Daddy B. Nice's
New Album Reviews
CONTENTS
JETER JONES, My Fans Only, 1-4-25....
SIR CHARLES JONES, The Elite King, 1-1-25.....
M. CALLY, 40 & Up (Plus 1), 11-17-24.....
JETER JONES, Trailride Kang, 8-23-24.....
ARTHUR YOUNG, Straight Outa Summit, 7-22-24.....
BIG G, Sitting On The Sidelines, 6-30-24.....
STAN BUTLER, The Truth About The Blues, 5-17-24.....
MARCELLUS THE SINGER, Calling All Crack Babies, 4-22-24.....
January 4, 2025:
JETER JONES: My Fans Only
Five Stars ***** Can't miss. Pure Southern Soul heaven.
Buy Jeter Jones' new MY FANS ONLY album at Apple.
MY FANS ONLY Track List:
1. My Fans Only
2. Can't Run From Love (feat. Maia B. Music)
3. Lean Back And Stroke It (feat. FPJ)
4. Another Round
5. Hit My Line (feat. Kandy Janai)
6. Nail In The Middle
7. Dirt Road Remix (feat. Cecily Wilborn)
8. Boss (feat. JaLi The Gentleman)
9. Where I Belong
10. Second Chance At Love (feat. LaShonda Ford)
11. We Getting Ready Ready (feat. DJ Jubilee)
12. Let's Ride (feat. Hd4president)
13. Popping Tags (feat. Dioaka)
14. If You Say So (feat. Squirt Kelly)
15. Heart Of A Cowboy (feat. JaLi The Gentleman)
I think even those of us who admire Jeter Jones---and there are legions of us---underestimate what a unique treasure he truly is. In an era when even the top-grossing southern soul performers muster at best a few new songs per year, and the great majority of recording artists struggle to produce two or three songs, much less an EP, much less a full album, Jeter Jones is "jaw-droppingly prolific". I wrote that only a little more than a week ago in
Southern Soul 2024: The Year In Review, before I realized Jeter had dropped yet another new album a couple of days before Christmas to go along with the
Trailride Kang disc he released in August. Jeter Jones not only produces and networks harder than anyone else in the genre; his creativity keeps pace with and justifies his volume. Oh, and he sings like an archangel.
My Fans Only includes two newly-released songs that are slated for this month's Top 10 singles,
"Another Round," a hefty, bluesy, mid-tempo gem in the vein of M. Cally's December-charting "She Say I Make Her Cheat," and
"A Nail In The Middle (Of A Block of Wood)," a laid-back, more melodically supple, mid-tempo tune with an unusual but fascinating lyric. "A Nail In The Middle is currently ahead of "Another Round" by a nose.
The album also features at least two more previously-released and well-received singles,
"Lean Back And Stroke It," accompanied by popular, younger-generation star FPJ, and a remix of TRAILRIDE KANG's
"Dirt Road," which made Daddy B. Nice's
Top 25 Singles of 2024, also just published a little over a week ago, at #14.
The only problem with "Dirt Road Remix" is that Cecily Wilborn, the talented young diva whose country-western-influenced material has taken southern soul by storm, opens the tune with a verse in which her vocal is double-tracked like an echo, distracting not only from the simplicity at the heart of the song but from the lucid and direct vocal style that has made her famous. (The duet does get better as it goes on.) There's no problem in that regard, however, with another fantastic new track,
"Can't Run From Love". Here another newcomer with a set of gorgeous, deep pipes, Myia B ("Stand On Business"), justifies and adds to her burgeoning reputation.
These examples just scratch the surface of
My Fans Only, a fifteen-track cornucopia of ballads, mid-tempo musings, hiphop-trailride hybrids and assorted experiments, not to mention a a Rose Bowl-like parade of guest artists (see track list above). You could do worse than sample the beginning and ending tracks: the aptly-titled and exquisitely-executed
"My Fans Only" and
"Heart Of A Cowboy" featuring JaLi The Gentleman.
---Daddy B. Nice
Listen to all the tracks from MY FANS ONLY on YouTube.
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January 1, 2025:
SIR CHARLES JONES: The Elite King
Five Stars ***** Can't miss. Pure Southern Soul heaven.
Buy Sir Charles Jones' new THE ELITE KING album at Apple.
THE ELITE KING Track List:
1. Good Time
2. Drop It Low (feat. Al Kapone)
3. Flow Like A River
4. Rooster (feat. EP The Blues Doctor)
5. Paying My Baby's Bills
6. Six In The Morning (feat. Boosie Badazz & YTB Fatt)
7. Love We Share (feat. Gary "Lil' G" Jenkins)
8. Are You Lonely
9. None of My Tears
10. Sorry (feat. Roi "Chip" Anthony)
11. Where I Belong
12. Drop It Low (Hip Hop Mix) (feat. Al Kapone)
If your expectations mirrored mine, you expected to see
"Pour Me A Drank," which made Daddy B. Nice's
Top 25 Songs of 2024 at #19, showcasing if not anchoring Sir Charles' new "The Elite King" album, which dropped almost exactly two years after his last long-play, the Christian and very personal
My Life's Testimony. It's not included. However, it's embedded in the opening track
("Good Time") of this immensely interesting new set, making the perfect segue from past to present.
And the present is good. The first three tracks---"Good Time,"
"Drop It Low" and
"Flow Like A River"---will make any Sir Charles Jones fan snap to attention. The brisk tempos and bubbling instrumental tracks are nothing short of head-turning. They charm with their originality and novel, buoyant sound, almost like a different back-up band has joined Charles' studio session. And after the comparatively somber and introspective "My Life's Testimony," the tunes leave the listener with a smile, thinking Charles is happy, Charles is "out and about," dropping nifty couplets like:
"Going to the Blues Palace
Down in Dallas"
Accompanied by ET The Blues Doctor, the album shifts gears with the provocatively-titled "Rooster" but loses none of its impetus or lyrical freshness, with couplets like:
"I know I'm a little older
But I hit it like a soldier"
and the chorus line:
"I can't rooster like I use-ter
But I still can get it on"
With
"Paying My Baby's Bills" Charles returns to more familiar, balladeering territory but with a lilt and a lightness that maintains the album's radiant positivity. "Six In The Morning" is in the same vein, with Boosie Badazz assisting and extending Charles' commendable yet selective use of hip-hop guest artists.
Then Charles springs yet another surprise. In any past set a remix of his classic
"Is Anybody Lonely?" (re-titled "Are You Lonely") might have a more predictable and lesser effect. But in this set, with its variety and fluid tempos, "Lonely" is luminous, searing. Charles twists and turns the phrasing that fans are so accustomed to in all the right ways.
Finally, as if "Is Anybody Lonely" reminded Sir Charles that he built his musical palace with stones made from carefully quarried ballads, "None of My Tears," "Sorry" and the musically brawny and thematically emotional
"Where I Belong" slow things down, immersing fans in the familiar, meditative pool of classic Sir Charles Jones melancholy.
This is one of Sir Charles' best.
---Daddy B. Nice
Listen to all the tracks from Sir Charles Jones' THE ELITE KING on YouTube.
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November 17, 2024:M. CALLY: 40 & Up (Plus 1)
Five Stars ***** Can't miss. Pure Southern Soul heaven.
M. Cally was the recipient of Daddy B. Nice's
"Best Southern Soul Debut" award for 2023 (shared with Lady Redtopp), and that award-caliber expertise and inspiration continues to maturate in his newest release,
40 & Up. The "Plus 1" in the headline above refers to the M. Cally single
They Talkin' 'Bout Me, another thunderclap of a track released so soon after 40 & UP that it begs to be considered (and purchased) part and parcel with the EP. Together, they represent some of the strongest music to arrive in 2024.
Here's the track list for
40 & Up:
1. I Can Try (feat. Ronnie Spencer)
2. Ain't No Love Like This
3. Wake Up
4. She Say I Make Her Cheat
5. Mrs. Parker (feat. Jeter Jones)
6. She's So Fine (feat. Roi "Chip" Anthony & Nino)
As hickory-hard as vintage Jaye Hammer, Cally's confident production and double-tracked vocals are givens, but what really impresses in this new material is his willingness to branch out in style and not just repeat and potentially dilute previous successes like "Brown Liquor," "Southern Soul Sunday" and "That Comeback".
"I Can Try" kicks off the set with a stepping beat and a somewhat softer, broader and more diffuse presentation than we've heard from Cally before.
"Ain't No Loving Like This"showcases Cally's deftness with melody and tempo as well as introducing robust keyboard/organ fills, while the somber but pleasantly locomoting
"She Say I Make Her Cheat" rounds out a trio of "can't miss" cuts. These tracks swing with melodies so fresh and tantalizing it's nearly impossible not to hum along, not to mention the talented guest artists, including Jeter Jones and Roi "Chip" Anthony, who enhance the remaining three songs.
However, like an inspired afterthought, M. Cally has released a follow-up single,
"They Talkin' Bout Me," in which Cally robs the legendary Marvin Gaye line "I heard it through the grapevine" to forge a completely new stepping song, one which nudges the listener into its musical currents with the most pleasant effects. Cally's 2023 breakthrough singles "Brown Liquor" and "Southern Soul Saturday" may have actually been more technically realized, introducing a southern soul singer with the plain-spoken directness and clarity of Mel Waiters. But like pioneers in 19th-century covered wagons, these new songs traverse a bumpier road, moving into new and unexplored musical territories. They're if anything more mesmerizing, every note hinting that these broader influences will coalesce into an even more panoramic and long-lasting M. Cally brand.
---Daddy B. Nice.
Buy M. Cally's new 40 & Up EP at Apple.
Buy M. Cally's new They Talkin Bout Me Single at Apple.
Listen to all the tracks from M. Cally's 40 & Up EP on YouTube.
August 23, 2024:JETER JONES: Trailride Kang
Five Stars ***** Can't miss. Pure Southern Soul heaven.
Before I delve into TRAILRIDE KANG I want to give some props to Jeter Jones'
Big Boss EP released in January of this year. BIG BOSS is (or was) Jeter's experiment in country, and it is so labeled (as country) on Apple's retail/buy page. The only single to appear on Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 Singles was "Yo Truck (Ain't Better Than Mine)" (#8 February) with a note of caution that Jones was "stretching some boundaries, blending southern soul with hard-hitting rap and hardcore country-western". The title track with T. Howell, which made the Top 40, was particularly "hard-hitting," and "Country Girl was "hardcore country western" and then some, so wild it sounded like a parody.
The EP failed to connect with many fans, but in a roundabout way it led to your Daddy B. Nice discovering the unknown recording artist Curt The Country Man and his subsequently #1 country-crossover, southern soul single,
"Back Roads". A few months later Curt did a
remix of "Back Roads" with Marcellus The Singer. And over the same period Cecily Wilborn and Ciddy Boi P, among others, charted with compelling and soulful country-style projects. I don't know if Jeter regretted not scoring a number-one single like "Back Roads" in his own personal quest into country, but I want to give him his due. Without trailride music, which he single-handedly pioneered, championed and made popular, southern soul would never have been receptive to a recording artist singing in a style so honest and authentic it transcended the boundary between country and southern soul.
Jeter Jones seemingly hadn't been as dominating on the singles charts since the
Sugar Hill and
Mufassa II albums, which jointly garnered "Best Southern Soul Album" honors in
2023. I remember thinking that neither
"No Poking" or
"Smashing Someone Else" was particularly effective or worthy of "Top 10 Singles" status when they were released earlier this year, but on TRAILRIDE KANG they jump off the set. They have aged---"matured" might be more apt--- with incredible grace. Then there is the irony of Jeter admitting last year that he didn't know "how much music he had left in him". TRAILRIDE KANG makes that comment appear to be nothing but teasing, a self-deprecating joke to make his fans worry. It is so full of melodic material of the first order that one can only listen to it again and again marveling at the depth of the man's inspiration.
Trailride Kang isn't about picking out a couple of digital club-bangers to buy, although
"My Paper" and
"Zydeco Freestyle" certainly qualify. It's a true album in the traditional sense, one you want to buy in totality, take home and play on a loop while it diffuses good vibes constantly like central air conditioning. And the one constant, beyond the never-let-you-down melodies, is the voice we take for granted because it has grown so familiar---the soothing pipes of Jeter Jones.
I was enamored with the irresistible tempo and percussive distinctiveness of
"I'll Take You There" from the moment I heard it, and the recently released
"Leave," with David Jones and Tiffany Rachal singing the background part Volton Wright would typically fill in a Jeter project, is an outstanding ballad. Even more enthralling is
"Dirt Road," surely one of the most tender and memorable slow jams of the year, sung with Jeter's typical modesty and poignancy.
And yet,
Trailride Kang offers even more. "Complacent," "CB Lover," "Find Me A Country Girl" and "Drama Girl"---all tracks so new the paint has barely dried on them---are nearly as compelling. And if I had to sum up this album in one word, it would be a "serenade". Wikipedia defines "serenade" as derived from the Italian "serenata," which itself is derived from the Latin "serenus". In a word, serene. "Serenades," Wikipedia continues, "are typically calm, light pieces of music." Yes, exactly. And of all of Jeter's illustrious albums,
Trailride Kang is balm for the fans of southern soul, a bountiful, multi-tracked serenade.
---Daddy B. Nice
Listen to all the tracks from Jeter Jones' TRAILRIDE KANG on YouTube.
Buy Jeter Jones' TRAILRIDE KANG album at Apple.
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July 22, 2024:ARTHUR YOUNG: Straight Outa Summit (Summit Boi Entertainment) Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new.
Hard to believe in 2024, but
Straight Outa Summit is Arthur Young's sixth full-length studio album since his 2020 album debut,
A Trucker's Blues, which itself followed Young's true debut, the "Funky Forty" EP. In an era when a new generation of southern soul artists led by King George is almost exclusively focused on recording singles, one-time truck driver Arthur Young is an outlier, building his legacy on one solid album after another, with
Straight Outa Summit his finest effort to date. It isn't as if he hasn't done plenty of singles and EP's, the recent cover of his longtime mentor Tyrone Davis's
"Are You Serious" being only the latest example.
In the hallowed and much-missed tradition of John Ward's Ecko albums of the aughts and teens, Young's newest album begins with a pair of "familiarizing" numbers,
"Tipping In The Juke Joint" and
"Cheat In Peace". Then, having put the spade to the earth, Arthur starts digging in earnest for gold.
"Let It Move" showcases Young's new and improved attention to detail, fortifying his first-class songwriting and vocalizing with top-notch instrumental track production (with solid lead guitar), not always his strong suit in the past. I often harp on the disappearance of the mouth harp in southern soul (pun intended), but Arthur Young even exhibits a harmonica-led instrumental track in
"Black Cat". And he goes to the man with the harmonica himself (Bobby Rush) for a cover of
"I Ain't Studdin' Ya".
"Some men have a cougar/But I have a
"Bobcat," Young sings in the tune of the same title. "Your 'forty' ain't enough for me," she cautions, referencing Arthur's signature song "Funky Forty". Young has already recorded a single called
"Cougar Talk" (also included), but "Bobcat" is the oldest (fifty-five), toughest, and most discerning cougar Arthur's encountered.
Another solid mid-tempo groove, the bluesy and cryptically-titled
"D.D.B.N.M" actually translates to the very ordinary and domestic, "My Dog Don't Bark No More". "And my neighbor hang around the house" is the refrain---and from there it's all breaking bad---"And now I think they're mad that I'm hanging around." Worse for Young's besieged narrator (and even better for us fans), he's confronted with trespassers
"Fishing In My Pond," taking away those easy, night-fishin' catches.
And thus harassed on every side by intransigent, show-me cougars and bobcats, tenacious "Jody's" and dubious "funky forty's," Young makes his way through this entertaining set. A throwback to the days when you could put a CD or a 33 RPM in the stereo system and go about your household duties knowing you had a half-hour of seamless sounds to buoy your spirits, it would be hard to find a collection by a current artist as steeped in the pleasant (and sometimes hilarious) themes and memes of southern soul culture.
--Daddy B. Nice
Listen to all the tracks from Arthur Young's new STRAIGHT OUTA SUMMIT album on YouTube.
Buy Arthur Young's new STRAIGHT OUTA SUMMIT album at Apple.
Listen to Arthur Young's STRAIGHT OUTA SUMMIT album on Spotify.
Read Daddy B. Nice's Artist Guide to Arthur Young.
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June 30, 2024:BIG G: Sitting On The Sidelines (Cynthia Vaughn)
Three Stars *** Solid. The artist's fans will enjoy.
Big G's aptly-titled
Sitting On The Sidelines has been out for a few months now, gathering modest traffic. It's the "new normal" for southern soul artists who came of age before the social media explosion of the last dozen years. Young artists like J'Cenae, Young Guy, Marcellus The Singer and F.P.J. attract many millions of YouTube views, carving out lucrative touring careers on singles alone. Meanwhile, artists like Big G, who has been recording southern soul albums for over twenty years, languish on the sidelines, starved for high-dollar bookings.
The latest bead in Big G's musical necklace, this album could impress newcomers more than veterans. In
"Give Him His Papers" Big G responds to a request for money from a female friend. "Baby, I'm just your sidepiece, I'm not your husband." He then proceeds to put a new twist on the "sidepiece" drama, suggesting a responsible solution. Divorce the husband, get with me. The tune reflects the old Ann Nesby/Al Green standard,
"Put It On Paper".
Big G confronts another domestic drama in
"First Of The Year," notifying a female housemate he's going to show her the door "the first of the year" if she doesn't start doing her part around the house. This is classic Big G---part melody, part talk---woven into a relatively popular treatment (nearly 400K views).
There are retreads, possibly too many.
"1-800," first published in the SIMPLY ME CD, swivels around the phrase, "Are you lonely and depressed?/ Are you tired of being stressed?" "Let's Party" was the title tune of the album of the same name a few years ago, and
"Hot Loving" is another oft-recorded track, first appearing on the KEEPING IT REAL album.
But Big G still has his muse, writer/producer Cynthia Vaughn, and
Sitting On The Sidelines isn't just a compilation.
"Going Crazy" is a new project, as is the title tune,
"Sitting On The Sidelines". A guest artist named Ms. Mickenzie delivers an interesting solo cut
("Won't You Rock Me Baby?") and
"Can't Wait To Be With You" has some verve.
And there you have it. No surprises. No gaffes. Staten (Big G) and Vaughn have all the tools to record a hit single, and they've come close to recording a career-changing single with songs like "Last Paycheck," but the possibility of bringing in millions of fans like King George and these new-generation young guns appears more distant than ever. Not only for Big G., but many other veteran artists who've watched the genre explode in popularity and---at least to an extent---leave them behind.
---Daddy B. Nice
Buy Big G's SITTING ON THE SIDELINES album at Apple
See Daddy B. Nice's Artist Guide to Big G.
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May 17, 2024:STAN BUTLER: The Truth About The Blues (Stantavio D Butler) Five Stars ***** Can't Miss. Pure Southern Soul Heaven.
At less than a thousand residents (about the size of a typical high school class a hundred miles north in Atlanta) Jeffersonville is the largest city and even the county seat of Twiggs County, Georgia. It's as close to the middle of nowhere as you'll find in America, but southern soul insiders know the locale well from Stan Butler's YouTube videos, where residents amble the streets conversating with the drivers in passing cars and grown men ride tricycles across the railroad tracks.
Butler grabbed just about every honor in sight in 2016, including Daddy B. Nice’s
Best Southern Soul Artist Debut of 2016, placing not just one but two singles on DBN’s Top 25 Songs of 2016: “Bootlegger” and “Third Of The Month”.
He was a 2016 nominee for Best Ballad (“Preacher Was A Home Wrecker”), Best Mid-Tempo Song (“Bootlegger”), Best Out-Of-Left-Field Song (“Took My Grandma To The Club”) and two Best Club Songs (“Tootie Boot” and “Third Of The Month”).
He was also a 2016 nominee for Best Songwriter and Best Male Vocalist. And yet, with the exception of the novelty song "Took My Grandma To The Club," those musically proficient songs (collected in 2016's "Back To Basics" album and 2017's "The Blues In Me" LP) were not commercially successful.
Stan's long-awaited third studio album,
The Truth About The Blues, chronicles Butler's gradual ascension over the intervening seven years from overlooked young singer/songwriter to confident---even brazen--- multi-million-viewed master of tales that fly in the face of good taste, decorum and propriety. Landmark tunes like 2019's
"Cowboy Ride and 2021's
"Down In The Kuntry" (with West Love) are represented, as well as
"Blackberry" and
"Mighty Good Woman".
A double album wouldn't have accommodated all of the songs Butler has written and published since then, yet the fourteen-track
The Truth About The Blues finds room for the already published
"Preacher Was A Home Wrecker". Perhaps that's because the song was the first to forge the formula---strong voice-over narratives combined with risque material---that led to Butler's breakthrough (four and a half million YouTube views) with
"My Deaf Brother" and its well-received successors---"Mighty Good Woman," "Start Eating," "My Down Syndrome Sister" and
"Third Leg," all included in this compilation. And irrespective of the lyrics, "Preacher Was A Home Wrecker" remains a stunning musical accomplishment to this day.
I championed and publicized Stan Butler's work and especially
"Cowboy Ride" from its first appearance, and I was disheartened by the initial lack of attention, which gradually stretched into years. But just now a quick check surprised and reassured me that good songs do win out in the end---almost a million views!---and that's as it should be. "Cowboy Ride" is one of the key southern soul songs of the current era, a modest but entirely likeable, "Mississippi Boy" type of song, and the offhand, frill-less vocal makes it one of Butler's best vocal outings.
Of course, the
"Cowboy Ride" video never fails to enthrall. Butler hadn't even done videos before that I can recall, but the "Ride" video was soon followed by
"Down In The Kuntry," the
Best Chitlin' Circuit/Blues Song of 2021 and another amazing video, coincidentally featuring the same charismatic "town character" from the "Cowboy Ride" video whom I once mistook for Stan in costume. You can read more about him in the Stan Butler
Artist Guide.
Much has been made of the emergence of "country" themes (cowboys, cowgirls, horses, trail rides) in recent southern soul, but who really embodies that country style more than Stan Butler himself? Only listen, for example, to his vocal (specifically his voice-over narration) in
"Start Eating," Stan's nod to Marvin Sease's "Candy Licker". It has the authority of a Clarence Carter---corn-cob raw. It's a song the late Billy "Soul" Bonds would have loved.
Yet, we tend to forget Stan Butler is a major player in this fan-driven fascination with all things country, which----by the way---is a new "fashion" in southern soul subject matter. It didn't exist thematically in the nineties or aughts up until the teens. And while a new generation is experimenting with a southern soul sound with a country feel, a kind of fusion of the two, Stan Butler has been doing all that and more---with the notable added element of his story-telling monologues. He's the greatest speechifier since the late Bishop Bullwinkle and the obvious male counterpart to Ms. Jody.
The Truth About The Blues is his testament, his stone tablets brought down from the mountain top. Stan Butler delivers, and even if you're not especially interested in "that" kind of music, you'll come away knowing you've listened to something substantial.
--Daddy B. Nice
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April 22, 2024:MARCELLUS THE SINGER: Calling All Crack Babies
Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new.
If you troll YouTube for music videos you've no doubt come across one of the most bizarre pieces of cover art in recent memory: a chains, bracelets and ring-wearing two-year-old in a white cowboy hat and sneakers sitting in a pile of cash with a landline phone to his ear wheeling and dealing like a creepy, calculating Chucky doll. The title is also disturbing.
Calling All Crack Babies. And yet the music within this new EP from the gifted young recording artist Marcellus The Singer belies the packaging, being gracious, gentle and uplifting throughout.
Marcellus first gained recognition with the single
"Toxic Love" from his well-received debut album
Music Therapy. Though consisting of only five tracks,
Calling All Crack Babies is even better, representing a huge leap forward in musical maturity, most of it embodied in two melody-rich ballads.
Pristine songwriting, vocalizing and production are on full display in
"You Baby" (#3 February DBN's Top 10), a duet with Cecily Wilborn, who has attracted her own significant fanbase with the southern soul anthem "Southern Man" (Best Collaboration of 2023 with West Love) and more recently her gutsy foray into country with #1 single "Red Cup Blues" (March). When Wilborn enters mid-way through "You Baby" with---
"We fuss and we fight.
We make love all night."
---the song reaches a dazzling apogee.
But the show-stopper of the set is the eight-minute-long ballad
"Until We Meet," in which a stately chord progression and a scintillating guitar usher us through the touching stages in the life of a loving couple. Here's the commentary from January:
------------
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .
-------JANUARY 2024-------
1. "Until We Meet Again"-----Marcellus The Singer
This ballad deserves a place on southern soul's top shelf alongside such slow jams as Sir Charles Jones' "Just Another Love Song" (w/ La Keisha) and Big Robb's "Good Loving Will Make You Cry" (w/ Carl Marshall). Nearly eight minutes long, it sails by, never grows repetitive and has every chance of becoming Marcellus's breakthrough and signature song.
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The balance of the EP is adequate, providing respectable background for "You Baby" and "Until We Meet". "You might fuck around and fall in love with a toxic nigger" from
"Watch What You Doing" is as aggressive as Marcellus allows himself.
"Stress Me Out" charted on the Top 40 Singles.
Incidentally, Marcellus himself is a guest artist on another southern soul song of the moment, Curt The Countryman's
"Back Road". Marcellus's fans will enjoy his vocal. He also has a song out with the rapper Boosie BadAzz---both since
Calling All Crack Babies. That seems to be a prerogative of the new generation. Ciddy Boi P doing southern soul, hip-hop and country all at the same time. Wilborn shuttling between southern soul and country. Marcellus seamlessly transitioning from southern soul to country. And yet, Marcellus, like these artists, is a true-blue southern soul creative. His
"Until We Meet" deserves top-shelf classic next to Wilborn's "Southern Man".
---Daddy B. Nice
Buy Marcellus The Singer's CALLING ALL CRACKBABIES EP at Apple.
Listen to all the tracks from Marcellus The Singer's CALLING ALL CRACKBABIES EP on YouTube.
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Send product to:
SouthernSoulRnB.com
P.O. Box 19574
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Or e-Mail:
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Hard copies given preference for CD reviews.
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