Tag: Soul

O(+> – Emancipation

Emancipation

O(+> – Emancipation NPG Records 7243 8 54982 2 0 (1996)

Let’s take a look at the largest arcs of Prince’s career, to better understand where Emancipation fits.  His early days in the 1970s had him doing closet R&B, very much as a one-man show, and very much in line with R&B of the day.  He was singing in a falsetto almost always, and his songwriting wasn’t particularly attention-grabbing, though it started to become more and more provocative as time when on.  In these early days, commercial success and popularity came at best fitfully to Prince.  Then came the 1980s.  His star rose higher and higher, and with 1999 and then, most significantly, Purple Rain, he became as big a star as there was in pop music.  Some of his recordings in the 80s were uneven, especially as the decade wore on, but there was good stuff found on anything with Prince’s name on it.  He had hits galore.  Into the early 1990s, things definitely changed.  Prince’s recordings were becoming a bit patchier, and he was starting to chase after fads like “new jack swing” and cater to what was popularized by others.  There is some terrible stuff in this period, along with some worthy bits and pieces.  The good stuff was fewer and farther between.  There is a hard fact of Western popular music during this larger era that artists usually only have about 5-10 years of relevance before they are cast off in favor of something else.  By the 1990s, Prince had already had his decade.  His response?  Feud with his record label.  He changed his name to an unpronouncable symbol in 1993 (people referred to him as “the artist formerly known as Prince”).  After he entered the new millennium, Prince had a comeback of sorts.  He was something of a respected elder of pop music.  But there was a crucial transition during the 1990s.  It was then that Prince’s abilities as a songwriter faltered.  The guy could still play, but he was only coming up with one or two catchy songs every few years.  Rather than face up to that, he started the record label feud and engaged in other distractions that kept his name in the press for reasons other than the content of his work.  Now, as to the feud, the man did have a few decent points about musicians getting too small a slice of the pie.  However, those seemed like excuses drummed up after he already wanted to stir controversy.  But into his later period, it was really apparent that this guy was a total professional as a performer.  His was playing as well as ever, even if he wasn’t writing new songs of much interest.  This was clear to anyone hearing him play some of his old songs.  He would sometimes change them up and present new versions.  He could still wow audiences that way, mining his back catalog.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Prince released two multi-disc albums, first Emancipation and then Crystal Ball.  There was the late night sketch comedy program that in the 90s made a fake TV ad for a bank that supposedly only made change, and when asked how they made money responded by saying, “volume.”  That gag is built on the same principle as Prince’s 1990s multi-disc albums.  He wasn’t able to write any particularly engaging new material, but he could churn out new recordings by the bucket load.  These recordings leaned on covers, and also thin re-treads of old Prince songs.  If anything, these years gave him the chance to hone his already-impressive skills as a performer.

On Emancipation, Prince chose to use every ounce of his skills as an instrumentalist. The performances are rich and textured. His band The New Power Generation (NPG) works perfectly as a spotlight on him. Improvisational elements form the core of this work.

“Sex In the Summer” is a fresh reconstruction of Sly Stone’s “Hot Fun In the Summertime,” complete with nods to other influences like Mahalia Jackson. Prince manages to avoid superficial worship, and delves into lush arrangements. He always liberally quoted other material. This is not cutting corners on the creative end, but benchmarks in a fun way (“Get Yo Groove On” takes a line from “Another Saturday Night”).

This is a mature and wiser Prince — now a music “professional”. Emancipation still finds “the artist” fuming over past recording contracts, but he’s rarely bitter. With over three hours of music, he does have plenty of opportunities to touch base on just about anything. Though the song structures are fairly traditional, that more directly emphasizes his change in direction. While Emancipation isn’t quite the accomplishment as his legendary 80s material, it isn’t so far behind that you don’t recognize Prince as Prince. This is likely an album only intense fans will take a chance on, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Prince knows how to make music people will like, and this album is far more accessible and durable that it seems.

There is a lot to Emancipation. More importantly, there is a lot to like about it.  It’s an album that many will probably find more enjoyable and listenable than expected, though there isn’t much on it to convince you to listen in the first place.

D’Angelo and The Vanguard – Black Messiah

Black Messiah

D’Angelo and The Vanguard – Black Messiah RCA 88875-05655-2 (2014)

D’Angelo’s long-awaited follow-up to Voodoo, one of the finest albums to be found anywhere in the period around the turn of the century, turns out to be well worth the wait.  His direct yet obscure falsetto voice is still intact.  Black Messiah is both a highly original work that advances a new soul milieu

There is a strong classic Prince vibe on a lot of the album (“Back to the Future (Part I),” “1000 Deaths,” “The Charade,” “Ain’t That Easy”) — a light, funky, guitar-driven sound that is smooth and unsettling at the same time with precocious vocals that mask real determination.  Prince wasn’t involved, but he was rumored to have been working with D’Angelo years earlier on recording sessions that either never materialized or indirectly morphed into Black Messiah over an extended period of time.  The sheer density and layered structure of the recordings, the product of a lot of tinkering, also recalls Sly & The Family Stone‘s There’s a Riot Goin’ On.  But aside from similarities and influences, D’Angelo’s music still has a voice of its own.  There is a lot of room for slower stuff.  There is time for reflection.  The atmosphere the sounds fit best is a comfortable, dimly lit room filled with friends and acquaintances, telling stories and having conversations that stretch out into the night about whatever topics strike them, sometimes with determined passion, sometimes with relaxed good humor, holding witness together and getting lost outside time.

The opener “Ain’t That Easy” has a guitar playing accented upbeats, like Jamaican ska, and a diffuse fabric of sound from which melody seems to emerge as a lingering byproduct.  The song, like many on Black Messiah, seems to deny a star turn to D’Angelo or any other performer.  There aren’t solos.  There isn’t any focal point.  In the liner notes, D’Angelo explains his motivation for naming the album Black Messiah, and his explanation is surprising.  It fits the structure of “Ain’t That Easy.”  He says,

“It’s about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen.  It’s not about praising one charismatic leader but celebrating thousands of them. *** Black Messiah is not one man.  It’s a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader.”

These sentiments showed up again during D’Angelo’s appearance as a musical guest on a popular late night comedy TV following the release of the album.  Members of his band wore “Black Lives Matter” and “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirts, while D’Angelo appeared wearing a “hoodie” sweatshirt (and playing a rhinestone-encrusted guitar).  He may have played some of the least compelling individual songs from Black Messiah but he made the politics explicit — more explicit than on the album.

On “Prayer,” there is an anthemic guitar riff.  It is one of the catchiest hooks on the entire album.  But D’Angelo doesn’t just give the listener that riff.  It is paired with an ominous glockenspiel that echos and reverberates across the guitar riff, less pronounced than the guitar, but relentlessly present.  It is a counterweight to whatever sense of forward propulsion that guitar riff suggests, the same way Newtonian physics says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  The glockenspiel has a church-y tone, a reference to religion just as the title is “Prayer.”  This is the sort of thing that separates this music from so much others.  It is not wholly unique (take for instance “Herod 2014” from Scott Walker + Sunn O)))‘s Soused).  Still, it’s a daring move.  Unlike the hit “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” from his last album Voodoo, with its consonant movement along a common melody, there is always so much happening simultaneously on the songs of Black Messiah that the very idea of a listener being able to devote attention to a singular aspect of the music is rendered problematic.

Black Messiah is mature sounding soul music.  Many soul “love” songs are so crass as to make one wince.  D’Angelo is ready to talk politics, religion, and yes, love, taking a chance to broach subjects that risk being impolite.  This may not quite be a match for Voodoo, but little is, and this one is still well worth plenty of listens.

Funkadelic – America Eats Its Young

America Eats Its Young

Funkadelic – America Eats Its Young Westbound 2WB 2020 (1972)

Funkadelic made an abrupt turn with their fourth album.  Rather than extended psychedelic R&B jams, George Clinton & Co. had shifted away from guitar as a centerpiece of the music to vocal harmonies.  Some of this could pass for vintage soul, and one track even could fairly be called country rock.  Listeners who appreciate Funkadelic as being one of the stranger and weirder rock acts of their day may not warm up to this much, but on its own terms this is a successful album.  It marked the group’s first attempt to be more commercially palatable.  The approach makes a certain amount of sense, considering that attempting to duplicate or top Maggot Brain would have been futile.

Sly & The Family Stone – Dance to the Music

Dance to the Music

Sly & The Family Stone – Dance to the Music Epic BN 26371 (1968)

In 1968 Sly’ second album turned pop music on its ear. His energetic blend of funky vamps with a host of rock influences left an indelible mark. The bright idealism and overflowing energy take this music to a higher level. Sly’s confidence and sheer willpower transform what seems laughable on paper.

Where the group’s debut had decent results employing a shotgun approach to contemporary soul styles, Dance to the Music explodes by digging into the dazzling musicianship of the group, highlighted by Sly’s expertly textured production. The title song is considered the classic song of the album, but it is perhaps the least interesting as it sits. Most of the tunes build off big vamps. Actually, many of the songs use the same chords. Vaguely resembling modal jazz, the group’s interpretations add rich color and flavor to the songs without adding bulk. The bounce of the grooves hint at psychedelia but stay true to roots in gospel.  “Dance to the Medley” pulls together everything that makes the album as a whole great. That song also ends with some fuzzed-out noodling that sounds way ahead of its time.

Grandmaster of the electric bass Larry Graham gets plenty of opportunities to shine. This album, more than any other, showcases his power while still utilizing all his finesse. The rest of the band is on fire as well (unique at the time was a horn section that was part of the group). Dance to the Music shines brightest as the group interacts and builds up the songs by feel.

Not everything is perfect here. The lyrics are at times thin or even a bit hokey. But the group sings along with charm. They seem to enjoy making the music. Listening to it, the fun is infectious. Just listen to the organ and piano on “I Ain’t Got Nobody (For Real)” to get a taste of the careening, soulful forces packed into this album.

Many do not consider Dance to the Music Sly’s best work; however, it was the turning point. This is still a hugely influential album. Sly gave Miles Davis a copy and Miles couldn’t take it off his turntable. Miles wore out the copy and had to ask for another. These sounds were revolutionary to say the least. Yet with such snappy results there is hardly time to waste being critical–just dance to it baby.

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks

Astral Weeks

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks Warner Bros. WS 1768 (1968)

Astral Weeks is full of hope and possibility. Van Morrison weaves his tales through that nasal Irish voice and survives on his wits alone. There are no prominent hooks. There are no hit songs. This is just a beautiful album. It is a blend of romance and desire. Van Morrison lets nothing fall through the cracks. He holds every emotion dear, contemplating the simple joys of obscure coincidence and universal hopes. Morrison forgives his faults and circumvents the dangers of perfectionism. He accepts fully his reality. His love, therefore, feels as comprehensive as any ever heard.

Few pop albums of the early rock era went as far as using a jazz band to back the vocalist. Richard Davis on bass and Connie Kay on drums provide unreal depth to the album, on top of other great performances by Jay Berliner, John Payne, and Warren Smith, Jr. Richard Davis particularly shines on “Sweet Thing,” “The Way Young Lovers Do,” and, well, all of them. His unique talents all come into the spotlight. He pushes with calmly funky rhythms; easy to like, but Richard can ignite your mind if you concentrate. Connie Kay has more restraint than most drummers, never overpowering the delicate songs. Kay is as cool as ever. His wispy accents add the illusion of grand orchestration seemingly impossible with such a small combo. Morrison and his backing band convey a pure energy. The motivations are so noble as to need no support.

Van Morrison established himself as a legendary vocalist with this release. Most would make fools of themselves with such a studio band. But the spontaneity of Van Morrison’s performance carries the record to its lofty stature in pop music. He thrives from Side One/“In the Beginning” to Side Two/“Afterwards.” Van Morrison shouldn’t be called a blue-eyed soul singer. No qualifiers are needed. He was a great singer, period, as Astral Weeks reveals.

No other attempted the unblinking idealism of Astral Weeks in the decades following its release. In that it is a singular work. Astral Weeks is far from the R&B Van Morrison made his name recording early on. Instead, it searches territory beyond any concrete probabilities for success. A proactive Van Morrison makes Astral Weeks an album that accomplishes something beyond its sound. It isn’t something you have to understand to appreciate. He believes. He lets you believe too. The world is a great place indeed, if you want it to be.

Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man in the Universe

The Bravest Man in the Universe

Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man in the Universe XL Recordings XLCD561 (2012)

What to make of Bobby Womack’s comeback album The Bravest Man in the Universe?  It’s really two albums in one.  There’s the focus-grouped, calculated part, with guest spots from the likes of flash-in-the-pan indie bimbo Lana Del Rey and overbearing electronic beats by Damon Albarn–oh there’s no chance whatsoever that you’ll think Womack can’t be set against “modern” electronics.  Then there’s the other part, with compelling, funny, charming, mature ruminations on religion, life and relationships, presented matter-of-factly, and as intimately as any Womack recording of old.  These disparate albums meet at times, but also seem to inhabit separate worlds at others.

Parts of the album are best viewed in context.  The electronic soul of The Bravest Man in the Universe seems most directly inspired by Gil Scott-Heron‘s surprise indie hit of 2010 I’m New Here.  That’s made clear on Heron’s fittingly hilarious appearance on “Stupid Introlude.”  But the specifics of the beats lie somewhere else, attired in calm orchestration and stately piano and bolstered by monotone newscaster-style spoken word bits, at times even coming across as reminiscent of the glitchy ambient electronics of David Sylvian from almost a decade ago.  When switching gears to more traditional gospel soul (“Deep River”), Womack reveals something akin to when Sly Stone seemed to drop the act and reveal the weary puppet-master on “Sylvester” from Ain’t But the One Way.

This was a modest hit.  The problem is that the electronics are too superficial for the music.  They are like the new, corporatized Time Square: flashy but fundamentally incapable of soulful resonance.  Womack’s voice powers through most of the time.  But, really, why should it have to?  Trimming a lot of that back, to just a few of the best of the dance-oriented cuts, and adding in a few more smoldering acoustic cuts that leave more space around Womack’s voice might have made this a bit more lasting.  As it stands, this suffers from the same faddish production choices that held our man back in the 1980s (The Poet).   Womack really needs a Rick Rubin, or maybe to pay more attention to how Jamie Lidell‘s career has evolved.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones – Half the City

Half the City

St. Paul & The Broken Bones – Half the City Single Lock SL 003 (2014)

Singer Paul Janeway (AKA St. Paul) has a voice a bit like Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave) or maybe even Al Green, and other southern soul singers of the past.  He and his group, The Broken Bones, have a retro soul sound.  This is something the likes of Lee Fields have mastered in recent years.  What this isn’t is “neo-soul” like that of Raphael Saadiq, Macy Gray, or Amy Winehouse, who apply a more modern sense of detachment and even cultivate an elitist camaraderie with supposed social misfits set aginst old fashioned arrangements and instrumentation, or the more progressive types who have tried to rethink some of the foundations of soul music and flirt with hip-hop elements, like Erykah Badu, D’Angelo and Lauryn Hill.  If the band’s web site press release is to be believed, Janeway grew up steeped in gospel music, not soul, rock and other secular music.  This would, in theory, position him in much the same place at the first generation soul singers, who drew from gospel more than anything else.  But Janeway also cites the showmanship of Tom Waits and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.  A grim, gothic edge like those secular rock music influences might be detected more in the guitar and drums than the vocals on Half the City.  But those reference points also hint at the likely audience for St. Paul & The Broken Bones.  This is music mostly for urban, affluent and educated people; a mostly white audience.  The retro stylings are for people with the time to reconsider the past, finding that the sophisticated edginess of old soul music gives voice to what is is relevant to their own contemporary experiences.  The pose a question of what authenticity means today.

The opener “I’m Torn Up” is a slow burn torch song with a horn section playing something not unlike Terence Trent D’Arby‘s mid-1990s UK hit “Holding on to You.”  D’Arby may not seem like the most “authentic” soul music reference point, even if he did make some convincingly good music in his day, but there are some similarities in the horn charts.

There is punchy guitar on the title track “Half the City.”  A little guitar distortion shows up at the very end of “Dixie Rothko.”  These are just elements of the music, juxtaposed to create a hint of more contemporary relevance.

Half The City keeps ahead of any claims of monotony.  There is a nice balance between more up-tempo numbers, and slower ballads.  And there is Janeway’s voice.  He’s a surprisingly good soul singer.  His vocal tone is just a bit sour, in a slightly higher register than some of the gruff and gravelly southern soul singers of the past–Sam Moore is definitely the closest comparison.  Janeway tries to shred his vocal chords at times, and while it occasionally seems like he needs a little more momentum to really do it, the mere process of trying is enough for the performances to succeed.

Retro music can sometimes be hollow.  As an approximation of something else, it can lack immediacy and vitality.  Not so with Half the City.  This is music that might adopt the styles of the past, but it mostly cruises by with a lot of energy, retaining a looseness that sidesteps the problems of stifling perfectionism.  Along with Lee Fields’ Faithful Man (2012), this is probably one of the most durable retro-soul albums of recent years.

The Dirtbombs – Ultraglide in Black

Ultraglide in Black

The Dirtbombs – Ultraglide in Black In the Red ITR-079 (2001)

Pretty good album of garage-rock-oriented soul covers.  It makes for good party music.  Mick Collins has a good voice for this stuff, even he is a bit rough around the edges.  Highlights are “Your Love Belongs Under a Rock,” “Ode to a Black Man,” “Got to Give It Up,” and “Do You See My Love.”  It’s kind of funny that the song “Kung Fu” opens with a nod to Bauhaus‘ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”.  These guys kick the crap out of some similar but lame bands like The Detroit Cobras.  Try this if you’re into garage rock from Oblivians, The Gories, Reigning Sound, etc.

Nina Simone – Silk & Soul

Silk & Soul

Nina Simone – Silk & Soul RCA Victor LSP 3837 (1967)

Nina Simone was an icon.  She was dubbed the “high priestess of soul” by her fans, but they did so long before she actually started performing “soul” music.  It was only in the late 1960s, a full decade into her professional career, that she made a foray into the genre.  Frankly, this was one of her least convincing styles.  She often came across as a huge stiff.  She used formalistic vibrato (“Consummation”) in place of guttural drive, and pre-soul R&B shouting (“It Be’s That Way Sometime”) when a more supple delivery seemed advisable.  In some ways, it is the mark of arrogance.  She’s a philistine when it comes to soul music, but her hubris pushes her onward into territory that is slightly outside her natural stylistic range.

“Soul” was an afro-american musical form that often used “masking”, a technique that concealed social or political messages behind music that seemed on the surface to be (only) about romance, or whatever.  The psychological issues of inferiority looming behind the technique are the sort of things Frantz Fanon wrote about in Black Skin, White Masks [Peau noire, masques blanc] (1952).  When Nina Simone started making “soul” music, she frequently did it without masking.  She sang soul songs that were directly about social and political issues–like her 1969 hit single “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.”  The problem this presented is that it really isn’t possible to directly address any subject that really matters.  There is a need to engender meaning from oblique angles.  At least, this is what everyone in the structuralist or post-structuralist camp from Roland Barthes to Slavoj Žižek would say, in one form or another.  So while the militant social activist Simone did address the problem Fanon identified, she kind of missed another issue.  Even without the “white mask” problem, there is still no way to directly express something real without inscribing it on something else, another mask.  Her mid-1960s recordings that had a more traditional pop or Broadway sound gave her a mask on which she inscribed something else.  It is that something else that is often missing here.  We get Nina Simone singing soul, but not Nina Simone singing soul as a unique way to tell us something else. She stops short.

On “Love O’ Love” we have just her on piano, a setting closer to her earlier work, which works, and it is the best thing here.  In other places, “It Be’s That Way Sometime,” “Cherish,” “Some Say,” she’s out of sync with the backing band or the horns simply sound like dinner theater pop more than “authentic” soul or her vocals seem too flat and lacking texture that the greasy rock backing calls for.

Silk & Soul sounds more like a clinical, scientific experiment than the real deal.  Simone was clearly trying to stay relevant by catering to what she (or handlers) thought audiences wanted, rather than making the sort of music that compelled her and trying to bring audiences to that, whatever it was.  While not terrible, this is among Simone’s most forgettable albums of the 60s.