gospel
Guy Oddy
It’s almost 25 years since Alabama 3 unleashed their “sweet, pretty country acid house gospel music” on an unsuspecting world with Exile on Coldharbour Lane – one of the finest records of the late 20th Century. 12 albums later and with their first since 2016’s Blues, the band are still very much rooted in a world of urban weirdos and misfits, and this is all to the good.Step 13 is a largely up tempo, toe-tapping antidote to a Covid-damaged, post-Brexit Britain that doesn’t shy away from commenting on the political landscape, but nor does it hammer Alabama 3’s views down anyone’s throat either Read more ...
joe.muggs
For 25 years now, LA label Stones Throw records has become one of the most reliable brands in music. It began with, and has always been associated with, the leftfield hip hop of founder George “Peanut Butter Wolf” Manak, and regular contributors Madlib and J Dilla. But from very early on, it was heavily invested also in the music that hip hop sampled, signing live bands, mining archives for reissue and providing platforms for underappreciated musical elders, always with emphasis on the strange and stoned – so in fact its aesthetic overall is probably better summed up as psychedelic soul Read more ...
joe.muggs
Theartsdesk is a labour of love. Bloody-mindedly run as a co-operative of journalists from the beginning, our obsession with maintaining a daily-updated platform for good culture writing has caused a good few grey and lost hairs over the years. But it has also been rewarding – and looking back over the 10 years of Disc of the Day reviews has been a good chance to remind ourselves of that. One thing in particular that drew me into the collective when it was founded, and has kept me going throughout, was the understanding that artistic forms would be treated with equal respect and Read more ...
mark.kidel
Music has been a solace during a year when we’ve both retreated into our private spaces and reached out more feverishly than ever on social media.There’s been very little live music: I’ve almost obsessively trawled YouTube for the best old footage: from Tina Turner belting it out on stage in 1966 and the delightful videos that Dust-and-Digital load daily on Instagram, to a blistering solo by Eric Dolphy at the Antibes Jazz Festival in 1960, backed by Charles Mingus on bass and Danny Richmond on drums. He tears his way through a simple blues and gospel chord changes with a freedom that’s Read more ...
mark.kidel
The day that Little Richard’s death was announced, my friend the soul singer PP Arnold wrote on her Instagram feed, of a “sanctified boogie-woogie piano style that was just electric”. She went on, recalling first hearing the man’s undiluted craziness: “I loved it when he did that "ooo" thing after the “Tutti Frutti aw Rudi” bit that sounded like one of the high soprano sisters in church”. This recognition of the essence of Little Richard’s unique artistry comes from a soul diva best known for her time as an Ikette with Ike and Tina, her Sixtie’s hit “The First Cut is the Deepest”, and her Read more ...
mark.kidel
Alabama-born Lonnie Holley, the seventh son of 27 children, more or less abandoned as a child, comes from a tradition of African-American visionaries who reach back through the generations to a culture of great aesthetic and ethical sophistication, one which the slaves’ horrific voyage across the Atlantic wasn’t able to obliterate. He is so much himself, that any comparison risks reducing his extraordinary qualities to something so much less than their true worth.On this rare solo appearance, he played grand piano and Nord digital keyboard – and sang. The songs evolve quite naturally from Read more ...
Marianka Swain
London’s latest new theatre opens with an appropriately otherworldly Halloween offering: American composer Dave Malloy’s teeming 2014 song cycle, which played at the Edinburgh Festival in 2016. It’s a superb piece for demonstrating the benefits of this intimate, flexible cabaret-esque space – played here in the round, with easy audience interaction and strict maintenance of the kind of atmosphere key to Malloy’s tender piece.Ghost Quartet is formally a double album, with the sensational actor-musician cast (including Zubin Varla, pictured below) introducing each ‘track’ on its four sides. Read more ...
mark.kidel
Over two days in 1972, the great Aretha Franklin, undoubtedly one of the greatest American voices of the 20th century, performed and recorded gospel classics in Los Angeles, with a predominantly African-American audience, the red-hot Los Angeles Community Gospel Choir and the support of Rev James Cleveland. She was generally known for her soul classics, including “Say a Little Prayer”, “Think”, “Respect”, “I Never Loved a Man”, “Natural Woman” and many others, but she had grown up in the church under the tutelage of her father the Rev CL Franklin, one of Detroit’s most fiery preachers.Warners Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Endlessly gigging Northern Irish performer Foy Vance's profile first rocketed after touring with fellow singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. The pair became pals, Vance went onto support the likes of Elton John, and signed to Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Records. His fourth album is the first of a themed couple paying tribute to the southern US roots of popular music (the other will hail from Sam Phillips Studios in Memphis). How enjoyable it is depends largely on how the listener feels about what music writer Simon Reynolds terms “retro-mania”.Muscle Shoals Studios in Alabama (and before that FAME Read more ...
Russ Coffey
In the summer of 2014, there was little getting away from Hozier's "Take Me to Church". Whenever you turned on the TV or the radio there it was. It wasn't just in this country. Eventually, the song became number one in 12 countries and number 2 in the States. Of course, for the singer, this massive success also brought a big problem: how to top it? When Hozier sat down to write his new album he must have agonised about what he'd got so right first time around.On paper, the recipe was simply a blend of soul, gospel, folk, and rock. The clever bit was how the ingredients were mixed. Hozier's Read more ...
Ellie Porter
Ashley McBryde had a very busy year in 2018. After the Arkansas singer-songwriter and "curly-headed bourbon enthusiast" played a tiny stage at Country To Country, she released her debut album to huge acclaim and a Grammy nod; toured with fellow no-nonsense country star Luke Combs; played Jools Holland; sold out her first headline show in London – and made Barack Obama’s "favorite songs of 2018" list. She’s now set to play C2C’s main stage in March, sharing the bill with country giants Lyle Lovett and Chris Stapleton.Full of rich Southern storytelling, radio-friendly choruses and gritty blues Read more ...
mark.kidel
Rudderless, and under the unpredictable and self-interested leadership of crazy and authoritarian populists, the world finds, as ever, some solace from music. I’ve spent a lot of time exploring '90s Dub Techno this year, not least the work of Moritz von Oswald, Mark Ernestus and Carl Craig. Prince’s early demos on Piano & and a Mircophone 1983 were a revelation as well. I was at a loss, however, to pick a single outstanding album, but perhaps the most timely and stirring came from Ry Cooder, whose The Prodigal Son combines soul and politics, faith and social engagement, in a way all Read more ...