Aretha Franklin At Hollywood Bowl

Aretha Franklin: I Say A Little Prayer (Live, 1970)

“Everyone was there for one reason, though: to hear Franklin sing. Her voice is one of pop’s wonders, and though it’s no longer the astonishing instrument it was in yer youth, it is still worthy of veneration.

Barn-stormers such as “Respect” gave Franklin some trouble. She just can’t punch out those phrases as she could in her prime. At times, her voice was subsumed by the huge wave of music generated by the full band, orchestra and legion of back-up singers behind her.

Franklin’s longtime musical director, H.B. Barnum, ably kept the troops in line and jumping, and a few players stood out, notably Franklin’s son, Teddy Richards White, on guitar. The most exciting instrumental sound, however, was Franklin’s own piano playing, featured on a swinging new song, “I Adore You,” which she said would be on an album to be released in September.

Franklin relied on the 40-plus musicians onstage with her, not to mention those dancers and a full choir that emerged for a song near the end; their busy presence frequently gave her room to step back and breathe. She recovered by returning to the vernacular forms that underpin her great pop hits. “Today I Sing The Blues,” which she first released in 1961, was even richer now, after 40-plus years. Taking the song from smoky blues to pleading gospel, Franklin inspired many audience members to raise their hands in blessing.

Further sanctification occurred with “Old Landmark,” a gospel shouter that allowed Franklin to show her full powers of spirit-touched improvisation. She connected the song to the civil rights movement by preceding it with a shout-out to Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of several prominent African Americans in her audience. (Others included Billy Dee Williams, Angela Bassett and Halle Berry, who actually came onstage during the encore and knelt at Franklin’s feet.)

Of her most familiar songs, “Ain’t No Way” was the most powerful. As her cousin Brenda White-King sang its eerie high background notes, Franklin expertly phrased this saddest of romantic laments. The burnt-sugar tone of her voice exquisitely suited the mood of this classic.” LA Times

Maxwell: BLACKsummers’ Night

Maxwell at Press Conference 4/2009

“Maxwell describes “BLACKsummers’night” as the first of three albums, one a year, and the next two have already been written and largely recorded — though he expects to revisit them as his tour band tightens up. “BlackSUMMERS’night,” he said, will be “full-blown gospel, but gospel turned on its head a little bit.” And the final one, “Blacksummers’NIGHT,” is intended to be “the slow jam record of all time, hopefully of all time ever,” he said, chuckling, “like you might have to include condoms in it.”

Three albums in three years would be more prolific than he has ever been. “Hip-hop has marred people’s perspective on music because it comes out so fast,” he said. “Soul music is not like that. It’s not 16 bars. It’s not about the latest sneaker. I’m not here to talk about things that you can specifically go, ‘This is this moment.’ I’m supposed to say something that can be said all the time, no matter when. And that takes a lot of time.”” Jon Pareles, New York Times

Top 10 Michael Jackson Songs by Time

Michael Jackson: Thriller (Live, 1983)

Top 10 Michael Jackson Songs by Time

The Best Muscle Shoals Tracks by Jason Isbell

Rod Stewart: The First Cut is The Deepest

“Here, then, are 10 of my favourite records to have come out of Muscle Shoals – from soul to rock’n'roll.” Jason Isbell, The Guardian

Muscle Shoals Keyboard Legend Barry Beckett in His Own Words By Barney Hoskins

Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section members Roger Hawkins and David Hoo.

When it got to Paul Simon, that’s when it really developed. That was the first time we cut a true pop act. Of course the reason he came down was to get a black sound. He liked what we got on the Staples’ ‘I’ll Take You There’. We cut ‘Mardi Gras’ in thirty minutes, so he pulls out six more songs and asks which ones we wanna cut. We said, ‘This is it, if we don’t jump on this one, we’re losing our chance.’” Barney Hoskyns, Sonic Boomers

Originally Published: 06/15/2009, Rock’s Backpages

Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens

Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens

“Naomi Shelton is no ordinary gospel singer. Though she, like many others, grew up singing with her sisters in their Alabama church, she has also spent much of her life in the soul clubs around New York, and her 45s, “41st St. Breakdown” and “Wind Your Clock” b/w “Talking ‘Bout a Good Thing,” have long been revered and prized by funk DJs around the globe. Now, with her first official full-length release coming this May, it’s clear that her singing is equally influenced by both facets of her life. This is soul music – informed by the church, perhaps, but soul music nonetheless, relatable to all. Which means that What Have You Done, My Brother?, an uplifting record that conveys Naomi’s energy, her excitement, her love of music, her compassion, is no ordinary album.

This humility, this generosity of spirit, is also on display at her live shows. From her weekly Friday-night gigs at New York’s Fat Cat, where former James-Brown bassist Fred Thomas helps to fill out the Driver-led ensemble, to special performances at Daptone Revue’s, great care is taken to make sure everyone in the audience feels connected to the music, and in turn, to Naomi herself.

What Have You Done, My Brother? is an extraordinary album by a woman who sings directly from her soul, whose experience cannot be duplicated, whose authenticity cannot be disputed. It’s an album whose positivity, no matter your beliefs, is immediately felt. An album that exudes a happiness, and a hopefulness, that is necessary now more than ever.

Cliff Driver is the musical director of the group, and leads the band with his inimitable honky-tonk piano style. Jimmy Hill, the organist on the record, leads his own blues and R&B band and has a pedigree rivaling Driver himself, including a stint in the late sixties backing Wilson Pickett. The record also features guitarist Tommy “TNT” Brenneck and Bosco Mann, both of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and each a producer in their own right. Brenneck is also part of The Budos Band, The Menahan Street Band, and heads his own imprint, Dunham Records. His country approach to rhythm-and-blues guitar handily won him a place at the table with Driver, who often features Tommy’s twangy guitar figures in his arrangements. The drums on the record were played by Brian Floody, a fixture on the bluesier end of the New York jazz scene who beats an indispensable if understated pulse.” Daptone Records, Press Release

Bettye LaVette’s new iTunes-only EP

Bettye LaVette & Bon Jovi: A Change is Gonna Come (Live, 2009)

“Vanity Fair Daily: So the new EP is named after “A Change is Gonna Come.” When did you first sing that song?

Bettye LaVette: Maybe a week after Sam [Cooke] did. I mean, it’s a song that everybody sung. I’m very happy about the resurgence of it and the recognition of it, but it wasn’t that big, you know, when it came out. It became much more significant after Sam died [in 1964, at the age of 33], but only because Sam had died. It was many years later that somebody, probably somebody white, associated it with the Civil Rights struggle. And now it’s turned into something else. But I’m very glad that it did, because it’s Sam’s song.

…

But on the new EP, you sing jazz and soul classics, which might seem more expected.

Well, all this while, that y’all weren’t hearing about me, these are the songs I was doing for $50 a night. I was working in places where maybe it was just me and my keyboard player. So these are songs that I’ve always done, other than “A Change is Gonna Come.”

My manager, Jim Lewis, who has now passed away but who got me around 1967, agreed that my waistline was small and my booty was big, but he told me I couldn’t sing. And I’m like, “But I’ve got a record in the chart,” and he said, “That’s cause everybody doesn’t know you can’t sing. But if these records don’t sell, you’re gonna have to know how to sing.” And I was of course resentful, and hostile. I had a record selling, that was in the charts, and he took me to see Billy Eckstine, and Billy Eckstine hadn’t had a damn record in 20 years. And Jim took me to the dressing room and said, “Billy, I want you to meet a young lady who wants to be a singer.” Oh, it broke my heart. And I couldn’t say anything.

But Jim showed me how I could always sing. He said, “Just keep learning songs. Any song you like. Any song. Don’t make no difference which song it is.” I had records with people the whole while I was with him, but he didn’t think very much of them. And as it turns out, he was right.”” Michael Hogan, Vanity Fail

Philadelphia Soul

Billy Paul: Me & Mrs. Jones (1972)

“As usual with city-wide movements, it was a case of the right people coming together in the right place at the right time. The right people: classically trained songwriter-arranger-producer Thom Bell and producers-songwriters-label heads Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff; ambitious vocal groups willing to take some chances; and a wealth of talented musicians who formed a house band known as MFSB, which could stand head and shoulders with Motown’s Funk Brothers or Stax’s Booker T. & The MGs. (The abbreviation is short for “Mother Father Sister Brother,” by the way.) Bell, Gamble, and Huff had all been kicking around successfully for a while. Gamble and Huff helped craft late-’60s hits for The Intruders, Archie Bell & The Drells, and others; those songs now sound like the missing link between the ’60s and the ’70s. After cutting his teeth on the Cameo label, Bell was already on to the next thing with string-and-harmony-drenched hits for The Delfonics like “La-La Means I Love You” and “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time).” Sometimes working together and other times apart, they helped steer soul toward the intricately orchestrated, carefully arranged but tangibly organic, irresistibly catchy sounds that became known as Philadelphia Soul. (Or Philly Soul, or the Philadelphia Sound, or to borrow the title from MFSB’s hit theme song for Soul Train, The Sound Of Philadelphia.)” A.V. Club

Barry Beckett R.I.P.

Tribute To Barry Beckett (Bob Seger: Down on meanstreet)

“As a studio musician in the 1960s, Mr. Beckett played in the band affiliated with Fame Studios, the production house that turned an unlikely Southern town, Muscle Shoals, Ala., into a center of indigenous American popular music. The band, known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and also called the Swampers, split from Fame in 1969 and, helped by the producer Jerry Wexler, created its own studio, the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, in nearby Sheffield.

Either with the Rhythm Section — which also included the guitarist Jimmy Johnson, the bassist David Hood and the drummer Roger Hawkins — or on his own, Mr. Beckett played behind a remarkable list of performers. They include Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers, Percy Sledge, J. J. Cale, Boz Skaggs, Paul Simon — he played the organ solo on Mr. Simon’s “Kodachrome” — Bob Seger and Leon Russell. The Swampers were immortalized in Southern rock ’n’ roll when the band Lynyrd Skynyrd tipped hat to them in the 1974 hit “Sweet Home Alabama”” Bruce Weber, New York Times

Who Was Ronnie Dyson?

Ronnie Dyson: Why Can’t Touch You (1970)

“A few years ago, I sat in the lobby of a Greensboro, NC hotel, talking with R&B singer Rahsaan Patterson about his artistic influences. Patterson cited Eddie Kendricks, Frankie Lymon and Russell Thompkins, Jr. as obvious exemplars of the falsetto style that he represents so exquisitely today. But when the name of Ronnie Dyson is mentioned, Patterson is almost beside himself: “Dyson had a beautiful [expletive] voice. Beautiful,” exclaimed Patterson, adding that the late Pop-Soul singer was “one of the first voices that I remember hearing that possessed this quality in a male voice that was different from even some of the falsetto guys that I mentioned before.” Patterson was not alone.” Anthony Neal, New Black Man -blog