Tag Archives: Soul

Patrick Sweany: That Old Southern Drag

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Heart-stopping Southern soul from a Northern immigrant

Ohio native and Nashville immigrant Patrick Sweany makes rootsy sounds that are out of place on Music Row, but will be welcomed in the home of anyone who likes a side order of the ‘60s with their rock, soul, and blues. The album rolls through Southern soul, vintage rock ‘n’ roll and anguished R’n’B, dovetailing punchy production with memories of Delaney and Bonnie, Arthur Alexander and the throwback sounds of Marshall Crenshaw. The bass, drums and rhythm guitar bolster the melodic howl of Sweany’s voice; his singing is edgy, pleading, and emotionally raw from blue disappointment. The nostalgic “Rising Tide” hits a ‘70s rock groove that might have belonged to Bad Company, but the deep bass, funky horns, vamping organ and guitar figures of “The Edges” return the listener to the Memphis that Dan Penn laid on the Hacienda Brothers. The tour de force ballad “More and More” is given the Otis Redding treatment with hard percussive stops, while the acoustic plea “Frozen Lake” is gut-wrenching in the blue-soul of its romantic apprehension. Sweany is well-known as a guitarist and songwriter, and he bolster each accolade here, but it’s the deep well of emotion in every vocal that will make this record stick in your heart. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Lonnie Mack: For Collector’s Only

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A ferocious rock ‘n’ soul ‘n’ blues guitar classic from 1963

This reissue of The Wham of That Memphis Man is the way that many listeners first met the savagely powerful guitar playing of Lonnie Mack. Originally released in 1963 on the Fraternity label, the album was re-sequenced and reissued with two extra tracks by Elektra in 1970. It’s since been reissue on CD, both in this stereo lineup, and in the original mono. The latter is more brutally powerful for its center-channel punch, but either configuration will astound you with Mack’s breathtaking, reverb-powered, tremelo-bar bent guitar playing. The album opens with Mack’s original “Wham!,” quickly gaining momentum until the song becomes an unstoppable locomotive. Mack picks wildly as the bass and drums stoke the beat and the rest of the band hangs on for dear life. Mack’s take on Dale Hawkins’ “Susie-Q” is just as deft, as he alternates between rhythm and lead, masterfully picking long twangy phrases that circle back to the root riff.

Mack’s first solo recording for Fraternity, an improvised cover of “Memphis,” is perhaps his most impressive, as he double-picks and ranges up and down the length of the fret board. No doubt Chuck Berry must have been impressed; Duane Allman, Stevie Ray Vaughan and others certainly were, as they taught themselves from these performances. Beyond Mack’s virtuosity as a guitarist, he was also a soulful vocalist who drew on the blues for Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What’s Wrong,” on gospel for the testimony of “Where There’s a Will There’s a Way,” and on both for the pained “Why.” For Collector’s Only adds two mono bonuses to the original Wham’s eleven tracks, the blues classic “Farther On Up the Road” and the flaming, original instrumental “Chicken Pickin’.”  Mono or stereo, original line-up or expanded, this is a true classic from 1963. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Soul Clan: Soul Clan

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Legendary soul men cut one strong single as a quintet

Soul Clan – Solomon Burke, Arthur Conley, Don Covay, Ben E. King and Joe Tex – turned out to be more of a concept than a working concern. They waxed only one single as a group, pairing the Southern-styled “Soul Meeting” with the gospel-influenced “That’s How it Feels,” leaving their 1969 album to be filled out with two solo sides apiece. It’s a great set, highlighted by Conley’s transcendent “Sweet Soul Music,” but the two collaborative sides leave you wondering what might have been, if Atco could have coordinated more sessions together. Those with deep collections of the individual performers can now snag the two Soul Clan collaborations as individual digital downloads. Collector’s note: despite the stereo cover art, Rhino’s digital reissue is mono. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Arthur Conley: Soul Directions

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Conley’s tragedy turned into great soul music

Southern soul singer Arthur Conley is known to most for his perfect celebration, “Sweet Soul Music.” Based on a “Yeah Man” by his vocal inspiration, Sam Cooke, and co-written with his mentor, Otis Redding, the song topped out in 1967 at #2 on both the Hot 100 and R&B charts and became the lasting emblem of the ‘60s soul movement. But like so many true artists that have one defining single, Conley recorded terrific material both before and after the lightning strike. This 1968 album was a bittersweet affair that collected singles and album sides recorded just months after the airplane crash that killed Redding and the Mar-Keys.

Unlike Conley’s earlier hits, which had been waxed at Muscle Shoals, the album was mostly recorded at the same American Studios in Memphis where Elvis would cap his late-60s comeback. Conley wrote half the songs, including the somber memorial “Otis Sleep On,” and collected a pair from Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn. Memphis horns resound in “Funky Street,” “Hear Say” and “People Sure Act Funny,” and Conley draws from both Redding and Cooke in the pleading “This Love of Mine.” Conley saves his most scorching vocal for the Redding written and produced “Love Comes and Goes.” This is a terrific, deeply felt album that should be in the collection of all soul music fans. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Teenage Fanclub meets Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci

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PRESS RELEASE

Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) and Euros Childs (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci) are pleased to announce details of their debut album together as Jonny. Inter-twining the musical DNA of two of Britain’s most gifted songwriters, Jonny’s debut album proclaims the advent of an irresistibly infectious new strain of psychedelic pop. The self-titled, co-written album will be released via digital download on February 1st and in stores on April 12.

Blake’s Teenage Fanclub and Childs’ Gorky’s toured together in 1997, and when Blake contributed guitar and vocal harmonies to Gorky’s bitter-sweet How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart in 2001, Euros remembers “it just felt like he was part of the band… from that point on it always felt like we might do something together in the future, it just took a few years to actually get it organized”. Euros eventually made it up to Norman’s house in Glasgow in 2006 to record “what we thought was an EP”, and the duo played a handful of rapturously received live shows, before finally getting down to putting a whole album together early in 2010.

The album artwork (image above) is also revealed to be the inspiration behind their unusual name. Blake came across the image on a friend’s website “and thought it would make a great record sleeve… and name for a band.” “Sleeve first, band-name after”, confirms Childs, “that’s always the best way.”

To kick things off, Jonny are giving away a free, four-track download EP of non-album songs.

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MP3 | Continental
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Bobbie Gentry: Ode to Billy Joe

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A strong debut album overshadowed by its title hit

The raw, bluesy edge in Gentry’s voice as she spells out “M-I-Double S-I-Double S-I-Double P-I” sounds as if she’s still clearing her throat from the previous night’s bourbons and Marlboros. The album’s title hit doesn’t really prepare you for the hard soul guitar, funky drumming and swampy horns of the opening track. That same vocal edginess also works well on the album’s ballads, combining folk, country, soul and jazz notes with textural orchestrations. The album’s few pop tracks, including “Sunday Best” and “Hurry, Tuesday Child,” don’t play to Gentry’s strengths and are outclassed by the funkier, bluesier, country-folk. Gentry wrote ten of the album’s eleven cuts, but she didn’t have ten fully original arrangements, as the acoustic guitar and bass hooks of “Ode to Billy Joe” are repeated on nearly every track, blunting the punch of “Ode to Billy Joe” by the time you get to the hit at album’s end. Her lyrics sketch the Delta’s poverty, fauna (“Bugs”), commerce, characters, and gothic secrets. This is a strong debut, though it doesn’t fully live up to its original single (“Mississippi Delta”), nor the flip-side (“Ode to Billy Joe”) that shot Gentry to stardom. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

The Rubinoos: Automatic Toaster

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Power-pop, soul and garage-rock from the Rubinoos

Few groups have had as strong a second wind as the Rubinoos. After releasing two beloved albums in the late ‘70s (available together in a box set), the group went on hiatus for over a decade. But since their return to studio for 1998’s Paleophonic, they’ve dropped four albums of new material alongside numerous reissues, odds ‘n’ sods collections and live recordings. This latest album, their first since 2005’s Twist Pop Sin has been released initially in Spain (where the band has been warmly welcomed on tour) and features the longtime core of Jon Rubin (vocals/guitar), Tommy Dunbar (guitar/vocals/keyboard) and Al Chan (bass/vocals). Joining the trio on drums this time out is the album’s producer (and, yes, one time “Cousin Oliver”), Robbie Rist.

Dunbar’s nine original songs (including new versions of “Must Be a Word,” previously waxed by Vox Pop, and “Earth #1,” which appeared on the band’s Biff-Boff-Boing!) are complemented by a pair of covers: a sumptuous guitar-and-harmony take on Johnny Johnson’s soul side “Blame it on the Pony Express,” and a punchy run through Los Bravos’ “Black is Black.” The new tunes celebrate the basics of four-piece rock ‘n’ roll, the early days of the Beatles, and the superiority of our third planet from the Sun. There are garage rock riffs, kid-friendly horror and humor, and the sort of heartaches that make the band’s early records so memorable. The terrific “Same Old Heartbreak,” released several years ago by the song’s co-writer Kyle Vincent as modern pop on Sweet 16, resounds with the romantic urgency of the Rubinoos’ earliest gems.

Jon Rubin’s voice is as sweet as ever, and Tommy Dunbar’s guitar and pen continue to turn out hummable melodies with clever, catchy lyrics. It’s a shame today’s teen singing stars don’t mine the band’s catalog for undiscovered gems of adolescent longing. Dunbar’s songs are more tuneful and true to teenage emotions than Disney’s factory writers typically achieve. The power and crispness of Rist’s drumming is a nice addition to the band’s sound, though a couple of cuts get overpowered. Heading into their fifth decade, the Rubinoos remain a potent rock ‘n’ roll band whose fine harmonies and guitar-bass-and-drums haven’t lost a step. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Robert Johnson: Close Personal Friend

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Long lost 1979 power-pop gem

Despite this superb 1979 debut, the Memphis-based Robert Johnson never caught on as a power-pop artist. After sitting in the vaults un-reissued for nearly 30 years, the CD edition is even harder to find in the U.S. than copies of the original vinyl LP; odd, since it’s still available from UK sites at a reasonable price. The reissue comes in a mini-LP cover with a mini-inner sleeve (which itself sports a microscopic reproduction of the lyrics) and adds eight bonus tracks drawn from 1980’s Memphis Demos. Johnson’s southern roots shine through in the album’s soulful bass lines, and the twin guitars bring to mind the tandem of Lloyd Cole and Robert Quine from Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend. As much as Johnson looks like Moon Martin on the cover shot, and despite the Elvis Costello pose, he’s a gutsier singer than the former, a less angry young man than the latter, and a better guitarist than both. At times he sings like Phil Seymour or Joe Walsh, but more urgent, and with hard charging guitar playing. The demo tracks are a great addition, a bit rougher than the album finals and adding songs that didn’t make the cut, including a cover of Roy Orbison’s (by way of the Everly Brothers’) “Claudette” and Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love.” [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Chubby Checker: Chequered! (New Revelation)

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The King of the Twist gets his soul heavily psyched

Given the height of Chubby Checker’s fame (his signature recording of Hank Ballard’s “The Twist” being the only single to top the chart on two separate occasions), his Q rating must have really sunk by 1971 to keep this album so deeply buried. Seven years after the last Top 40 singles of his major run (1964’s folk-rock limbo Lazy Elsie Molly and the 1965 Freddie and the Dreamers knock-off Let’s Do the Freddie), Checker waxed this one-off album of psychedelic rock and heavy soul. His voice is immediately recognizable, but the swinging Cameo-Parkway house band was replaced by the plodding rock and blue soul of a nameless European band. Deep organ, screaming guitar solos and heavy rock drumming combine to back vocals freed from the constraints of early ‘60s pop. It’s a treat to hear what else Checker could do with his voice, and it’s a mystery why he’s disavowed these performances (well, maybe it’s not such a mystery why he’s disavowed “Stoned in the Bathroom”); the album still doesn’t appear on his web site’s discography. Originally released in Europe, the album’s always been hard to find in the states. Even this 1982 reissue is tough to locate used. Hopefully Collectors’ Choice will track down the rights for this one when they complete their reissue of Checker’s Parkway material. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Chubby Checker’s Home Page

J.R. Shore: Talkin’ on a Bus

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Canadian singer/songwriter shows that Americana is of the Americas

Canadian singer/songwriter J.R. Shore brought home a whole lot of the South from his two year sojourn to Nashville. Ironically though, his new music is more redolent of New Orleans and the Tex-Mex border than it is of Music City. The banjo that opens the album gives way to a hearty second-line rhythm, dixieland trombone, and a vocal that suggests Dr. John. Shore’s songs combine images of America (he seems particularly fond of baseball) with Texas twang, the funky swagger of the Meters, and the soul of Randy Newman and Van Morrison. He writes in poetic vernacular and literary allusion, and sings with both the sweetness and rough edges of Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen and Levon Helm. Much like the latter’s Band, Shore simmers his Americana influences into a stew whose flavors tell of the ingredients (country, folk, blues, soul and trad jazz) but whose whole is harmonious. This is a finely made album whose far-Northern origins are barely evident in the warmth of its South-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line sounds. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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