Back to Back to the Bridge

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Darling, Please take me back.

Here's the song that speaks to why I left and why I'm here again — or at least the chorus does:



That's Mayer Hawthorne's "The Ills" off his album from last year, A Strange Arrangement. Oddly enough, two Wednesdays ago, both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal dropped articles on Hawthorne. The NYT goes into the entire neo-retro-soul "movement" — I guess some 'd call it that, not sure it's quite tight enough though. In it, Hawthorne says what could easily be this site's manifesto, if it had one:

“I hate it when people say, Let’s take it back to the good old days. Screw that. Smokey Robinson wasn’t saying that when he was making his songs. Run-DMC wasn’t trying to take it back. They were trying to do something new and different, something exciting. I don’t want kids listening to my music thinking it’s for their parents. I want them to feel it’s theirs. I wasn’t even alive when all those soul records were made.”

Claps, Mayer.

Now I'm not going to lie to you: I don't know how much I'll be putting up over the next few weeks. But I'll try. If it doesn't work out though, there's a crowd of modern soul artists in the NYT article that you can spin while I'm away.

Covered: "Let It Be"

A brief Beatles segue:

The cover of "Let it Be" from the 2007 film, Across the Universe, by Carol Woods & Timothy T. Mitchum breaks the world down. (The scene in the movie does the same with its allusions to the Vietnam War and the 1967 Detroit riot.) Its visceral fragility and catharsis literally — literally — sends chills down the spine. It just — damn, the words shouldn't get in the way. In all possible seriousness, stick with these, of wisdom: just let this song be.



(Photo: screenshot from the film's "Let it Be" scene)

Covered: "Eleanor Rigby"

“Really? A soul cover album of Beatles songs? The hell you thinking? That stuff is untouchable. Un-touch-a-ble. No.”

If Soulive didn’t have that conversation, they should smack someone. And if you agreed with that, get smacked — let 'em try.

“You still gonna? Well damn, good luck to you.”

The covers on the trio’s September release, Rubber Soulive — you’re fine with it now that you heard how perfectly the title works, right? No? Okay — have been licked Soulive smooth. They leave the songs’ brilliance in a new sonic sheen.

Alright — yes, sometimes they slobber.

But “Eleanor Rigby,” from Revolver. Mm mm mmm. The chorus. The chorus, the chorus, the chorus. The licking just feels right: it swells and breathes; it explores the regret in the song’s loneliness. Just close your eyes and let your chin swivel — and not to say, “No.”

The Beatles (album version):


Soulive (live):

I could’ve posted the album version — but their studio recordings always sound a little too shiny clean. And on that note: here’s download from archive.org of a taping of this year’s downright funky Sept. 11 show at the Wescott Theater in Syracuse, NY, which I attended. The “Eleanor Rigby” to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” thing — mm mm mmm.


(Photo: Arthur Shim for Royal Family Records. Note the black suit, skinny-black-tie hat tip to The Beatles' original style.)

Soul Spotlight: Kings Go Forth

If a dude named Black Wolf is a lead singer, your sound better be some real ish. And if, on top of that, the band hails from the soul music capital of the world… Milwaukee, Wisconsin — alright, alright, but seriously: Black Wolf.

And it is some ish. Damn your feet if they don’t start shuffling and your hips if they don’t start shaking to Kings Go Forth’s sound. The 10-piece band (two lead singers, a backup, bass, guitar, drums, congas, trumpet, trombone) can downright get down and ’ll tug you along with them until you follow for yourself, running. So you might as well damn your feet if they can’t move quick, too.

The drums on the band’s April album from Luaka Bop, The Outsiders are Back, often edge the music to nearly breathless — like the break-beats might break down and trip you at anytime. The horns are tight, some spike for your behind. The congas’ tickling make you realize how much you miss them. And the bass bumps its thumping ass right up next to the drums in the rhythm section’s forefront — hello, hip-hop era.

The rhythm section pushes you forward, but it’s the singers’ melodies grasping your hand. When Wolf’s spine arcs to hit the high ones, his African garb creases, his dreadlocks rattle and his paintbrush mustache’s bristles shiver in that sort of way that shows he just felt something. (Your own spine might mimic.) Apparently, they’ve got some occasional pitch problems—so if you’ve got some sensitive ears, well, damn. But really singing cracks your voice; it’s that passion breaking through.

“One Day” and “Don’t Take My Shadow” have been the showcased cuts. But to give your feet and hips a head’s up, you could also check out “I Don’t Love You Know More.” And when taking a breath on “Paradise Lost,” listen for the Wolf’s “hey hey hey-e-yeah-yeah” to learn why he deserves his dope name.

[Quick post script: Milwaukee apparently produced some truly soulful records in the days; they just didn’t have the reach of the tracks from the soul capitals.]

Bonus: Download a free Kings Go Forth performance, courtesy of NPR Music.



(Photo: Kings Go Forth's Facebook)

The Links: John Legend & The Roots' Performances

John Legend and The Roots are doing their thing publicizing their new album Wake Up!, which dropped a week ago tomorrow. That included streaming a live show at Terminal 5 in NYC over YouTube last Thursday, and having Spike Lee shoot it. It also included going on NPR's "World Cafe" the next day.

And as Legend tells the NPR host, "It's an album that's really made to be played live." The thing is, as he explains, Legend may not be able to tour with The Roots, who have jobs getting down daily on a Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, amidst other gigs. So these were as good an opportunity to hear the tracks live as you can get.

Now, if you're shaking your head and thinking, 'Damn, I missed it,' steady yourself. All the Thursday night videos are available online here, along with some of its own interviews too, and the NPR performance is here.

The sound quality on both (and the video quality on YouTube) are solid — just make sure you use some headphones or some speakers other than those on your computer.

(Photo: Screenshot from the YouTube performance)

Covered: "I Can't Write Left Handed"

Bill Withers met a man. He was a soldier in Vietnam who had lost his right arm at war. He met this man and, to write a song, he became him:

"I can't write left-handed.
Would you please write a letter-write a letter to my mother?
Tell her to tell — tell her to tell the family lawyer.
Trying to get a deferment for my younger brother.
Tell the Rev. Harris to pray for me. Lord, lord, lord.
I aint gonna live — I don't believe I'm going to live to get much older.
Strange little man over here in Vietnam I aint never seen, bless
his heart, aint never done nothing to, he done shot me in my shoulder.

Boot camp we had classes.
You know we talked about fighting — fighting everyday.
And looking through rosy colored glasses, I must admit it seemed exciting anyway.
Oh, but someone that day overlooked to tell me bullets look better,
I must say — brother — when they're coming at you than going out the other way
And please call up the Rev. Harris. Tell him to ask the Lord to do some good things for me.
Tell him I aint gonna live — I aint gonna live to get much older.

Whoa, Lord. Strange little man over here in Vietnam I aint never seen - bless his heart—
I aint never done nothing to, he done shot me in my shoulder."

He recorded the song at a performance at Carnegie Hall in October 1972, the month the war was declared over.



The John Legend and The Roots album, Wake Up!, which dropped yesterday, is a slew of covers of both well- and lesser-known political songs from the days: from Marvin Gaye’s “Wholy Holy” and Donny Hathaway’s “Little Ghetto Boy” to Baby Huey’s “Hard Times.” The idea is to inspire people to act on modern struggles that parallel those that the 60s and 70s artists scribed in song.

The point of a cover should be to change something in the song — to reach into its innards and pluck on a new nerve. That happens on “Left Handed.”

In Withers’ version, the storied man sets you down in a church pew and tells you it straight, like an adult, but on both knees. He holds you down in that melancholy, your head sways back and forth.

Legend and The Roots’ start in the church too, but you’re not listening to him. You are him (if you let it happen to you). You went. And now that you’re back, it won’t leave you. You don’t just beg someone to write a letter to your mother — you rip in and out of PTSD flashbacks; the snares march; people scream; war's poetic chaos snarls at you. And when you think you've outlived its memory, it pulls you back.

Here are two live versions.

Withers (audio):


John Legend and The Roots (audio and video):


(Photos: Withers: kalamu.com; Legend & The Roots: VH1Blog)

The Links: Aloe Blacc

On his upcoming album, Good Things, Aloe Blacc sounds just like his biography: a So-Cal hip-hop era man with some soul sense.

You can check out the work at NPR now — and all week — before it drops on the 28th. (The accompanying article does well enough with the full bio if you want; repeating it ’d just crowd the sound.)

Stones Throw is also doling out a download of “You Make Me Smile,” a track off the album, for free (right-click and then “Save Link As…”).

There seems to be a wide range of musical stylings on the album, but little range of the man’s supremely smooth voice. Check “Hey Brother” in the stream to see how relentlessly he sticks with the mid-range vocals.

(Photo: Stones Throw)

Soul Spotlight: Lee Fields

Lee Fields never grew up after 1971. His slicked hair may have thinned and the bags beneath his eyes may have puckered, but that southern soul sound still rattles up from the toes in his well-shined shoes out through the vocal chords that haven’t stopped crooning since they started.

On a parallel planet, James Brown was called “Little L.F.” as a kid and is carrying the native North Carolinian’s legacy around on his suit shoulders. But in this world, the reverse is reality. And while the gods may not have blessed Fields with the Godfather’s life of fame and fortune, they’ve given many of us who didn’t grow up in the web of southern soul radio that excited jolt of finding something that has been unfairly hidden for too many years.

On Fields’ 2009 release from Truth and Soul Records, My World—his fifteenth album since his 1979 debut—he cries and croaks, purrs and pleads, mostly over love, including a cover of The Supremes’ “My World is Empty Without You.” His band, the Expressions, groove in a smooth melancholy, often channeling the gang who backed Curtis Mayfield on Superfly.

The record “Love Comes and Goes” off the album has been the song most of those who know of Fields play first for their friends. But try the cut “Ladies” instead. By the end of the track’s chorus, Fields is left almost breathless as he professes the powers of a sultry summertime woman. His rasp seems to strain into his stomach, like it won’t survive another word. But, luckily for us, it does and he has.



(Photos: Truth And Soul Records)