smooth and so lush it fairly screams for a pop music breakthrough.
Listen to Sweet Angel singing "Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight" on YouTube while you read.
Written and arranged by Clifetta Dobbins (Sweet Angel herself) the melody is fresh and sure-handed, the lyrics vivid and to the point:
"I went out on the town,
Trying to ease my desires.
Every slow jam I heard
Just put gas on the fire.
This feeling's so strong,
It's controlling me.
I need Dr. Thrill-Good
To satisfy me.
I've waited oh so long
For Mister Right.
Looks like Mister Wrong
Will get this love tonight."
Towards the end of the tune, Sweet Angel puts the cherry on the top of the aural sundae by uttering--
"I feel the urge to merge."
--surely one of the most original, tasteful and "grown-folks"-friendly terms for sexual intercourse heard in a Southern Soul song in years.
Unfortunately, the rest of Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight, The CD is decidedly inferior, a kind of grab-bag of "B-sides" and unused oddities made all the more awkward by the brilliance of "Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight" the single, not to mention Sweet Angel's previous pattern of material-rich albums.
The oddities include yet another failed attempt at a zydeco tune ("Zydeco Funk") by a Southern Soul artist (see T. K. Soul, Kenne' Wayne, et al.), another unnecessary and unremarkable Southern Soul "stepping" song ("Soul Stepping"), and a retooled, thoroughly unspecial Sweet Angel sax exercise, "Blow That Thang Again," which may achieve a certain novelty onstage with Angel booty-rolling in a feather boa and leotard but only sounds vapid on record.
"Touch Me," a ballad, "Love Thief," a mid-tempo piece, and "Juking," a dance jam, at least have the integrity of new, viable songs, but they're not good enough to deflect the tapped-out feeling of the set, while a cover of "Don't Hurt No More" and an instrumental redoing of "Touch Me" only underline the paucity of fresh material.
"Love Thief," deserves some merit and special mention however, showcasing a fully-engaged Angel delivering an interesting vocal full of saucy shadings, vamping like a snarling feline on the chorus--"I was robbed."
And with a vintage John Ward rhythm track, "Juking (At The Hole In The Wall)" sounds like an Ecko Records out-take--even a keeper--and may yet find a niche on Southern Soul radio. (Despite Sweet Angel's previous releases on Ecko, no musicians from the label are credited.)
Sweet Angel's husband, manager and mentor Mac A. Dobbins produced, Reginald Cherry engineered, and "Sonny Boy" Fields (guitar), Lamar Davis (guitar on "Purple Rain"), Curtis Jones (keyboard) and Timothy Walker (with Jones on sequencing) also contributed. "Sonny Boy" Fields plies the fine, natural-sounding guitar solo on "Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight."
The album ends with "Purple Rain," Sweet Angel's bizarre yet strangely compelling cover of Prince's anthem, which has circulated for a couple of years now, and which--with its own long Sweet Angel saxophone solo--seems a fitting and finishing touch to this odd collection.
--Daddy B. Nice
Buy Or Sample Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight, The Single or The CD.
Listen to Sweet Angel playing sax live on "Purple Rain" on YouTube.
Browse through all of Sweet Angel's CD's in Daddy B. Nice's CD Store.
Read Daddy B. Nice's new Artist Guide To Sweet Angel.
7.
May 28, 2012: New Album Alert
Mr. Wrong's Gonna Get This Love Tonight
8.
January 29, 2013:
See Daddy B. Nice's Top 25 Southern Soul Singles of 2012: #7-ranked Sweet Angel's "Mr. Wrong's Gonna Get This Love Tonight"
Scroll down to "Tidbits" #6 to read Daddy B. Nice's CD Review.
9.
February 1, 2014:
CHART CLIMBERS 2014!:
Sweet Angel and her hit Southern Soul single "Mr. Wrong's Gonna Get This Love Tonight" climbs from #49 to #40 on Daddy B. Nice's Top 100 21st Century Southern Soul Artist Countdown.
Go to the complete library of artist guides for Daddy B. Nice's Top 100 Countdown: 21st Century Southern Soul Artists
If You Liked. . . You'll Love
If you liked The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love," you'll love Sweet Angel's "Good Girls Do Bad Things."
Honorary "B" Side
"Good Girls Do Bad Things"
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Mr. Wrong's Gonna Get This Love Tonight
CD: Mr. Wrong Gonna Get This Love Tonight
Label: Sweet Angel
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Good Girls Do Bad Things
CD: Bold Bitch
Label: Ecko
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Last Night Was Your Last Night
CD: A Girl Like Me
Label: Ecko
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Mike's Place
CD: Another Man's Meat On My Plate
Label: Ecko
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I'd Rather Be By Myself
CD: A Girl Like Me
Label: Ecko
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Purple Rain
CD: Purple Rain
Label: MAC
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Sample or Buy
Purple Rain |
The Comfort Of My Man
CD: A Girl Like Me
Label: Ecko
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A Girl Like Me
CD: A Girl Like Me
Label: Ecko
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Another Man's Meat On My Plate
CD: Another Man's Meat On My Plate
Label: Ecko
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Back It Up And Slow Roll It
CD: Handle Your Business
Label: Ecko
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Don't Be Lonely, Be Loved
CD: A Girl Like Me
Label: Ecko
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Don't Let the Clean Up Woman Pick Up Your Man
CD: Bold Bitch
Label: Ecko
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Guilty As Charged
CD: Handle Your Business
Label: Ecko
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I Must Be Crazy
CD: Another Man's Meat On My Plate
Label: Ecko
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I'm Leaving
CD: Handle Your Business
Label: Ecko
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I'm Working On My Job
CD: A Girl Like Me
Label: Ecko
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Rock Me
CD: Handle Your Business
Label: Ecko
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